HIVE Exhibition

Telling Bees by Denise Stringer Davis

Above Paintings are top: Entomphily and Zoophily: Birds and Bees, etc by Deanna Wood

Next down: Vacant by Jennie Kimbrough

Next down: Decline by Hayes Parker

      

Sara Cooney's work

Work by Suzanne Shield Polk

Close up of Collections, collaborative book by Denise Stringer Davis

Above and below are images from the HIVE exhibition at the Cole Art Center in Nacogdoches this month. We had good attendance at the reception and panel discussion on Saturday. This project was conceived to promote a greater awareness of the importance of the honeybee to our society and create discussion about  causes for the current problem with the bee population called Colony Collapse Disorder, referred to as CCD.  

A major part of the exhibition is the wall of hexagon-shaped  Encaustic paintings by Houston and DallasWAX  member artists. Content of the work needed to pertain to bees in some way.  We have Laura Tyler's film Sister Bee, streaming in the gallery. A collaborative accordion-fold book conceived and assembled by Denise Stringer Davis with pages made by friends, family and artist members is also on display. Many of the members have bee keeping in their family history. I found a old hardback copy of C.C. Miller's Fifty Years Among the Bees in my dad's things after he passed. He had stopped keeping bees a long while back and given all his equipment to another family member but for some reason kept the book.  It is on display  as well.   Below is Denise's Honey Dreams which sits on a pedestal in the gallery. Honey is in the mouth.  

The panel discussion was a lively conversation with good audience participation. Marie Kucyen, president of the Pineywood Beekeepers Association presented interesting facts about our dependence on bees for much of our food supply. She cautioned that  even with the recent news about identifying the cause of CCD, there are still questions that have not been answered surrounding this disorder. There is still suspicions that  certain pesticides lower the immune systems of the bees so that they are unable to fight off the affects of the two suspected causes. 

Panel member Melanie Brakie gave suggestions for garden plants that bees and other pollinators love as well as good suggestions on better products to get rid of garden pests that don't harm bees nor the environment. Dr. David Kulhavy was very enthusiastic about the coming together of art and science. He spoke of his book A Forest Insect Alphabet which has just been printed and will be on exhibition this week. Animated, he read/sang some of the songs that he wrote in the book about the wiggle dance of the bees. There is more about his book at the bottom of this post.

Honey Dreams by Denise Stringer Davis

Honey Dreams by Denise Stringer Davis

HIVE exhibition L to R at far end L work by Sara Cooney, Deanna Wood and Denise Stringer Davis

L to R: Collections, Denise Stringer Davis, and other works in HIVE

Pollen Puffers by Larry Kitchens

Old book from Gwen Plunkett's collection handed down from her Dad. Book is an original copy of C.C. Miller's Fifty Years Among the Bees.

L to R Collections, Far left: Denise Stringer Davis; Untitled by Hayes Parker; Vacant by Jennie Kimbrough; God's Nectar I and II and Queen's Lair (A Room of Her Own) by Gwendolyn Plunett

Swarm I and II and Star's Tears by Gwendolyn Plunkett; Harmony  and Heartbroken by Carolyn Fox-Hearn and further down works by Linda Walker

Diaspora, Empty Nest Syndrome and Cast Aside by Linda Walker

L and R -  Harmony; Center-Heartbroken by Carolyn Fox Hearn

Panel: L to R- Gwendolyn Plunkett,  Marie Kocyan,  Dr. David Kulhavy,  and Melinda Brakie.

In the picture above, Dr. Kulhavy is holding up a copy of his latest project,  A Forest Insect Alphabet, a book consisting fifty-one original woodcuts and text printed by LaNana Creek Press. This book is a result of an SFA faculty research grant awarded to Charles Jones, retired professor of art and director of SFA's fine arts press, and Dr. Kulhavy. It was printed and bound by hand during the summer and fall of 2010. The 72-page book includes woodcut prints of forest insects created by Charles Jones and descriptions and texts are written by Dr. Kulhavy.  Included in each book is a compact disc of songs that are the actual texts set to music by Nacogdoches musician Miki Lynn. Click here to read more. 


The book and 26 selected framed pages will be exhibited Wednesday, Nov. 17 in Griffith Gallery on the SFA campus. 

Q is for Woodcut by Charles Jones

You can see more four more pages of images of the HIVE exhibition on my Flickr page here. 

Succesful Museum Day at HCCC

Thanks first go out to Jason Kishell, Artist-in-Residence Coordinator at HCCC, and HCCC for inviting TexasWAX to participate in Gathering of the Guilds, HCCC's part of Museum Day in Houston. Over 600 people came through despite the rainy day. Visitors were very enthusiastic and interested to see what we were doing with wax, many surprised that we were using wax as a painting medium.
A huge THANKS to Suzanne Shield-Polk and Steffani Frideres who joined me for the day. We answered many questions about the encaustic medium and about the TexasWAX organization, while at the same time, we each demonstrated various encaustic painting techniques.
It was busy all day and at times, very crowded at our tables with all three of us fielding questions and painting at the same time. It was fun and exciting to see so much interest, enthusiasm and awe.
Sadly, I did not bring my camera so there are no images.

February Meeting

L to R- Sara, Cynthia, Elaine , Jane, Denise, Julia, Gwen

Thanks to Sara for hosting our meeting this month and a very productive meeting it was.
We had a good group in attendance including our newest member Denise Stringer-Davis who drove over from Lufkin.
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HIVE project:
The hexagon panels were ready for delivery so members present were able to get those. Below is Scot Eddy with the panels complete. I picked them up in Austin on Friday.
Scot Eddy and his daughter with hexagon panels.
March meeting has been moved up a week to the first Sunday to accommodate members who
need to deliver work to be taken out to Pasadena for the FUSE exhibition. I will send out tags for each of you to fill out and attach to your work. Work must be wired and ready to hang. Please include any special instructions for hanging your work if there are any.

Julia volunteered to take care of publicity for our up-coming exhibitions.
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DEGREES:
Julia is also checking into getting quotes on catering for the Degrees reception in May. She and I will both look into securing a bar tender for that evening.

We need to find out numbers from other groups who may attend the Degrees reception so that when we will approach hotels in the area for discounts for that weekend we will know approximately how many rooms we will need. I will take care of that.

Deanna in the Dallas group has volunteered to create a postcard for the Degrees show.
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Denise and Jane both brought work to share with the group. That part is always fun.

TexasWAX/Houston October meeting

Due to Ike, we delayed our October meeting which will be held this coming Sunday, Oct. 12th from three to five o'clock. Robert McGehee will host this month's meeting.

As usual, if you are an artist who works in this medium and are interested in joining our meeting,
contact Gwen for more information.

As mentioned in my previous post, while Ike was making its way across the coast of Texas I was in New York for a wedding. I was near enough to Kingston and took the opportunity to visit RF Paints located in that town. It was a quiet Saturday morning and only two people were in the store. I was able to take a tour of the facility and do a bit of shopping. Topping the visit off was getting to see artist Ed Angell's work was on exhibition in the RF Gallery. I have seen some of these pieces on several sites on the web but this was great to see the exhibit in person.

Member News and Next Meeting

Both Julia Koivumaa and I have work in this exhibition which is up from July 26 through August 30. If you get to Dallas during that time, stop in and see the exhibition. Janet Wayte
another Houston artist I know, also has work in this exhibition.



This means that Julia and I, if we attend the reception in Dallas, will have a very quick trip there and back so we can attend Sunday's two o'clock meeting at Suzanne's.
Bring some work to share and remember that I will have Linda Womack's Embracing Encaustics books there for sale to those who want them. Robert and I will also report on the conference we attended in June. Other topics of discussion will be demo and workshop possibilities at Jerry's Artarama, other possible locations for our meetings, and possible exhibition opportunities for our group/groups. See you Sunday.
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Other news from sister organization texasWAX/Dallas...Some Like it Hot is the title of their up-coming exhibition at Bath House Cultural Center in August.

TexasWAX/Houston TexasWAX/Dallas: Collaborating Artists Media Project, Inc.

Postcard Design by Deanna Wood
See Deanna Wood's comments at her blogspot regarding the two new groups of artist forming in Texas.
Deanna and I have been communicating for several months now and things are underway and getting exciting with our first collaboration....an exhibition in Dallas that coincides with the
College Art Association Conference being held Feb. 20-24.

I had to miss our February meeting here in Houston because I was in California with my daughter while she had her first child. Baby, Charley Logan, was late as most first babies are so I was delayed in my return back to Houston. Robert McGehee held the February meeting at his house and studio and I was sorry to miss but new babies come first. March meeting will be held at Cynthia Robertson's house. Our agenda at the March meeting includes discussion regarding our next collaborative venture here in Houston.

Hope to see you in Dallas next week.