The Story About Bee Cups

Bee Cups are made of porcelain. Place them in your garden to collect a teaspoon of water for thirsty bees and butterflies.

How it started:

It was the spring of 2018 and I was packing up a semester of teaching. The final project for my ceramics students was an installation of colored porcelain that was to be placed in a specific spot on the Richland Campus. I dutifully demonstrated how to create a range of colors using ceramic pigments and porcelain. Then, I took my 300 porcelain pieces home and put them in my yard.

The first Bee Cups

 For the next 18 months these porcelain spikes lined the earth by my mailbox. I noticed that when I watered, insects would come over to check them out. It took me a while to catch on, but I realized they were drinking the water that collected on the tops of the spikes. In 2020 I decided to improve on the design.  I experimented with the size of the cup on top. Too large and the bees would drown, too small and the water evaporates too fast. One teaspoon of water was just the right size. One teaspoon of water was enough to let bees drink, but it evaporated by the end of the day so mosquitoes wouldn’t be a problem. I found out bees have toes so I added grippy texture. It was kind of like adding a bathmat for the bees.

Aaaaakkk! Bee toes are so cute!

 The Bee Cup was born… and people seemed to like them! I sold them through Facebook and was surprised how quickly orders came in. 

For the past 24 months I have been making it up as I go. Maybe it has something to do with my business minor in college, but that was soooooo long ago! (And I was lucky to get a C in most of those classes) Regardless, building Bee Cups LLC has been like trying to hold onto a rocket.

In December 2021 I resigned from my 20-year career in Academia to become a full-time entrepreneur and artist. My employees and I were jammed into my garage studio and my kitchen table was dominated by boxes, labels, tape, and Bee Cups. It was obvious we needed more space if we were to continue to grow.  In early 2022 Bee Cups and Jen Rose Art moved into an industrial studio in west Dallas and I continued to scale up! In March I launched a ceramic glaze that is reactive to UV light and mimics the way flowers attract pollinators. I call it Bee Vision…. and it’s awesome!  Bee Cups LLC has a patent pending on the Bee Cups and the Bee Vision glaze.

Although it seems like this all happened in a flash, I am building my business thoughtfully and sustainably.  Currently, we are committed to buying our supplies from local sources whenever possible and manufacturing locally. This spring we made the shift to paper packaging. No plastics! I am eternally grateful to my full-time and part-time employees. There is a ton of joy in the studio and we project that joy into every product we make.

I have two 3000-piece large installations at Botanical Gardens under my belt and I’m ready for more. To date we have sold over 50,000 individual bee cups and a couple of new products are simmering on the back burner. I am constantly overwhelmed with gratitude. I am grateful that people find value in helping the pollinators, I am grateful that I can work with and mentor amazing young artists and I am grateful that I have the privilege to make a positive contribution to the environment. Each day I choose to show up, believe in my ideas, and trust that others will believe with me. I am truly blessed.

There are Looms in the Streets for You

While walking in my neighborhood during the spring quarantine I found a Leclerc four-harness loom. It was bulky trash week, and the tabletop loom was folded by the curb, along with some discarded lumber and an old broom. Dirt was packed into the crevices and it was missing a couple of parts, but I recognized it like a lover from a past life. My 14-year-old daughter begged me to leave it there. NO WAY! I carried that loom all the way home and she walked ahead like she didn’t know me.

It has been a while since I was in college, (like, cell phones were not common kind-of-while) but I still have my notebook of weaving patterns from my only Fibers class at the University of North Texas. My friend, Kate, pointed me in the direction of a weaving textbook, which I read cover to cover. I ordered skeins of yarn and got reacquainted with the joyful tedium that is dressing a loom. Soon I was making scarves, and washcloths while dreaming of a larger loom for making blankets.

Wait, what??? Slow that roll! I can’t pay $3,000 for a new floor loom! Instead, I looked for a way to combine weaving technology with ceramic sculpture.

The two worlds collided when I read the chapter about rug-making in my 1970’s weaving textbook. I could add objects to the weft using a low-pile rug-making technique. I began weaving with leftover colored porcelain pieces I had laying around the studio. Next, I made ceramic forms specifically for the loom. Within two months I had gone from finding a curbside loom, to making a set of washcloths, to infinite new possibilities in ceramic sculpture. These sculptures are dynamic because they are securely attached to the woven backing and can be hung, draped, and endlessly manipulated!

The first of the sculptures premiered at CAMBIAart Gallery in Austin, TX and in an exhibition of American Craft juried by Kathyrn Gremley, director of the Penland School of Craft Gallery. I am thrilled with the response and plan to continue experimenting. I have a solo exhibition with CAMBIBAart this spring and can’t wait to feature more of these sculptures.

So, my question to you is, what is your 2020 loom? The pandemic changed our lives in a way that disrupted our routine, but what about it changed your life for the better? If you began working from home, how did you use the extra time you used to spend commuting? What things did you notice on your pandemic walks? How did your life extend past sourdough bread? Remember, there are looms all around you…. You just have to keep your eyes open.

No More Burned Coats: Thank you, Sun Basket.

For the first 17 years of my marriage I made EVERY bite of food we put in our mouths.  If it wasn’t scrambled eggs with hot dogs, I made it.  It’s ok. I love to cook so I didn’t mind. However, imagine my shock when two years ago Josh decided he wanted to cook.  We both determined that, for the sake of our marriage, I could not teach him.  This is where Sun Basket came in.  Sun Basket is a food prep service that ships the ingredients and instructions for meals. It’s great because we could get meal plans that fit our diet restrictions and Josh could learn his way around a spatula. Yay! I now have three nights a week free, but there was a bonus I was not expecting. 

No more burned coats!

We have scorching summers here in Dallas, as well a few truly cold days in the winter.  When the heat is unbearable, Sun Basket packs their food in shredded denim insulation. I love it because it’s completely recycled and useful for soooooo many things! Green builders even use it to insulate houses. This year I saved all the insulation and stapled it to the attic roof of my art studio.  Spring is a big time of year for exhibitions and I am usually working towards a show in the coldest months of the year.  In the past, I have shivered my way to spring, huddled next to a space heater or standing so close to my kiln that my coat burst into flames. (see fancy coat repair)

This winter, with my new studio insulation, I am completely comfortable. No more blown fuses from over-used space heaters, no more swollen electric bills, and no more coat fires!  I am working long hours getting ready for a solo exhibition at the Firehouse Art Center in Longmont, Colorado and making Bee Cups for the spring rush.  Thank you, Sun Basket, for a warm studio and thoughtful packaging.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The Hideous Project

I give my students subversive assignments. Projects have clearly defined goals, but the path to the finished product is sticky and ambiguous.  Assignments like these are more difficult to teach but they build problem-solving skills and grow buckets of creativity.

One of my favorite assignments to give at the end of the semester is the Hideous Project.  The Hideous assignment truly evaluates students’ understanding of the Elements and Principles of Design. Instead of asking students to make something interesting or to use the elements properly, I force them to misuse the elements of texture, line, and color, while using effective space and shape. 

It’s always the students who think this is an easy assignment who get stumped once they try to execute it. The entire semester they have attempted to use the elements “properly”, but they have never considered that there is a way to misuse them. It’s a total brain f**k!

Students either submit something truly hideous, or they turn in the best work of the semester.

---

Assignment Details

hid·e·ous: ˈhidēəs/  1.ugly or disgusting to look at.

For your final project you will use your knowledge of design to create a project that is hideous (see definition). 

Below are a list of elements or principles that you should use poorly AND a list of elements and principles that you should use effectively.  It should not be “so bad it’s good”.  It should just be “bad”.  You will be graded on your skill to manipulate the elements as instructed to create a work of art that is visually unpleasant to look at.

 Materials: You can use any of the materials in your toolkit or any that we have studied this year.  You may also buy special, hideous, supplies if you choose.

Elements to use effectively:
Space
Shape

Elements to use ineffectively:
Texture
Line
Color

Where is This Going?

Preliminary drawing for the Invasive Species installation at Carneal Simmons Gallery.

The future of clay in the art world.

 Some gallerists and dealers freak out when I say the word, “craft”. In the past it has been whispered in the same way that someone might utter a slur. For many in the art world, “craft” still brings to mind low-concept, high-function objects like a beautifully knitted scarf or tasteful dinnerware. However, the recent deluge of articles in the New York Times, L.A. Times, and countless critical blogs shifts the tone from one of patronizing towards craft, to a chagrined surprise at the discovery of conceptual depth in non-traditional approaches to the craft media.  Who knew, right? 

Historically clay’s significance in the art world has only been elevated when exhibited by non-ceramic artists. For example, I noticed the status of clay changed when Ai Weiwei exhibited Sunflower Seeds at the Tate in 2010. This show, and Ai Weiwei’s grand persona, sent a jolt through the art world, and spawned a wave of ceramic experimentation. Weiwei’s use of porcelain to discuss social change and individuality was poignant precisely because of the preciousness of porcelain in the Chinese culture.  It’s worth noting that Judy Chicago’s brilliant feminist work, The Dinner Party, did not cause a widespread revival in craft among the fine art world.  Is it because the medium was packaged into its usual presentation, despite having a meaty conceptual bite? 

Time will tell if our current love of clay is a fad or if it is another wall that we are shedding in our move toward a globalized community.  Boundaries everywhere are falling, and why shouldn’t the exclusion of craft fall too? 

In the mean time, I have plans for my work.  I don’t want to be a historian of craft, documenting its past in the not-so-vague reference to vessel.  I want my clay to push forward and leave fresh marks of form and surface. I want to see my work hanging from the ceiling and the walls, rejecting the table and pedestal altogether. Most of all, I want to see my thoughts communicated to an audience through whichever medium I choose.

What is Success?

In You We Trust floor installation. Terra Cotta, gold paint

In You we Trust is a collaborative project between Jen Rose and Marian Lefeld where we made 2,000 golden clay medallions to symbolize the 2,000 children trafficked on the streets of Dallas each year.

What is a successful artist?

As a mother, an artist, and a full-time professor I get that nagging feeling so many times.  That feeling that you need to be in the studio but you really should be spending quality time with my family.  Luckily, my daughter is ten so she is able to do most things on her own. I am doubly lucky that I have an incredibly supportive husband and I feel that we truly share the parenting and household duties as equals.  Still, that doesn’t keep me from doubting that I am sacrificing too much motherhood for the sake of art…. Or vice versa. 

Maybe it is that nagging feeling that has made me take on such enormous, socially conscious projects. If I was doing “important work” it would be ok to spend long hours in the studio, right? In the past two years I have completed two major projects requiring literally thousands of art pieces and major community outreach.  One project raised over $25,000 for veterans and the other raised awareness of human trafficking in Dallas, TX.  Both works garnered much media attention and, more importantly, each project was cheered on by my tiny daughter.  I was proud to include her in the making of pieces for both these installations, and when she quickly lost interest in studio work, she assigned herself the duty of “refreshment organizer”.  She made homemade chocolate chip cookies when I had groups of volunteers in the studio and took orders for water and iced tea.  She took flyers about the project to school and told her unsuspecting art teacher about the exhibitions that her mom was doing.

I knew that she enjoyed helping, but it wasn’t until both projects were squared away and we were heavy into the doldrums of school that I realized how much of an impact I had on her.  Stuffed deep into her school backpack I found a practice essay for the standardized test that Texas students must take in the fourth grade.  The topic was, “Write about someone who has used their imagination to make the world a better place.”  She wrote about me.  She wrote about ME.

 There are many ways to measure success as mother/artist but it is difficult to find that sweet spot where it all comes together and balances out.  I found success when my 10-year old girl understood that ideas are currency and art really can change the world.

Invasive Species: New Work by Jen Rose

I am very excited to announce my solo exhibition, Invasive Species, at Carneal Simmons Gallery this spring. I hope you can join me for the opening reception April 7, 5:30-8pm. For the past six months I worked furiously in the studio to prepare over twelve new porcelain installations for this show.  If you follow me on social media you may have seen snapshots of work in progress but I can't wait to unveil the entire exhibition. New experiments include black porcelain, a large-scale mobile with 1,200 porcelain pieces, and experiments with translucency and color.

Studio Visits

Studio Visits

Marian Lefeld and Arienne Lepretre discuss Marian's recent work.

As artists, we spend most of our time alone in the studio with nothing but our tools and our thoughts. Inviting others in who know our language, are interested in the process and can deliver constructive criticism is a way to stand outside ourselves and see our work with fresh eyes.  

This summer I was invited to be a part of a studio critique group with Marian Lefeld, Anna Membreno, and Arienne Lepretre. Once every few weeks a member of our group hosts a critique session in their studio to discuss current work and ideas. The experience has been invaluable to me as an artist and it has energized my studio practice, invited me to entertain other directions for my work, and given me practice speaking about my current work and process. The conversation always begins with the artwork and unfolds into professional practices, current issues in the Dallas creative community, and advice on everything from helpful apps to accounting.  Most recently, we invited John Spriggins to be a guest at the critique to add a new voice to our group.  I look forward to these visits and I’m eager to see how this group of powerful, supported women navigates the Dallas art scene.

There is always coffee and snacks!

John Spriggins and Arienne discuss studio practice.