"May I Have Your Bees Please?" Information Booth and Walking Tours

During the week of August 8th-13th I set up an information booth inside of Eyelevel Gallery as part of their members' weekly show "Biological Society". Between 2:00pm and 4:00pm I held office hours and, three times a day, I lead groups on walking tours of the neighborhood. Member of the group would decide which areas posed a particular hazard to bees and teeny tiny signs were placed in these areas.I would note the locations in a small notebook as well as the reason for the hazard. Upon our return to the gallery a pin would be placed in a map indication these locations. Every person who participated received a free button in their choice of gold or white. It was lovely to see what happens when you ask a stranger to do something so whimsical. The mood of each of the tours ranged from amused to giddy. It was a great week, thank you to everyone who came out for a tour and a conversation.

Upcoming Performance

Coming up August 9th, 10th, 11th,and 12th I'll be doing a performance at Eyelevel Gallery. I've never attempted anything like this before but my bee project has made me brave since a big part of it was and is about reaching out to people and making work based on that interaction.

This performance will take the form of an information booth inside of Eyelevel gallery and short walking tours of the neighborhood surrounding it. I've made tiny (2cm x 2cm) warning signs printed on yellow paper very much like the one shown above. These are mounted on toothpicks and will be given to members of the walking tours. We will decide as a group which areas we encounter on our walk that pose a hazard to bees and place bee sized warning signs in these areas. In the event that we find a dead bee, we will collect it for my taxidermy workshop but will leave a tiny memorial (2cm x 2cm) like the one shown above in its place. The locations of the signs will then be carefully recorded on a map that will be mounted to the wall behind the information booth indicating the bee warning and memorializing initiatives taken on by the neighborhood. The tours happen between 2:00 pm and 4:00pm on each of those days and leave on the half hour (2:30, 3:00, 3:30). When not on a tour I will be in the booth handing out bee kits and answering questions.

The circular image above is of the buttons that everyone who comes along for the walk will receive for participating. "Head, Heart, Thorax and Abdomen" is the official motto of "May I have your bees Please?"

Everyone is invited so please tell your friends!

Corpus Melliferous Opening

So it's been a while friends!

Last time I posted I was still struggling with my large scale drawings, well, nothing makes things come together more effectively than a deadline.

The fabulous Christina Arsenault is documenting this series for me so there will be images to follow soon. You can check out her work at http://www.christinaarsenault.ca/ . For now here are some images from the reception.

I was also lucky enough to have a local band, Special Costello, play a thirty minute set of experimental music which was amazing! It's so great to be able to work with talented people making other kinds of art and music. In this case the music seemed to flow perfectly with the drawings somehow. It's the kind of thing I would love to try again.

Grant, Drawings, Mail Outs!

I'm happy to announce my good fortune at having been selected to receive a Creation Grant under Nova Scotia's Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage. This has been a great boon to my art practice since it allows me to work in my studio uninterrupted Monday-Friday.

I am also continuing work on large scale drawings. I was lucky to receive some feedback from Katie Belcher and Susan Wood, who were each generous enough to come out for a studio visit to see my drawings. If you're a shy person like I am it can be daunting to ask others for feedback, especially in this case where I had so much admiration and respect for each of them and their drawing practices. Their feedback was kind, thoughtful and extremely helpful! They both suggested I try making my drawings larger and so I have been. I'm really excited about the results. I hope to have some images to show you soon.

Check out Katie's work here: http://www.katiebelcherart.com/Home.html

Check out Susan's work: http://www.susanwood.ca/

Bee season has begun in most of Canada so I've been sending mail outs of ten bee kits at a time to any interested artist run centres or community organizations. Links to locations that currently have kits are listed below. If any of these locations happen to be near you then you can pick up a kit there. If not, I'd be thrilled to mail you one so please email me your request to ruth@ruthmarsh.net

Links:
http://www.truck.ca/
http://www.thenewgallery.org/
http://www.annapolisriver.ca/
http://www.arcac.ca/artsplace/aboutus.php
http://alternatorcentre.com/
http://www.ecologyaction.ca/

Techno Bees!

Introducing Techno Bees! Here are some drawings of the latest Taxidermy Bees made with computer parts.

Since I'm making so many tiny drawings anyway I thought I could make an animation with them. It will be a nice way to link each of the people who send me a bee with drawings that are small pieces of a unified whole. Eventually it would be nice for everyone to be able to see the animation online but it's still in the planning stages at the moment. It's definitely going to be a steep learning curve.

Bee Kit Drawings

I'm gearing up to enter the next phase of my bee taxidermy project which will include sending out a large number of bee kits; I've prepared two hundred drawings to go along with them. I'm seeing each drawing as more trade than gift since it takes time, not to mention bravery(watch out for those stingers!), to pick up a bee and send it to me. Thinking along these lines, I've signed and titled each small work in an effort to ascribe value to each of them and by extension, value each participant's time and effort. This has also been a great opportunity to find joy in drawing which has previously been somewhat intimidating to me. Above are a few examples of the drawings I've been making. Each measures 2'' x 3'' and they range in media including ink, watercolour and markers.