Canadian artist Sarah Hatton collects dead bees.

“Why on earth would she do that?” you ask.

Like many an artist, she is out to make a point, and it’s a significant one.

Arranging dead bees into elaborate mandalas on fields of white,

Hatton is making a stark visual statement about the connection between declining bee populations and the use of pesticides.

“The link between neonicotinoid pesticides and the worldwide decline of bee populations is a crisis that cannot be ignored,” Hatton explains on her website. “I have arranged thousands of dead honeybees in mathematical patterns symbolically linked to monoculture crops, such as the Fibonacci spiral found in the seed head of the sunflower. The viewer experiences the vertigo of this lifeless swarm, a dizzying optical illusion that echoes the bees’ loss of ability to navigate due to the toxins locked within the very source of their sustenance.”

Powerful stuff.

A picture, after all, speaks a thousand words.

Happy Monday morning! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We spent the weekend whipping up a few handmades.

What might happen if you were to hand a piece of fine art to a 4-year-old …

who is armed with markers?

Magic, that’s what.

Illustrator Mica Angela Hendricks confirmed this in a positively picturesque blog post earlier this year.

Eager to try out a special new sketchbook she’d ordered for herself, Mica attempted to sit down for a bit of “mommy time” drawing when her 4-year-old daughter snapped to attention.

“OOOH! Is that a NEW sketchbook? Can I draw in that too, mama?”

Reluctant to relinquish her project …

(“I’m all about kids’ crafts, but when it comes to my own art projects, I don’t like to share.”)

She told her daughter that she had been planning to add a body to the woman’s face she’d just drawn.

“Well, I will do it,” her daughter declared resolutely, and she grabbed the pen.

One page, Mica resigned … I can sacrifice one page.

She didn’t anticipate the absolute wonder of what came next.

“I had drawn a woman’s face, and she had turned her into a dinosaur-woman. It was beautiful, it was carefree, and I LOVED what she had created,” Mica admitted. “Flipping through my sketchbook, I found another doodle of a face I had not yet finished. She drew a body on it, too, and I was enthralled. It was such a beautiful combination of my style and hers. And she loved being a part of it. She never hesitated in her intent. She wasn’t tentative. She was insistent and confident that she would, of course, improve any illustration I might have done. And the thing is, she DID.”

Image courtesy of Mica Angela Hendricks via Busymockingbird.com

Take a look at some of the magnificent illustrations that resulted from this mother-daughter collaboration and read more about what Mica learned from letting go of her artistic reins in her original post.

Ready to rock the radish?

Photo by thebittenword.com via Wikimedia Commons

Well, okay, maybe I’m not quite hip enough to make that question work,

but the Gery Girls sure are.

This dynamic and darling duo of sisters Lillian (10) and Lyla (7) is “rocking” fruits and veggies from the orchard to the garden in their own snappy CDs.

Under the guitar-picking guidance of their dad, Nashville musician Douglas Gery, the Girls are out to get other kids groovin’ to good food by making get-up-and-dance music.

So, don’t be shy … “Root for the Radish!”

Or, grab a potato sack and get ready to hop your heart out …

Whew! These gals will get your blood pumping.

The Gery Girls also have a Christmas CD that will tickle kids’ funny bones with tunes like “Santa’s Getting Buff.”

Listen to more songs and order CDs (all 4 for $15) at www.gerygirls.com.

Karina, who took today’s photo-of-the-day, spent last weekend knitting her first-ever project—hat, gloves, scarf. In one weekend! (Like, that’s just soooooo farmgirl.) She couldn’t put the needles down once Knit Ann Purl found her way into Karina’s heart.

And she into ours. Stay tuned for more of her photos.

And a book. She and I are working on a book together. The book, the book, the book, nothin’ but the book. (Our deadline looms. Looms. Looms.)

Used work truck that hubby (Mr. Butters) purchased recently. Do ya think we should replace the sign? Or … if the truck fits, just use it. Fit happens, right? 

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