I’m coming up from the morass that is the inside of my mind ~ not that it isn’t sometimes a sea of serenity ~ but the past months have flown from winter to summer with my hardly noticing. I’ve been immersed in bees, pleasantly, putting together this show. The past week or two I’ve been repeatedly bowled over by unforeseen eventualities: printer challenges, supply insufficiency, poor prior planning despite my best efforts to think everything through well in advance, and not least simple operator error. But I’ve learned so much! About the big printer I keep upstairs and use so infrequently we have to become acquainted all over again every time I do turn it on. About Lightroom, and Adobe Photoshop, programs I’ve been slowly learning for years, but have immersed myself in since January. About my capacity for patience with myself, the incalculable value of dogs and cats, the benefits of meditation, and trust in the flow of life. Also learning that life’s a lot easier if I just don’t get mad in the first place.
Also, I keep learning more about native bees. With the help of this amazing app, Wild Bee Gardens, and an unexpected friendship found through it, I begin to grasp the parts of bees more deeply. As with my digital education, I’ve known the basics for a long time: head, thorax, abdomen. And wings, of course. Now I’m learning more details of their body parts, variations among which can help identify different species: the specialized pollen packing hairs called scopa, the three tiny “simple eyes” on top of their heads called ocelli, and the middle part of a bee’s face called a clypeus.
The clypeus on this male digger bee is the bright smooth patch between his eyes and above his labrum, or upper lip. Males of many native species have this brighter or lighter colored clypeus, which helps us know their gender.
As well as greeting cards, mugs, tote bags, posters, and dozens of framed prints, large and small, for sale at the show, I also couldn’t stop myself from ordering a fleece blanket with this adorable honeybee. If no one buys it, I’ll certainly enjoy its warmth myself.
Last week I finished the three-part banner of honeybees in comb that I’ve been dreaming for months, and installed it in the Hive. Below, postcard-size magnets of a segment of it are on order; I hope they arrive in time for the opening Friday night.
The breakfast table holds all the small frames as I fill them from the workshop in the sunroom.
Downstairs has become an impromptu frame shop, the small printer humming, prints drying, tools on tables, frames in various stages on the way to filling up with bees. I’m recycling frames, partly to make these bees affordable, and partly because why not? I’ve got so many already; I’m emptying them of junipers and landscapes from past shows, pulling ancestors from old family frames, filling the assorted empty frames any family full of artists ends up with over years. Stacks of stagnant frames are morphing into stacks of vibrant colors; I can hardly wait to see them all on display at once later this week.
Upstairs prints hang to dry as the big printer keeps chugging away.
Some of the bees are framed in mats of willow rings woven by Ryan Strand, who will also have his willow sculptures on display at the Hive.
Turkeys held up traffic the other day as I drove to town, a big male displaying in the right lane for half a dozen hens milling around him. This morning as I drove along the Smith Fork, another big male down in the valley, tail feathers fanned, most hens up near the road but one watching him devotedly; all the apricot trees along the road in full bloom. My apricot not so much, though thoroughly pruned last week and ready to bear fruit. The almond tree, though: spectacular. Up against the house in a warmer micro-climate, it’s full of fragrant white blossoms. Bees and flies are drawn like me to the scent of them opening in the sun against the dun adobe wall.
At the end of the balcony I stand, looking down at this sapling’s grand florabundance; black flies, shiny tiger-striped native bees, fuzzy golden honeybees buzzing among the tree’s budding, blooming twigs; down on the ground along the path, pointed yellow tulips in dense clusters bloom, amid soft green groundcovers churning snowmelt and sunshine into foliage. All day, running up and down stairs between printing and choosing which images to print, I step outside frequently, enjoying the sweet sight, sound and scent. Last night when I let the dogs out, temperature dropping to freezing, the fragrance of the almond tree overwhelmed, so strong I didn’t immediately realize whence it came: in sun the scent wafts intermittently, you have to sniff to catch it. This wintry night it enveloped me, almost brought me to my knees with wonder, in the cold dark below the waxing Pink Moon.
Meanwhile, it’s been during this frenzied time that the kittens turned one year old, and learned how much fun it is to get me to let them in and out. And in and out. And in and out. My eyes cramped up last week: I drove out to buy ink, and overnight my Rx sunglasses were worse than nothing! It turns out that yes, your eyeballs can cramp; the doctor told me the 20-20-20 Rule: For every twenty minutes that I’m looking closely at the screen, turn and focus on something 20 feet away for twenty seconds. Most days during this project, I’ve been up that often to let a dog in or a cat out, or a cat in and a dog out, or to fill their bowls, or to fill mine. So until I became addicted to building the banner in Photoshop, I gave my eyes a natural break often enough for the focusing muscles not to cramp. Days like today I need to set a timer to remind myself. It’s cold and gray again, and none of us want to be outside. We’re warm and well-fed, and while the other mammals nap I keep printing and framing, the big push in the last week before the opening five nights hence.
