Category Archives: florilegium

cultivating place

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I had the great honour to be on Jennifer Jewell’s wonderful Cultivating Place pod cast recently. To talk about art and what inspires the creative process is such an enriching experience.  How often does one get to mine one’s past history, to consider the path, often circuitous, that leads to the present?

For those of you who follow Jennifer’s fabulous program, you will know what a masterful interviewer she is, and how she synthesizes ideas so skillfully into this wonderful exchange of words and experiences. If gardens are our repository of culture, of care for the earth and for one another, then Jennifer is that gardener, cultivating and nourishing this living substance of which we are all a part.  As Robert Harrison says, the true gardener is always the “constant gardener.”

Thank you Jennifer for spending this time with me!

 

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This episode will air again this Sunday morning, and it will become part of the  Cultivating Place archive, so you can listen in at any time:

 

 

Wallpapered bees at the Miller Library

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April 21, 2020 of the Covid year.

Well, sadly, the library is closed and has been for some weeks now.  I understand that the show might go on if the library is permitted to open in June. So, maybe there’s a light at the end of this viral tunnel.

Covid  is taking a toll on all of us. I wish for everyone to be safe and healthy despite the restrictions and closures.

Bee well until we get the OK!    jasna

I’ve just installed an exhibition of my work at the Elisabeth C. Miller Horticultural Library at U.W. It’s a pleasure to be here in Seattle, but sadly with the Corona virus health situation, so many events are being cancelled. The opening of the exhibition was postponed to March 28th, but it is not at all certain if that planned event will proceed.

The library and the exhibition are open!

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if time it can be called

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I’m experimenting with short animations based upon the Wenatchee bees – to see where this takes me.  In this video, I drew from my specimens of Goldenrod, Solidago canadensis, and one of the beautiful Rolfs/Robinson bees, a Colletes, to create the visuals. The text fragments are from the incredible poetry of Eleanor Rand Wilner, from her book entitled “The Girl With Bees in Her Hair.”

A Few Blue Notes

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In midwinter, when there are no bees and no flowers in bloom (or very few), and inside work takes precedence, sorting and sifting through images, specimens, and texts becomes the focus. All, in preparation of the new upcoming season.

This winter also, Brian and Crystine Campbell graciously featured some of my work in their 2019 seed catalogue, Uprising Seeds. (UprisingSeeds.com). Thank you so much, Brian and Crystine!

One of the most engaging aspects of my study of pollinators and their floral resources, is that of pollen. So, here is a small selection of some of the unusual colours that I’ve collected — some of the blues!

I’ve included only one native bee in this short animation, a sweat bee, an Agapostemon sp, from the Halictidae family. Not only are these brilliant little bees beautiful, but they even have the capacity to sonicate, or buzz pollinate flowers. What can be more amazing to see than a glorious metallic green bee, with blue eyes, and with blue pollen on its hind legs?

the bees do dream

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Recently I made a very cool discovery — that snowflakes can form around a variety of different particles — rain, dust and even grains of pollen. This idea that high up in our atmosphere, the renmants of summer’s glorious flowers are swirling around in the dark, cold skies is just astounding. And, even more, that these tiny beautiful particles which are intrinsic products of plant life and critical resources for bees, can create the exquisite beauty of snowflakes, is inconceivable. The connection–pollen—bees—-pollen—-snowflakes is the inspiration for this little animation, “The Bees Do Dream.”

pressed for time 2018

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Installation shot, Pressed for Time, Seymour Art Gallery.
Photo credit: Kara Wightman

The exhibition I am sharing with entomologist and friend, Lincoln Best opened on Sunday at the Seymour Art Gallery in North Vancouver. We had a great time at the vernissage! Thank you to all of you who came out to see the show. Exhibition continues at the gallery until July 21, 2018.

We are offering 2 workshops in tandem with this show–the first is on Sunday June 17, from 2-4 pm. A free drop-in drawing and printmaking workshop with artist Cyndy Chwelos, for participants of all ages. Everyone welcome!

The second free workshop is on Saturday, June 30, at 2:00 pm. Artist and author, Lori Weidenhammer (aka Madame Beespeaker) of Victory Gardens for Bees fame, and educator and naturalist Erin Udal will engage participants in an interactive, fun workshop on identifying native bees and gardening for pollinators!  Registration for this workshop is suggested and can be made through Seymour Art Gallery

 

Projection of Thimbleberry blossom: part of the exhibition.

I placed a blossom on my scanner to see what would happen to the anthers — would the blossom die, would the anthers open and shed their pollen?  Leaving the blossom on the scanner, I scanned the progress of development over several hours and then joined the still images into a video. (With many thanks for Ace Media for the video help).

Bees in Sun Valley 2018

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I had the great privilege of being part of a group exhibition at the Sun Valley Center Gallery in Ketchum, Idaho. Here are some photos from the installation. I am showing 3 different but interconnected bodies of work here: the botanical imagery, a section of the printmaking piece from 2015, “not by chance alone,” and some of the pollen work I did based on Dorothy Hodges’ book, “Pollen Loads of the Honeybee.”

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bee-neighborly pollinator week

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It seems early, spring is not officially here yet, but there are bulbs pushing up their bright heads through the soil and early shrubs and trees are bursting with delicate blossoms. Time to plan ahead for Pollinator Week 2018 (June 18-24).

I have the very great pleasure of having an exhibition in June and Pollinator Week falls within the duration of the show, so I’m creating a series of postcards that will be offered gratis to visitors to the gallery.

The postcards are little reminders/suggestions on creating a pollinator and bee-neighborly environment.

drawing from the herbarium

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I have been collecting botanical specimens for some time now. The idea of ‘collection’ as a form of knowledge is of interest to me. What happens when one attempts to recreate nature by bringing as many objects as possible into one space? How can renmants and fragmentary things represent the whole or the real?