Buccaneers Of Buzz

My illustrations were mostly created for books, newspapers and magazines. This picture, done for my own amusement, is the only one I created for a poem. I remember reading this short work by Emily Dickinson where she compared bees to pirates; it was so fun and lighthearted, so visual, that I couldn’t resist picking up my brushes to see what I could do with it.

When I look at the results I feel like a kid again. I’m transported back to long summer days, lazy afternoons awash in humidity and pesky buzzing bees, the type of day a kid could curl lips around the hot nozzle of a garden hose and gorge on cold water and limitless well-being. These were perfect days to dream about gold doubloons and pirates on the Spanish Main.

I hope my illustration makes you feel like a kid again, if only for a moment:

Buccaneers of Buzz

Bees are Black,

With Gilt Surcingles

Buccaneers of Buzz.

Ride abroad in ostentation

And subsist on Fuzz.

—Emily Dickinson—

P.S. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you will find bee motifs hidden throughout this picture.

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Stephen - The Chubby Chatterbox

Visit Stephen Hayes’ blog Chubby Chatterbox for excerpts from Hayes’ memoir The Kid in the Kaleidoscope, a collection of observations about growing up in the Fifties, Sixties and beyond. The Chubby Chatterbox is an unabashedly sentimental journey seen through the eyes of an artist, traveler and world-class screw-up.

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