Material Choice and Information
I have been interested in translucency since 1974 and tried using many materials from glass to porcelain to resins, till I found my perfect medium. I had moved to a small farm and begun keeping bees, and I found their wax to be pliable, luminous and translucent. I then began a long dance with the wax till finding the techniques I use now.
There is a big difference between paraffin, microcrystalline, or petroleum waxes and beeswax. The first 3 waxes are made from crude oil or petrol, and are manufactured using chemical products. One of my disciplines is to use natural, sustainable materials in my art. I think that how a thing is made and what it is made from, produces an energetic output. My work is all about benevolent energy, therefore I choose to use materials that are sustainable and non-toxic.
Other sensory benefits come
from the materials I use. The wax and
spices give off a scent that is warm and soothing . Beeswax
is a plastic material. It is warm and dry and begs to be touched or held.
It is easily healed and reformed if cracked or dropped. I use fabrics
and woods as the substratum to put the wax on. I often use recycled
and natural elements for their integrity, beauty and human common sense.
Care
Beeswax has incredible longevity. It starts to liquefy at 140 degrees (which would indicate your house was on fire). Beeswax figurines have been found in the Egyptian tombs so it is a stable material that is also antibacterial. If it gets dusty use a soft non-lint cloth to clean it.
About Bees and what they make
I kept bees for 15 years. I will attempt to give you an idea of how amazing bees are and why I choose to use their products to make my art.
Bees produce 4 products and in the process pollinate the majority of plants on this earth. Pollination means that male and female pollen get mixed together in the flowers so that they can produce fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
The bees visit flowers and trees to gather 3 raw materials: nectar, pollen and sap. The nectar and pollen they use as food and the sap, known as propolis, is a glue.
Bees make honey by evaporating the water content from the nectar they gather. This takes a long time and each bee will only contribute an 1/8th of a teaspoon of honey in its active 8 weeks of life. It takes a hive of 60,000 bees flying over 55,000 miles to visit over 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.
Pollen is gathered during cross-pollination. The bees push the dusty pollen into the pockets that are on their legs, and carry it back to the hive. This is why bee pollen comes in little dots formed in these pockets.
Propolis is sap that is gotten from trees to fill gaps in their hive so that they are snug in the winter. There are many shades and colors of natural beeswax, which result from propolis being melted in with the wax. The color can vary from chocolate brown to olive green to butterscotch gold.
Bees make beeswax with their own bodies. By eating large amounts of honey and then resting, small platelets of wax form and are extruded from their abdomens. They take the platelets into their mouths and chew them till the wax has the right consistency before applying it to a cell wall. 8 pounds of nectar is needed for bees to make 1 pound of beeswax.