Throughout grade school I would doodle all over my notebook (sometimes in place of my notes (okay, oftentimes in place of my notes)). For whatever reason I linked bees to stand-up comedy back then because I kept drawing advertisements for an imaginary comedy club called "The Beehive." The tagline: "The Only Place For Real Stand-Up Comedy." I even designed a logo.
Skip ahead to massage school. . .3 1/2 hours of science class everyday left plenty of time to draw. It was during those classes that I developed "Tragedies of the Insect Kingdom." When I started it, "Tragedies" was nothing more than bees in bad situations (being squished by a glass for example). Then it began to take on a new purpose. Those poorly drawn bee characters became an outlet for my thoughts and frustrations. As the other students caught on to my bee comics they began asking to see what was new and urged me to publish. My flattered ego didn't outweigh the fact that the drawings weren't quite THAT good. I graduated with a sketchbook full of bee comics.
Since that time the bees have turned up in many places: weekly notes I write at work, greeting/birthday cards I make, even underneath my signature. More than any other kind of animal or insect, bees seem uniquely tied to me.
Why?
Well. . .to start. . .what do bees represent in our culture/society? I don't know and in their case I don't care enough to research further. Maybe I have a certain fondness for bees in real life? Not especially. I don't really dislike bees either, though. I am not allergic to their stings or scared to be around them. I do like honey, but that has more to do with a sweet tooth and its oh-so-sublime effect on my taste buds. I don't keep bees or wish to keep them. I don't see bees in my dreams or in my nightmares. I have almost no real interest. . .but I can't stop drawing them. . .so. . . .
WHY!?
A few months back I was talking with my mom. "Yeah, you have ALWAYS drawn bees," she mentioned. I agreed but thought her tone was strange. "Wait, what do you mean ALWAYS?" I asked. She told me the story: we were selling our very first house. I was 2 or 3 years old. Some potential buyers were taking the tour when my mom noticed something on the chairs in the kitchen: blue bees. They had been drawn all over the seat cushions with magic marker. I was in trouble. . . .not the point, though.
The point is that ever since I could express myself artistically--before I can even remember--bees have been my go-to doodle. There's no way to know why because the fixation began long before my earliest retrievable memories. So this becomes a question without a provable answer--akin to questions about the existence of god, an afterlife, and fate. So maybe I can answer this question in the same way I answer those tricky "big" questions: what context do they (bee drawings, remember) have in my life?
Over the years as everything in my life has changed and then changed some more there have always been bee drawings. The fixation with drawing those bestingered little insects forms a tangible through-line to my life. They are continuity. . .certainly with the past and possibly with the future. There may come a day when I no longer draw little bees everywhere, and on that day I'll be happy to let the little bastards go. But for now I'll keep doodling their little wings, antennae, legs, feet, and stripes; I may even continue the "Tragedies" comic. And that, dear reader, is a brief history of the bee.
-B
