Now What?!
I know all of you are pretty freaked out, to be blunt, about the invasion of our country, first documented in the Pacific Northwest. Sometimes fatal, but generally not, the neurotoxin from the 1/4"-long stinger of the Asian Giant Hornet feels like "a hot nail in the leg," to quote one experienced researcher. Murder Hornets?! Really? Now this?! With bodies that are nearly two inches long with a three-inch wingspan, stripey black and orange, like a miniature flying tiger with fangs and a spear, these nasty invaders can chop the heads off of honeybees at a rate of forty a minute. They have been found to cover sixty miles a day and can fly twenty-five miles an hour.
On July 5th in 2015, I took a photo of my brother Kevin taking a photo of a hornets' nest.
The back of his head looked just like the thing he was shooting -- grey and twirly. Just like mine, I would imagine. (Mine may be more twirly, at least on the inside. Or not, jury is still out). I have always been amazed that bugs can build things out of spit and leaves, big things that they live in, things bigger than my head. Or small grey hexagonal cell structures like the one between the skylight and the screen over my bed. (Actually, I got rid of that a couple weeks ago. Tired of finding wasps stumbling around the floor of the bedroom like they were hungover from the party after the stinging good times. Also, Monique won't let me smoosh them. Have to go open a window and throw them out).
These, as with EVERYTHING, always show up in my work.
In October of 2017, I walked out of the house to find a hornets' nest quite a bit larger than my head lying in the middle of the driveway. Likely a gust blew it there, a paper ellipsoid sculpture, magically gifted to me. You can see it in this piece just right of center that I sold in Chicago in November of that year with the title, "October, Crow and Hornet". The back of Kevin's noggin is depicted with a swarm of scary critters where his nape would be. There are crows, a murder of them, like the ones who hang in the woods outside the studio every October by the thousands. In the center of the panel is a mare's tail cloud from a hike up Camel's Hump with Miss M. and her sister that same month. I often am asked where my art comes from, how it gets out of the grey matter and onto the grey material...
Japanese honeybees have evolved a defense mechanism to deal with these viscous predators. When the bees detect the pheromones of a hornet, the workers gather just inside the open entryway to the hive. When the hornet enters, hundreds of bees engulf it in a dense ball and begin vibrating their flight muscles the way they do to warm the hive in winter. They literally cook the invader. Dead hornet scout. No more hornets follow. It's obviously a defense based on the collective might of the group; the individual doesn't stand a chance. Decapitation. As a collective, the bees are able to defend their homes, their queen, their thousands of brothers.
As usual, my friends, we are so much stronger together. Wasps scare the crap out of me. But I have brothers and friends and I have you. You are part of my clan, and I'm counting on the big family. We got this. By the way, buy art now. It's a good time for that. And tell stories. Always a good time for that.
love love and more all the time,
Bruce Mac
