"Hornets" was inspired by a wonderful nest my mom found at a remote window in her house. It was not a problem so she left it where it was. It was not a hornets' nest but that of a rare small wood wasp species. Nevertheless the colours and the way they built their nest was reminiscent of that hornets build.
You will soon understand why I try to break a stone for these wonderful insects. The silk scroll is an hommage to an insect which has a very bad reputation due to many myths which need to be rectified. Exaggerated stories of hornet attacks and the effect of their stings such as "seven hornet stings kill a horse, three an adult and two a child" simply belong to the world of fairy tales. Such myths which exist for generations have led to the hornet becoming an endangered species in many areas of Central Europe, due to merciless human pursuit.
Hornets belong to the most useful insects at all. While most people seem to be afraid of them because of misinformation there is absolutely not need for this. Bees and wasps can be much more dangerous and aggressive. Hornets are peaceful insects as long as one doesn't behave like an idiot and tries to remove their nests. When you have a hornet nest in your garden you should call yourself a lucky person because then you won't have any problems with wasps and other stinging insects such as moskitos and gadflies.
They buzz - this is probably making people nervous. But you should not be. It's a sound that is much more peaceful than the angry barking of your neighbour's dog. Hornets will not attack you and try to eat the jam on your roll or dirsturb your coffee party - they do not eat sugar or other artificial sweets.
Hornets are incredible architects. They build their little palaces with a craftmanship and esthetics that hardly can be compared to anything else from the world of insects. They are real interior designers.
These decorative scrolls are reminiscent of ancient Chinese or Japanese scroll paintings, their construction though is completely different and has been developed by myself.
While traditional Japanese and Chinese silk scrolls are made from very thin painted silk, that is glued to paper which again is normally covered by patterned silk, my scrolls consist of 3 layers of fabric and no paper at all.
The middle piece is constructed like a quilt with a layer of very thin batting between the top layer which is the painted silk and the back. Headpiece and footpiece are normally made from silk as well, which has been fused to a thin layer of rayon fabric.
Different from the Chinese and Japanese painting scrolls where the dowels are glued to the paintings themselves I have created something different: the fabric has been sewn to the back in order to form a little sleeve so that the dowel can be pushed in but also removed again. This gives more freedom in regard of hanging this scroll. Thus it is also possible to mount it on stretcher bars instead without damaging the painting.
©Petra Voegtle
And the fine art prints could look like this:
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