Auction #11: A Bee For The Queen

When I create sculptures out of wool, I usually let the wool inspire me. Creatures take shape out of wool roving as I poke and prod the cloud of fibers with a felting needle. The craft of needle-felting uses a barbed needle (like a bee’s barbed stinger) to enmesh loose wool fibers together into a structure. The more you stab, the tighter the fibers become, the more solid the creature.

This creature had a different genesis: the story “To Set Before the King,” by Genevieve Valentine. I read Valentine’s piece as a reflection on stepmothers; in it, a pivotal time in an au pair’s life is interwoven with a fairy tale about good maids and evil stepmothers, and a cook/butcher’s reflection on her/his work to turn a carcass into food. The language is spare and beautiful, the tale as bright and sharp as a thin needle, and then as moist and smooth as breathing. Reading it, I was especially struck by Valentine’s image of a golden dress, embroidered inside with bees: “When he zips the dress closed she can feel the bees spring to life inside the dress, a thousand tiny stings.”

In the sculpture inspired by this story, I’ve taken the bee image and merged it with the butcher’s thread of the short story. A bee stands with wings folded, one arm reaching behind her back to clasp a meat cleaver. When I turn her around, I chuckle at the irony of a bee with a cleaver, rather than a stinging point.

Lisa Bergin