Waxing lyrical about bees

The CAA’s bee-themed Spring exhibition will help raise funds for beleaguered beekeepers, says Pamela Buxton

Jewellery artist Wendy Ramshaw, asked to curate an exhibition at Contemporary Applied Arts, was at a loss for a theme suitable for a cross-section of makers – until she heard designer Michael Wolff
talk about the importance of bees at a Royal College of Art event.

Immediately, she had her subject, one rich in creative potential and of huge ecological importance, given the recent decline in the bee population. ‘The situation with the bees is very critical… We’re hoping that out of this will come a lot more people who’ll plant the flowers that bees need to keep going,’ says Ramshaw, who has invited 27 makers from a variety of disciplines (all CAA members) to create work inspired by bees.

The participants have responded in many different ways, inspired variously by the form and character of the bee itself, the hive, the honeycomb, pollination, and the threat to such an important creature’s existence. All work from the show, entitled The Honey Bee
and the Hive, will be sold, with some of the proceeds going to the British Beekeepers’ Association. The exhibition will be accompanied by educational events on bees and beekeeping, and seeds of plants useful to bees will be on sale.

Both Ramshaw and fellow jewellery designer Zoe Arnold are working at a larger scale than usual. Arnold is producing a floor installation of porcelain bees while Ramshaw is making a steel table with a honeycomb pattern table top. Beneath is a sheet of suspended glass bearing an image of a bee. Vicki Ambery-Smith’s piece explores both the inner and outer construction of the hive and comb. Basket-maker Dail Behennah also focuses on structure in a piece in which shadow casts an image of the honeycomb that is clearer than the work itself. This is a reference to hives abandoned because of what’s come to be known as Colony Collapse Disorder.

Book-binder Tracey Rowledge had long admired the private press book The Essence of Beeing, featuring cross-hatched illustrations by Alice Brown-Wagner. The theme of the CAA show, Rowledge says, gave her an excuse to buy it and create a bespoke binding. She has used black leather with the title in gold tooling on the cover in her handwriting, but in a cross-hatched form. The scribbled dot of the ‘i’ in Beeing resembles a bee.

Mosaicist Cleo Mussi has taken a more conceptual approach. She is making a 23 centimetre high image of a space scientist-cum-beekeeper who is manipulating or creating a production line of bees – a subject that fits into her work’s recent concern with stem cell and genetic engineering. ‘It represents humans who’ve become God-like in changing the force of nature,’ says Mussi, who is using fragments of old tableware to make the mosaic.

The show promises to be uplifting as well as thought-provoking – Jennie Moncur is creating a colourful tapestry of a pollinated peach tree and is also showing a piece entitled Oranges and Lemons. They were inspired by trees at her home which need help with pollination because they are grown under glass. ‘Cross-pollination is so labour-intensive. It makes you so aware of the importance of the bee to the environment,’ she says.

‘Bees are vital to humans and inspirational to the artist,’ says Ramshaw. ‘This is a moment where artists can help. I’m not sure we can always help, but we can do an exhibition with objects which are really beautiful and will get lots of publicity and encourage people to plant the flowers.’

The Honey Bee and the Hive is at Contemporary Applied Arts, 2 Percy Street, London W1T 1DD, from 26 March – 1 May 2010.
www.caa.org.uk

For more images of work in The Honey Bee and the Hive, take a look at our blogs, here.