Original Mineral Earth Painting of Bees and Flowers [SOLD]

Pablita Velarde must have been inspired one spring morning seeing bees pollinating the flowers around her home and then decided to record the event in one of her traditional earth mineral paintings, which took considerable longer for her to prepare than for the bees to do their job.

Velarde is very well known for her career of painting with paints that she made herself by grinding mineral elements on a metate using a mano.  Of course, metates and manos have traditionally been used for grinding corn into a fine powdery meal. Velarde used the process for making very fine powdery pigments which she then mixed with glue and applied to a hard surface for making a painting.  She often had to apply as many of 10 coats of paint to achieve the consistency she desired.

She went beyond what was necessary to make a painting.  It would have been so much easier for her to buy commercial paints, as other Native artists were doing, but she chose to make her own, a very laborious process that certainly increased the time for executing a painting.  Only a truly dedicated artist would do so and she was dedicated to her chosen career.

Condition:  original condition and original frame

Recommended Reading:  Southwest Indian Painting: A Changing Art by Clara Lee Tanner