Mono No Aware: Buds, Petals, Seeds, and Friends of Bees

First of all, I appreciate this opportunity so much and I want to thank Denise Lawson, the Comox Valley Art Gallery and the McLoughlin Gardens Society for all the work that they do to make this place a creative incubator and place of creative refuge for artists and all the more than human creatures who make this place their home. 

It was lovely to return to the cottage where I had already established a method and a ritual of creating cyanotypes of the plants in the garden, so I could get back into the groove, back in the zone soon after I arrived. Creating botanical cyanotypes helps anchor me in a time and a place, making me acutely aware of the phenology of the plants that feed native bees. It has become a profound meditation for me, focussing my attention on subtle phenological shifts over the four weeks of my residency. I became acutely aware of the sense of impermanence and the Japanese concept known as “mono no aware” in nature as flowers formed buds, bloomed, and then shed their petals. When I arrived at the end of May, the California lilac was buzzing with bumble bees frantically collecting pollen. Two weeks later, the tiny purple petals were forming patterns on the bricks below the branches and the shrub was silent and bereft of bees. Three and a half weeks later the ocean spray began to bloom and feed butterflies, mining bees and bumble bees. Being at the cottage also gives me an intimate view of how the native and cultivated plants are working together in a positive synergy that feeds bees and all the more than humans on the site. I also formed a deep appreciation of the design of the garden, seeing it as an art installation in itself, created by Sarah McLoughlin.

 I have been creating cyanotypes for several years now and I am currently using botanical cyanotype workshops as a way of teaching young children literacy and awareness around bees and the plants they need to survive. Since cyanotypes are so accessible and immediate to produce, it is a joy to enable young students to explore the process. Now that I have spent years experimenting with sun prints, I am ready to use them in new ways. I am currently incorporating the fabric cyanotypes into wearables and I plan to use them to make some costumes for a set of performances.

For our Solstice Bee Walk in the garden, I reached out to people in the community who are taking actions to make the world better for bees and connected them to the art gallery and to the Native Bee Society, weaving in threads for future collaborations. It was truly a glorious day. This is what my friend and fellow bee enthusiast Helena Gadzik said of the event: “Thank you Lori for organizing and leading the Bees and Botany outing yesterday. Such a beautiful location. The property, the rustic cottage, the refreshing breeze from the ocean, the fragrance of a summer forest.”

I was so happy that Bonnie Zand could contribute to the bee walk. Bonnie is a talented bee taxonomist and a wonderfully creative and patient teacher. She is also local! Bonnie leads the BC Master Melittologist and BC Bee Atlas Program with the Native Bee Society of BC. Monika Grunberg who is the local author of a children’s book on mason bees called Sunshine and Pollen, the Life of Mason Bees also attended and gave us a talk and showed us some Osmia lignaria cocoons. (Her book is available in the Comox Valley Art Gallery gift shop.) I was also pleased to have Tryna McLean as a guest, creator of the Gone to Seed Little Library  in Comox who does a wonderful job creating pollinator habitat in the community. It was such a great group of folks. This is the kind of event that gives me hope. 

I am merging my community-engaged art practise and my work as a naturalist in new ways. I feel that using art as a way of working for conservation is my passion right now and I have begun mentoring other artists who are also interested in this path. I have practised as an artist for almost four decades and I am working on a memoir in book form, but it also occurred to me that I do not want my retrospective as a senior artist to be posthumous! I want control over how I want to be remembered and I have also begun working on a performed retrospective/memoir of my work. So stay tuned for details!!!

Post Script:

I found two large dead spiders in the cabin which are being shipped off to an artist in Ottawa, Valérie Chatrand who will make use of them in her art.

I deeply miss Barry, the former caretaker, and shed a few tears when I found a photo of him and his dog Bear hanging on the wall by the fireplace. Rest in peace, sweet ones.