Impressed

There are many facets of HIVE to appreciate. There's the performance that happens within the circles of participants. There's the texture, line, shape and depth of the material piece.  And there are the cast shadows that are ephemeral. I'm interested in trying to capture the essence of each of these qualities in other media - as another level of transformation.

Yesterday I pulled out my encaustic supplies from a couple years back and started playing with relief patterns using the HIVE pieces. After preparing the boards with many layers of wax I pressed the chambers into the hot wax and removed them after the wax cooled. This left impressions of the wrapped wire which I then painted into and scraped back several times with two different colors.

Then I superimposed the delicate impressions from the screen itself. These indentations are very light so instead of painting in them with wax I rubbed with an oil pastel to capture the patterning.

I'm enamored with the honeycomb-like shapes that happen in HIVE when the chambers are sewn together. My aim is to focus on that detail in these relief patterns, transforming them into yet another facet of HIVE. I can't wait to get back in the studio to continue the experiments.

There are two other projects associated with HIVE that I'm investigating this summer, one based on sound and the other shadow. More about those later...