Brianna Mieth

Art is the study of something - yourself, others, a process, a muse, or something universal. It helps me work through thoughts and organize them properly. I live in a constant state of “it’s on the tip of my tongue.” Thoughts move too fast, from one thing to the next. I lose them. There are a few that I do write down and keep - the ones that I wish to investigate further. Through the process of making I come out with something clear: a less complicated example of my thoughts, one thing that I can properly communicate.

It started with a memory: the simple image of honey bees buzzing around a cluster of coneflowers. I could have watched them for hours but their movements are too fleeting. They would not stay for me and I would not make them. Through that moment I did not think of their crisis, or our imminent struggles. I saw them in the present, not the future, and I was impressed by the beauty of it - a simple case of existence. So, I sought to suspend them in this moment where time was frozen. It is a moment of innocence where we can see them as creatures of nature and not creatures of our own capitalistic use. Their perception of the world is entirely different. Their existence is entirely their own. We can only try to comprehend their lives through relating it to that which we already understand. Their identity has been reduced through design and exposure. I mean to hand it back to them.

The imagery is truthful: an extremely repetitive representation of the honey bee. I show them to you processed through my hands. With traditional stone lithography I have drawn and printed these bees again and again, training my hands and eyes to recognize their shapes. Look at them over and over again; see them as individuals, see them as a community. Look for the relationship between each one. The honeycomb acts as a structure more than a pattern: it is storage for food, capsules for breeding, a stage for communication. It is their home.

This mindfulness is something that we have come to forget, too caught up in the chaos of experiences and expectations. To look at these relationships that we still cherish at a completely unbiased and neutral form, we can relate ourselves even further to the honeybee.