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30Jun

Curator Corner: ‘Reliquary Series 5: Bald Faced Hornet’ by Eli Betchik

Posted by: CanvasCLE Categories: Artist Features CanvasCLE
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“Reliquary Series 5: Bald Faced Hornet,” Eli Betchik, 2025. Glass, copper, sterling silver, gold, hawthorn wood, bald faced hornets, bald faced hornet nest. 2 feet x 11 inches x 11 inches. Photo courtesy of Eli Betchik

By Lydia Kacala

The Cleveland Institute of Art sees students interested in making a career through art pass through its doors every day. Some are fresh-faced and new to the school, while others are walking out for the very last time to continue putting art into the world on their own terms.

The school will showcase art from former students at its 2025 Alumni Exhibition from June 20 to Aug. 8 at its Reinberger Gallery. In the exhibit, attendees can find “Reliquary Series 5: Bald Faced Hornet,” a mixed-media piece looking at the viewers relationship to beauty, by Eli Betchick, a 2021 graduate and jeweler.

At Reinberger Gallery, Nikki Woods, CIA’s director of exhibitions and galleries, worked with Maria Seda-Reeder, who is serving as the exhibition’s visiting Roulet-Hernandez Family curator, on the exhibit. In an interview with Canvas, Woods speaks about the piece and its impact on the viewer. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Woods

Canvas: What makes this piece noteworthy?

Woods: The combination of art historical reference, stunning craftsmanship and grotesque material – real hornet carcasses – create a compelling work both visually and conceptually. You often see more “desirable” insects – such as butterflies, moths and beetles – used as subjects or inspiration for decorative motif, but here we see a less desirable insect, or pest, elevated to divine reverence. I see this work in dialogue with the Cleveland Institute of Art’s strong lineage for daring craft, and it reminds me of the work of renowned metalsmith and CIA alum William Harper, who also enjoyed the tension of objects that could be both beautiful and grotesque.

What personal response does the artwork evoke?

Woods: I’ve always been fascinated by reliquaries, which are elaborate containers that house the bodily remains – fingers, skulls, fragments of bone – or objects affiliated with important, and often religious, figures. As objects of reverence, these enclosures are beautifully decorated, encrusted with jewels and gilded in gold. Like the medieval reliquaries it references, this work evokes in me a sense of intrigue and revulsion. What does it mean to elevate the hornet to the realm of the divine? What does it say about the nature we choose to preserve and the nature we choose to eliminate because we think it is ugly or disturbing? I think the artist is asking the viewer to examine their relationship to beauty and how that reflects our perception of the world.

How do the mediums used to create the piece influence the viewer’s response?
Woods: The artist’s use of real bald-faced hornets and hornet larvae alongside delicate and fine materials such as glass, gold and silver create a gruesome and refined visceral tension. The hornet’s nest in this context becomes a suspended sculptural artifact, a kind of sarcophagus for the dead hornets that remain. There’s a tenderness to how the object is handled in the artist’s deft hand that I think fosters a sense of empathy within the viewer.

What else can you tell us about the artist?

Woods: A 2021 graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, Eli Betchik is a prolific and thoughtful maker who works out of her Cleveland studio. Much of her work treads similar territory, highlighting the beauty in the otherwise overlooked or undervalued natural world, frequently incorporating found insects, arachnids and other macabre specimens and art historical references.

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20Aug

Curator Corner | “Toe Tag” by Juliellen Byrne

Posted by: CanvasCLE Categories: 5 Questions
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By Becky Raspe

In the right hands, contemporary art can serve to contextualize current events and provide pointed commentary on the world around us. “Toe Tag” – which through the lens of the Iraq War remarks on the toll war takes on communities – demonstrates that Juliellen Byrne’s hands are quite capable in this regard. By combining doll-like heads and praying hands with slips of paper that list the names of people killed during the eight-year war, Byrne explores one of humanity’s oldest dualities – innocence versus violence – while seeking to sculpt viewers’ perspectives along the way.

Kaleigh Pisani-Paige, curator of collections and registrar at the Canton Museum of Art, discusses the piece – part of the museum’s permanent collection – and what can be learned from it.

CANVAS: What makes this piece noteworthy? What should viewers note when they see it at the museum?

Pisani-Paige: What makes this piece particularly noteworthy is the juxtaposition between innocence and violence. Innocence is depicted through the double-ended doll with accompanying hands that are praying –
two very virtuous acts. There is violence, however, shown through the paper “toe tags” that adorn the figure, each of which are covered in the names of soldiers killed in the Iraq War. This juxtaposition is a commentary on sending children off to war and the ultimate price of doing so.

Byrne also notes that praying is sometimes all someone can do when a loved one is sent to war, and the feeling of powerlessness in this act. “Toe Tag” reminds us that every soldier sent to war is someone’s child, and it serves as a mother’s response to war and violence. Another noteworthy fact is the power struggle present in acts of war, with the top, larger head representing those in power whose policies decide the fate of every soldier.

What response or emotions does this piece invoke?

At first glance, this piece comes off as somewhat disturbing. Once you know the meaning of the piece, it evokes sadness, as well as a feeling of hopelessness, once you see the praying hands and the toe tags. It can also read as a call to action, seeing how the list of names and the power struggle between warfare and policymakers has only produced negative results.

What’s noteworthy about the materials used or the process he or she employed for this piece?

The materials used to make this piece were clay, cotton cloth, waxed line and wire-strung paper tags. The use of paper tags, in particular, holds a striking meaning that is crucial to the piece. This material was used to give the impression of price tags, showing that innocent lives are the price of war.

How does it fit into the artist’s larger body of work?

Several years before creating “Toe Tag,” Byrne started an ongoing body of work called “100 Dolls.” She gave herself until she was 100 years old to complete the series, making it an ongoing process. “Toe Tag” is one from the series.”

What was happening at the time that might’ve influenced this piece?

This piece was created during a period of international violence. In 2009, the Iraq War was fully active and hundreds of thousands of (international) troops were being killed in combat.

What makes this piece relevant today?

This piece will remain timeless because of the sons and daughters that will lose their lives in acts of warfare to come. There is also current relevancy in “Toe Tag” due to the political powers that remain in charge of violent acts, and the policies that are enacted to deal with such things. There is also a need for the public to remember the names of those lives lost, as this piece calls for us to do. CV

On View

“Toe Tag”

Artist: Juliellen Byrne

Details: “Toe Tag,” 2009; clay, cotton, waxed line and wire strung paper tags; 45 x 14 x 9 inches. Images courtesy of the Canton Museum of Art.

Acquired: The piece “Toe Tag” was purchased directly from the artist.

Find it: “Toe Tag” is in the museum’s permanent collection and will be on display during the museum’s “Spirit of Clay” exhibition from Aug. 30 to Oct. 20.

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6May

Curator Corner | ‘Snap The Whip’ by Winslow Homer

Posted by: CanvasCLE Categories: 5 Questions
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Most everyone has fond memories of partaking in childhood activities, from reading beloved books to playing outside with friends.

Winslow Homer focuses on the latter in one of his most celebrated paintings, “Snap The Whip,” which depicts a group of boys playing a game by the same name – a game that to this day remains a favorite during elementary school recesses across the country. 

The boys, who are running hand-in-hand in a lush open field in front of a red schoolhouse, are the embodiment of innocence. Not only was such an idealistic depiction welcomed by post-Civil War Americans, it continues to resonate today thanks to the simplicity it portrays and nostalgia it invokes. 

“Snap The Whip” is a highlight of the main collection of The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown. Louis A. Zona, the museum’s executive director and chief curator, shared his thoughts about the
19th century piece.

Canvas: What makes this piece noteworthy? What stands out to you, and what should viewers note when they see it at the museum?

Zona: The painting was painted by Winslow Homer in 1872. He is considered by most historians as America’s greatest 19th century painter, and “Snap The Whip” is considered to be his greatest work.

What response or emotions does this piece invoke?

Zona: Homer was to painting what Mark Twain was to literature. It shows what life was like in America after the Civil War. Homer has captured the wonders of youth at a special moment in time. 

What’s noteworthy about the materials the artist used or process he employed for this piece?

Zona: Homer was a master painter. He utilized traditional material – oil on linen canvas and organic varnish.

How does this piece fit into the artist’s larger body of work? Where was he in his career when this piece was created?

Zona: Homer was born in 1836 and died in 1910. “Snap The Whip” was painted by him at mid-career in 1872. He was much celebrated in his lifetime as America’s greatest artist throughout his career and after.

What was happening in the art world – or the world in general – at the time that might’ve influenced this piece?

Zona: America had just lived through a horrible Civil War. “Snap The Whip” is what post-war serenity looked like. Even during the war, Homer presented a picture of what was happening on the home front while the war raged on.

Along those lines, how might this piece have influenced or inspired other artists after they saw it?

Zona: Homer was considered to be America’s premier painter in his lifetime. Artists were drawn to his work – then and now. He was a great influence on the art of his day and present day.

What makes this piece relevant today?

Zona: It shows great art is timeless. It speaks of universal concepts we all can relate to.

Anything else you’d like to mention about this piece?

Zona: “Snap The Whip” is the centerpiece of a collection which is considered one of America’s premier collections of American art. 

Compiled by Becky Raspe

On View

“Snap The Whip”

Artist: Winslow Homer (1836-1910)

Details: “Snap The Whip,” 1872; oil on canvas; 22 x 36 inches; signed, lower right. Image courtesy of The Butler Institute of American Art.

Acquired: Purchased by the museum’s founder Joseph G. Butler Jr. in 1919 and is part of the museum’s main collection.

Find it: “Snap The Whip” hangs in The Butler’s Cushwa Gallery on a wall featuring the museum’s late 19th century “genre” works.

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