Openings Connecting: OH, HONEY, WHERE ART THOU?

Monday, February 15, 2010

OH, HONEY, WHERE ART THOU?

yesterday's best gift
delivered with chocolates
from my photographer friend

mary whalen dropped by yesterday with handmade chocolates
for my husband and i...and brought this delicate work to me.
she'd been photographing her neighbor's beehives, and knew
i was beginning to experiment with encaustics...
now.
how
can i possibly melt this?

p.s. it's 16 inches long

14 comments:

ShaylaFebruary 15, 2010 at 7:47 AM
Neat! I love honeycomb. A friend of ours used to give us fresh, full honeycomb from his hives and we'd eat it like candy.
The color and patter are spectacular. I can see why you don't want to melt it.
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layersFebruary 15, 2010 at 8:18 AM
hmmm, nature does the best stuff-- perhaps you could save part of it-- put is somewhere special
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ELKFebruary 15, 2010 at 8:19 AM
do not do it...but if you must have fun and create beauty...what a NICE friend!!
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S. EtoleFebruary 15, 2010 at 8:54 AM
looking forward to your work with this ...
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nancy neva gaglianoFebruary 15, 2010 at 9:22 AM
donna...great idea...i will..
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nancy neva gaglianoFebruary 15, 2010 at 9:25 AM
elk....love that authoritative imperative...!!! hmmmm. i'll just melt the small end of it. hmmmm.
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BeaFebruary 15, 2010 at 9:48 AM
Oh YUM! What could be better than something you can eat, photograph, melt, paint with and smell. :)Bea
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Renee HowellFebruary 15, 2010 at 10:51 AM
Well - you DO have the photos for the MEmory. So - Eat some. Melt some. but, photos - please!
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Caterina GiglioFebruary 15, 2010 at 2:31 PM
oh how gorgeous!! ENJOY!!!
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UnknownFebruary 15, 2010 at 3:25 PM
don't melt it! that is an amazing piece of bee art :)
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nancy neva gaglianoFebruary 15, 2010 at 4:44 PM
oh ... i just added that this honeycomb is sixteen inches long and six inches high.
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Four Seasons in a LifeFebruary 15, 2010 at 6:37 PM
Hi Neva,

I have been wanting to get into encaustic but if someone gave me a honey comb, I would not melt it, rather use it to create art by keeping it intact.

Just a thought.

Egmont
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Maggie NealeFebruary 15, 2010 at 7:54 PM
Beautiful photos of the honey comb...so warm and inviting.
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nancy neva gaglianoFebruary 16, 2010 at 5:43 AM
wow. i feel like the keeper of the earth, and should destroy no more. sooooooo, i don't think i can melt it. we'll ALL rest better knowing it's safe. when my friend said she had this for me, she didn't say the 'comb', just bee's wax. i envisioned a big clumpy block, for some reason. so when i saw this unwrapped, it took my breath away.
and when the morning light shines through, aw!!!!
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FOUR DIRECTIONS/FOUR VISIONS: Two Graces: First showing for me, JUNE 3, 2011

With no directions home, I found Taos in the late 60s. It felt like home immediately. It still does. I know this sentiment is familiar to countless others.

The mountain stopped me in my tracks, and I stayed for several years. Since that time, I circle back annually.

To me, that circle is symbolic of this body of work at Two Graces. This is a time in my life when I've been fortunate enough to experiment with art making. Not surprisingly, I found myself drawn back to the images in the Ektachrome slides that I'd taken in the early 80s of Chaco Canyon, the San Francisco de Asis Church, dusty roads, and the ever changing skies of Northern New Mexico. The spirit of this adobed land lingers in my core and manifests itself within these works.

This past Michigan winter was spent creating enlarged negatives from my thirty year old slides, pulling part of my past into the present via today's tools of scanner and computer. Using traditional silver-gelatin darkroom processes, these resurrected and modified negatives acquired a new life. The majority of these prints are the result of this mediated reincarnation.

The smaller images took me into photographic processes from the mid-1800s. These handmade platinum/palladium prints are created coating vellum, for translucency, with these metal salts and exposing them to ultraviolet light. They are then bathed in the alchemy of the darkroom. The tonal qualities are unique in each print. Finally, 24k gold is layered to the backs of the prints, emanating the warmth, glow, and depth of these beloved places.