Tell me Más! Bee-ing Beto De León
bee-ing & healing by Beto De León, 2021.
Bee for beto, bee for Bonnie / yanaguana, tejas
For this collab, Beto and I envisioned a botanical illustration, a reference guide/handy educational resource in the style of a spread we published in the first issue of El Placazo I coordinated in September 2010 entitled "Edible Plants of South Texas."
In the meantime, though, our dear friends Mona and Tone published a beautiful zine called Immunity with ball-point botanical illustrations, completely serendipitously, so Beto decided to think again, to flow and adapt, and turned the idea upside down.
They crafted bees and wildflowers out of crepe paper, and made an altar-poster on the very petate upon which they married Manuel Davila.
The silver tail flower cutter is the star of the show, a bee that makes its home in South Texas out of flowers.
Beto's sweet offering to the Siempre Verde series is truly a balm on my scorched soul during a time when I could succumb to defeat/rejection.
May this artwork "bee" the balm you need too.
foto: Edgar Xochil / @ecoxicano / 2019.