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. 

Degrees Exhibition Reception

Image above: Inside gallery looking out.

Many thanks to Max Harrison and Mike Kubis at M2 Gallery for hosting our first texasWAX members exhibition. It was hot, hot, hot, and I don't just mean the 90 degree temperature outside the gallery!
A great turnout and wonderful reception.

Below are some candid shot from the reception. Better images of the work will be added in a later post.






Participating artists by city:

Austin
Sharon Kyle-Kuhn, Juan Moreno, Marilyn Fenn, Chris White, Cari Washburn, Dianne Talley,
Luke Zimmerman, Haly Nagy, Daphne Holland, Carolyn Todd, Dan Zinno,
Kristy Darnell Battani, Roxi McCloskey Morris, Daphne Holland, Carolyn Todd

Dallas
Deanna Wood, Trayc Claybrook, Diane reader Dorn, Petty Epner, Janet Reynolds, Mary Wright,
Antoanetta Hillman, Bonny Leibowitz, Ivonne Acero, Junanne Peck, Jackie MacLelland,
Juliana Robles, Patty Rooney, Silvia Thronton, VET, Brett Dyer

Houston
Gwendolyn Plunkett, Suzanne Shield-Polk, Denise Stringer-Davis, Sue Balch, Sara Cooney
Julia Koivumaa, Elaine Thuener

San Antonio
Michelle Belto, Frankeen Price, Julie Jarvis Ogan, Steven Daluz, Deborah Houston, Joyce Howell, Elizabeth C. Preston, Adrian Highsmith, Hildegarde Slaughter, Johanna Gardner

Smartist (Susan Myers) Shows Her Stuff

Artist Susan Myers is a friend of mine. She lives in Pensacola, my home town. That is in Florida for those of you who don't know.
One weekend in the summer of 2006 she and Wendy Cresswell, another artist buddy of mine, drove over to Houston to my house per invitation for a mini two day Encaustic workshop. Susan and Wendy have a long history of work in various and combined media. Susan, for instance, besides painting and drawing and mixed media, works or has worked in metals, ceramics, printmaking and probably other media that I don't even know about. For two very full days, the three of us fused, melted, transferred, etched, scored, collaged to our hearts desire. Evenings, we went out to dinner, visited gallery openings and just had fun.
I should mention that Susan bought and brought with her all her equipment and materials. The instruction was free...just for friends. At the end of the two days, Susan and Wendy packed up and went back to Florida ready to set up in their own studios and get to work. Since then, Susan did just that in her small studio, an area just for Encaustic painting.

A glimpse of Susan in her Pensacola Studio.


Initially, in Houston, she worked on a series with landscape elements and continued those when she was home. You will see these when you check out her web site.

Her experience with other media filters in to her Encaustic works, of course, as it does with all artists. Another thing about Susan-she is a collector of things that often find their way into her art. A few months ago she sent me a message with all the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning. Her excitement was over finding these wonderful little porcelain ceramic doll parts on Ebay and how she had secured the bid. You can see how she put them to good use! Below are just a few of her newest pieces that also reveal her working relationship with the other media mentioned above.


I enjoy these new pieces by Susan and I appreciate the fact that she is working here with wax. What interests me more is what these images reveal.
Susan took charge of the medium and worked it to her advantage, getting it to speak her language, and talk her talk........ "these images are reflections that blend the “real” experience with the memory of that experience." Her own personal experiences feed her content. She speaks of dysfunction and of survival. For her "object is memory." The object, in her hands, becomes a talisman of sorts that transports one to a past moment, another time. One forgets the medium and departs on one's "own personal journey." (Quotations identify remarks made by Susan.)

Encaustic Paintings by Billie Forney

Right: Encaustic Painting

Artist: Billie ForneyMixed Media Encaustic by Billie Forney

From Ritual Series - Encaustic Mixed Media

This Encaustic piece is one of an on-going series by Gwendolyn Plunkett