Thursday, February 25, 2016

Time to Run Away WIth the Circus!

 It's Time to Run Away with the Circus:  Encaustics and Beeswax Collages featuring vintage circus images by Melissa Hronkin

Heroes, artists, entertainers, outsiders.  I am intrigued by these people and animals from the circus-past.  The virtual, digital world leaves me nostalgic for the anachronistic, turn of the century age where trains chugged, gears turned, and science involved a lot of alchemy.  Alchemy, magic, and mystery were embodied in the circus, and entertained the masses.  

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science"-Albert Einstein.  

By creating compositions and encasing these memories in beeswax, I am creating memorials to a time gone by. I am honoring these heroes.  As an artist, teacher, performer, and searcher, these stories inspire me when it seems the magic might be lost.

 I have been gathering vintage circus images and material.  I am intrigued with the idea of "running away with the circus"...especially when school was starting in September!  I have been thinking about an epic journey of a girl or woman who is running away to join the circus.  Along the way she meets many characters:  a talking crow, a swarm of bees and a bee charmer, and murmurations of starlings.  I am thinking about doing some writing to accompany these images.  Maybe by the end of our journey the girl will find her place in the circus or wherever the journey will lead her.  

In the winter of 2015 I composed many of the pieces, but didn't return to them until winter 2016 when I realized that K. C. Bonkers might be a great place to display the works, fitting in with their theme of circus, whimsy, and magic.  This summer I will take a trip to the Circus Museum in Baraboo, WI.  In the meantime I am mastering the art of playing the accordion, washboard, and other tricks and talents.  
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Some of the pieces include a tribute to Maud Wagner, the first American female tattoo artist.  Another entitled "dangerous hobbies" includes a man wearing a bee beard and a woman tiger tamer.