![The New Queen Bee of The Upstate Hive](https://lakevillejournal.com/media-library/alysia-mazzella-self-portrait.jpg?id=50873387&width=980&quality=90)
Alysia Mazzella Self portrait
Alysia Mazzella creates beeswax candles that are not just sources of light but symbols of harmony and remembrance, steeped in regenerative practices and deeply rooted in the ancient wisdom of the sun’s cycles.
“It’s really about the sun,” Mazzella explained. “I look back to Ancient Egypt a lot. They were sun worship people, and they had a great relationship with the honeybee, which is very well documented,” she continues. “They believed that the honeybee was born from the tears of the sun god, which I think is just the most amazing poetry.”
Mazzella infuses the work she creates with this poetry by bringing a reverence for tradition, warmth, a life force, and a sense of mystery to the entire process.
“Electricity is so new,” she said. “As people, we’ve been in a relationship with fire for longer than anything. I think that’s why a deep remembrance happens when people light a candle.” Compared to the disruptive blue light of modern devices, Mazzella explains that beeswax burns on the same spectrum as the sun. She says, “Because of its golden inherent color and vibrancy, it’s actually luminous, unlike a blue light. So, it has a different effect.”
Mazzella’s journey in beekeeping shifted as her consciousness about the history of the practice grew. She started out buying her beeswax online and when she switched to buying locally from beekeepers in New York State, she quickly noticed a homogeneity in who was providing the product. She shared, “As a person of color, I just noticed that everyone was an older, straight, white man. Like every single one, which makes sense because beekeeping arrived in America through colonizers.”
Until recently, it was commonly believed that the honeybee (genus Apis) did not exist on this continent until 1622 when the colonists brought it over on ships from Europe. In 2009, a single fossil was found in west-central Nevada of a female worker of the extinct honeybee Apis nearactica and dates back 14 million years.
“So humans have always been beekeeping on every continent, but it wasn’t called beekeeping,” Mazzella explained. “It was called hunting because they were wild. The mentality of colonizing is that you keep things, you contain things, and then those things are turned into an economy.”
Mazzella decided that to be in a relationship with the honeybees, she needed to learn to be a beekeeper herself and educate other BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). The land she owns in Onadilla, N.Y., called “Backland,” is now entering its third year as an educational apiary whose mission is to establish a new generation of BIPOC beekeepers in New York State. Said Mazzella, “I wanted to be in a relationship with them because I’m taking so much from them. I didn’t feel the relationship was going the other way—what was I offering them? What was I giving them? So I started to study, and I studied for a very long time, which I recommend for anyone who wants to be a beekeeper.” Because of this deepening understanding, Mazzella approaches the bees with healthy reverence. “I was scared at first. It’s intimidating. They’re loud. They’ll headbutt you. But now I can go into the hive totally unprotected, and I feel confident doing it.” Mazzella explained that the bees are more aggressive when they’re missing a queen or if they have more honey to protect, but since the hives she keeps are for educational purposes, she doesn’t harvest the honey. Instead, she mostly leaves it for the bees, a regenerative approach that has kept her production small-scale. “You get about 1 pound of beeswax to 8 pounds of honey,” she explained, “and in one season, if you’re harvesting ethically (which is half for you, half for the bees), you might get 60 pounds of honey.” She estimates that she’d need to keep over 300 hives to harvest the amount of wax she needs for her production. “I am not sure I’ll ever provide my own beeswax,” she continued. “I’d like to scale up and turn [Blackland] into an educational, live/work situation where local people can be employed. I want to grow the education scale.” This conscious consumption and environmental responsibility are at the forefront of her work.
One can tell the care that goes into her creations. Each candle, whether inspired by Japanese tea ceremonies or Mexican prayer rituals, represents a measure of time and can be used for mindfulness. She contrasts her beeswax candles, the longest-burning and cleanest type, with soy candles, critiquing the unsustainable agricultural practices associated with soy cultivation. “Soy is an amazing, beautiful plant, but it’s how it’s grown. The thing is, it’s so nutritious that it sucks everything from the soil. So when you grow it as a mono-crop for like acres and acres, it essentially depletes the soil, which takes away the cover crops, causes soil degradation, and releases CO2. The most major source of CO2 that has happened in the shortest amount of time has been from farming.” In contrast, said Mazzella, beeswax is seasonal and limited, clean burning, and long-lasting. “I think people can really tell the difference.”
“I think it goes back to the sun again,” said Mazzella, “because it’s all about timekeeping, really. Lighting a candle to set a moment.”
Alysia Mazzella’s commitment to sustainability, education, and inclusivity is creating a path for future generations to follow in an ancient, yet ever-relevant craft. She adds this about her relationship with the honeybee:
“I get stung pretty bad in the Spring because at the beginning of the season, I am sloppy and I forget and make mistakes. But when that happens, I think about it as medicine. I just feel like if you put yourself in the ecosystem, you’re going to get the medicine.”
Abstract art display in Wassaic for Upstate Art Weekend, July 18-21.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene from the Amenia garden tour.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else.
I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.