Blackstock

In 2001, Gregory Blackstock retired from "25 1/3" years of work as a pot washer at the Washington Athletic Club (WAC). This has given him more time to devote to his art and music interests. He has been publishing drawings since 1986, first and the WAC newsletter and recently in a book of his work Blackstock's Collections: The Drawings of an Artistic Savant.

Blackstock is an autistic savant, he speaks many languages, can recall events with an uncanny precision and is an incredible mimic. He is also very skilled with music and can be seen around Seattle playing his accordion. He first caught the attention of the Garde Rail Gallery in 2003 leading to several shows and the eventual publication of his book. Many, many more images on their site.

The subject matter for his drawings varies a great deal from state birds to state prisons, tools to WWII bombers, and mackerel to Boeing jet liners. I've mostly included the drawings of animals and birds with a few vegetables, focusing on the images from nature.

His drawings are often large, made up of smaller pieces of paper taped together. They are complete collections, laid out in precise rows. The drawings created with pencil, crayon, ink and marker. The range of scale is seen here:

Blackstock is wearing a t-shirt with his drawings as a design! (Where can I get one!)

A revealing description of his abilities and personality: "Gregory Blackstock says he speaks 12 languages and is happy to prove it, bellowing greetings in a rapid succession of diverse tongues. Not only does he have perfect pitch, he can play any instrument he picks up but prefers the accordion, because it's loud." Regina Hackett, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Bees

The other day two beekeepers competed in China's annual bee wearing contest. Each man wore only shorts, goggles and nose plugs. The two bee enthusiasts competed by each standing on a scale and using queen bees to attract as many drones to their bodies in one hour. The queen bees were locked in small cages and tied to them and the swarming bees picked up their scent and formed living suits around the competitors.

Wang Dalin won the bee-wearing competition, by attracting 26 kilograms of bees onto his body, while his fellow beekeeper only manged to attract 22.9 kilograms of live bees. Despite their valiant efforts, the two weren’t able to break the world bee-wearing record, of 39.5 kg (350,000 bees), set by American Mark Biancaniello.

The origin of bee bearding is attributed to Peter Prokopovitch, a Russian beekeeper, in the 1830s. Although bee keepers through the centuries have encouraged masses of bees to congregate on their bodies. The practice spread to various "freak" exhibitions at American carnivals by the end of the nineteenth century.

This Vintage bee bearding photograph is from Life 1955.
It seems like a dangerous pastime, although a beekeeping friend told me that after a few years of working with bees the stings no longer hurt and she has no reaction to them. So maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Although for anyone who has even passed close to a hive and heard the sound from within I would imagine the sound would be deafening. Especially after what I assume is several hours of supporting many pounds of moving, buzzing, vibrating bees.

Perhaps a little like this clip from Mathew Barney's Cremaster 2

Hesse-Honegger

While looking up images for my previous insect related post, I came across the work of Cornelia Hesse-Honegger. She worked as a Scientific Illustrator at the Natural History Museum at the University of Zurich for 25 years. She began collecting and painting Leaf Bugs (Heteroptera) in 1969, and after the Chernobyl incident began recording the damage that nuclear radiation was having on these insects.She has since then studied and painted insects near functioning nuclear power stations in Europe and the U.S. and concluded that even low levels of radiation are enough to cause morphologically disturbed insects.Heteroptera (2001)and Future's Mirror (1999) are books of illustrations and essays highlighting the physiological effects of radiation. In her biography Hesse-Honegger points out the lack of published findings on these effects and implores independent scientific study in this field.She has also published a book of her images on Silk. She began designing fabric for Swiss fashion houses Akris and Fabric Frontline. I can just imagine that the medium of silk would lend itself so perfectly to her lush images. Even in photograph the richness of colour makes my heart beat a little faster.

Bugs.

I was immediately drawn to the image for Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo. Although at the time I wasn't sure if it would be a documentary or a monster movie or perhaps something similar to 'Kiss of the Spider Woman'. But documentary it is, highlighting Japan's interest in Insects.

I find that our western attitude to things that creep and crawl is far from positive. I'm sure that very few children I know would be saving up for a beetle of any kind.
But insects do possess an alien beauty. Different from us in almost every way possible they have inspired the horrific and the exquisite.

Christopher Marley photographs insects and such a way that they appear as beautiful jewels. In mosaic photos such as the one above, they are not ordered by taxonomy, but arranged only for aesthetics.
In the single photos such as the one above, the beetles look more like mounted specimens. And indeed, specimens of this Macrodontia Cervicorniscan grow very large and collect a great deal of money.
I think I prefer the idea of a private collector buying one of Morley's photos than an actual specimen.