| J. Morgan Puett | Home | The Grafter's Shack | |||
 Grafter’s coverall covered in graphite scribblings of cultural bee lore, leather work apron, gloves, bee veils and library    The Grafter’s bee veil. A textile produced in silk on silk depicting the reproductive parts of the queen bee.  |
The Grafter's Shack Generated at WaveHill Residency Program Wave Hill, Bronx, NY, 2002 Curator: Jennifer McGregor (catalog) This is an experiential look into nature through the culture of an obscure and specialized practice of producing multiple queen bees from one colony by grafting out larvae from the comb. In collaboration with the Wave Hill beekeepers and staff, new colonies were born from a grafting performance on site. A textile, bee veil, and coverall were created of embroidered silk depicting the reproductive parts of the queen bee, and a small garden shack was relocated and adapted into a grafting studio in the Abroms Woodlands of Wave Hill which houses the garments, tools, library, artifacts and misc. bee grafting ephemera. One of the central preoccupations of my practice has been the notion of the artist's or designer's workshop/ studio. The status of the amateur seamstress, small scale honey producer or queen breeder, and their relationships respectively to the sewing studio, honey workshop, or work shack, have a shared relevance in that all spaces are sites of artisan practice, rather than industry. To bind these two fields, I created a textile and beekeeper's outfit based on "bee lore," particularly of "queen grafting," for the Insecta Magnifica group exhibition, curated by Jennifer McGregor and opening at Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery, the Bronx, NY, from March 22 to June 2, 2002. Queen grafting is a relatively unknown aspect of beekeeping. It is the skillful process of removing larvae just hatched from the egg of the best queen. Next, each little grub is then picked up with an earspoon, and gently laid in a royal jelly food, previously prepared in one of the cell cups made to house them. At Insecta Magnifica, this process was performed by my sister, Barry Puett, who spent many years as a queen breeder. She performed this process at the opening. The second part of the project, opening July 14, was the construction of a diminutive structure based on actual grafter's shacks. This housed a beekeeper's shop, including the fabricated costume and all the tools used in the performance. My brother Garnett Puett, (artist and beekeeper,) spoke about the contemporary beekeeper subject. Also, for the brochure, a text was being written by my other sister, Lake Puett, on the childhood memories of fourth generation beekeepers. www.wavehill.org/arts/the_grafters_shack.html |
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 Almanac of Facts and Pictures culled from The Grafter's Shack in collaboration with Jorge Colombo                |
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