Projects

‘Honeyscribe’ is an artistic investigation into the life and health of the honeybee.

‘Honeyscribe’ was established in 2011, to explore the relationship between bee health, human health, the environment and the arts. The aim of the project is to create dialogue and exchange about bees between scientists, artists, school children and the general public through artistic practice – developing new artworks, delivering workshops and curating public events.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs document the role of a ‘Honey Scribe’ tasked to record every drop of honey produced. For the ‘Honeyscribe’ project Shelton assume the role of a contemporary honey scribe, charting current threats to the health of this key species and reflecting upon bee behaviour.

‘Honeyscribe’ emphasizes communication, diversity and collaboration, deploying a deep-felt sensitivity for place and community and the shared environments of the insect, animal and human. The beehive reflects the flora, the temperature and the pesticides present in the environment within which it is situated, amalgamating these things into one vastly complicated self-regulating organism.

Strands of the project include:

‘Melissographia’ , a handmade limited edition artists’ book.
Taking the seminal text ‘The Life of the Bee’ by Maurice Maeterlinck (quotations from the Alfred Sutro translation, published by George Allen in 1901, are interwoven throughout the pages of the book on delicate translucent paper) as a common reference, Shelton and Burnside created a book which offers a mind map of their engagement with the honeybee over a calendar year.

‘Melissographia’ consists of a series of new poems which are embedded within a book-form, scattered with individually embossed hand-painted pollen maps, referencing a selection of seasonal pollen loads collected by the honeybee from single plant species. ‘Melissographia’ is bound in a hand-made cover, and contains tiny botanical samples of flowers collected over the apiarist’s calendar year, which are important to sustaining the health of the honeybee.

The First Edition of ‘Melissographia’ (100 numbered copies) has sold out. A second edition is planned for early 2013. Please contact [email protected] if you would like to be notified when the second edition of ‘Melissographia’ becomes available.

‘Honeyscribe’ will culminate in two new series of art works to be exhibited in 2013/ 2014:

‘Florilegium’, a light box installation exhibited in buildings which have bee hives installed on their roofs (or tucked in gardens, grounds and yards), acknowledging the presence of bees ordinarily invisible to passers by at ground level.

‘Florilegium’ documents the plant sources of the pollen and nectar collected by bees to sustain their colonies from early spring to late autumn. The artwork will comprise of a collection of hundreds of preserved botanical samples of flowers which either require a bee to pollinate them, or are a rich source of nectar and pollen for the honeybee. The arrangement of melliferous plants collected and preserved over an entire year acts as a calendar that can be read from an accompanying lexical key/ log.

‘Bee Myths’ , a new collaboration with award-winning poet and author John Burnside.
Shelton is making a series of clay and beeswax panels which are material representations of a new set of texts by Burnside called ‘Bee Myths’, extending and contemplating these narratives, as well as reflecting on the ancient and historical depth of mans’ association with bees. The collaboration seeks to re-evaluate the place that myth, and stories have in our lives, as well as offering a subtle re-interpretation of the importance of the place the humble honeybee has in relation to human health and well being, and in re-imagining a future without them.

Burnside’s interest in the relationship between art, husbandry, myth, cultivation and healing is well known. His recent Forward and T.S Eliot Prize winning collection ‘Black Cat Bone’ is testimony to the deep rooted sensibility exploring these themes which are at the heart of much of Burnside’s work.

Alongside these artworks is an exhibition entitled ‘Apiculture – Bees and the Art of Pollination’, which will take place at the Peninsula Arts gallery, Plymouth in April 2014. The exhibition will include Amy’s work ‘Florilegium’ alongside other artists who contemplate the life of the honeybee in their work, including Bill Woodrow, Rob Kesseler and Susan Derges.

Shelton also runs a series of workshops for schoolchildren in the places she exhibits. These workshops offer children the opportunity to learn something of our huge dependence on bees, and help them to make the crucial links in understanding the role they play in human health in providing food through pollination and sustaining a biodiverse environment.