2023
ACRYLIC ON PANEL by Robin Hostick
12 x 12 in.

A honey bee alights on cherry blossoms, heralding delicious treats of midsummer.

My great grandparents started a family farm along River Road just north of Eugene, Oregon.  They knew this was some of the best land around, 12 feet of river loam backing up to an oxbow slough of the Willamette River.  As I knew it, generations later, the land was an orchard of filbert trees as well as a grove of enormous cherry trees.

Family visits to the farm always included long walks through the orchard.  In spring, the thrum of honeybees in the huge, cloud-like canopies of the cherry trees – Bing and Queen Anne – impressed me to the point of being a little unsettling.  The orchard heaved with life, animated by the bees’ mysterious industry.

This work is a departure from my typical subjects, inspired by Oregon State University’s Honey Bee Lab and a perennial impulse to experiment.

I Bring You Cherries is painted in acrylic on hand-textured wood panel with an artist-selected frame. The work arrives ready to hang.