Wax Minded
Monday is a play day. I come in switch on the slow cookers and know that there is a bit of space today before I secure an old bee hive for the project. I found myself full of doubt again on waking, wondering if this is the right avenue to go down - will it be too whimsical, will it change anything? Why do I constantly return to the bees, isn’t it time to let them go? I do a reading and meditate on a mandala entitled ‘Soul of the Sea’. I had arrived at sea and under currents just before the phonecall that changed everything, leaving the studio for 6 weeks. Is there any connection between bees and sea - yes Aphrodite/Venus. I had visited the sea at the weekend, it was glorious and transforming. I had been recounting the story of Aphrodite and the myrtle bush to my friend as we emerged from a cold dunk in the sea. She had taken refuge behind it when experiencing body shame or shyness at least. Aphrodite was a bee priestess - A Melissa. Bee Priestesses were involved in death rites.
I have a friend who researched all of this and wrote a book about it. I knew her because she approached me to train her online during covid in the ways of the priestess. I opened my phone and this friend who never appears on my feed had shared a post about Madame Tussard and how she had been forced to make the death masks of those that faced the guillotine in the French Revolution. Her material was beeswax.
I’d made a basic mask from paper pulp, unfortunately I didn’t photograph it before covering it in beeswax. A dentist’s tool that was my Dad’s had found it’s way in to my bag when clearing mom’s apartment. Just the job to scrape wax off parts and build up in others as I made a self portrait. The pink beeswax in the smaller slow cooker being the perfect pink hair. My hands in the beeswax helps me think; not just the observations of it’s hardening process, the colour changes with temperature dropping, from translucency to opaque - but also dreaming in the vision of a beehive theatre. I thought about covering the board in ideas for my research but that didn’t flow as well. This playing however shows my material research. There are a lot of threads here, perfect for creating work but honing the research question - less so.
Today I introduce my ideas at group crits and it generates lots of discussion about celebrancy but also about art in end of life situations. I am nervous and can barely breathe when I am speaking. I am telling myself that everyone is thinking I’d make a bad celebrant because of my shyness but I know there is a strength in me that comes when relating to people that isn’t here when it’s as naked as me presenting my ideas for art. Ouch, this shame thing is crippling. I see threads back to the body work I started the module with. I don’t want to be ashamed anymore - this desire is at the root of where I go now.
