After a long walk spent gathering twigs and acorns, Cindy O’Hare’s granddaughter Mayebee needed a nap. O’Hare had the glue and paper all set up, so she started idly arranging twigs into a simple face. She burst out laughing, because the portrait looked just like one of her sons—something about the shape of the face, the eyes… A month later, her second face came: a portrait of her mother, using the flowers from one of her funeral arrangements.
Mayebee had been a very busy baby, so her nickname was Bee, and starting a business had been on O’Hare’s bucket list… so Bee in the Bucket was born.
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You and your mom were close? I lost my father at a very young age, so it was always my mom, and I saw her most every day. It was such a loss. So I just started making face after face. I’d take the walks and have a good cry and pick up leaves or flower petals. I eventually realized I needed to bring a bag, because I was finding things and crushing them in my pocket.
How cool, though, that your new medium was all around you. Once, it had rained, and in the gutter there were all of these pretty little purple petals, like a stream, and here I was crouched on the side of the street and cars going by wondering about me! My husband’s gotten used to me stopping on the way into a restaurant to pick up leaves on the sidewalk. I always have some element of nature in my coat pocket or purse. I’ve gotten to where I carry little scissors, because you never know when you’re gonna find an eyebrow.
Excuse me? See, it’s taken on a whole new aspect. Now, instead of seeing a leaf, I see hair or an eyebrow.
Is that where a portrait begins? Not always. Sometimes I have an idea in mind; sometimes it’s just foliage or the season that gives me the inspiration. That’s been the cool thing, when I don’t know exactly what I’m doing and I start pushing things around on my board and all of a sudden the face just appears. It’s almost like they take on this personality of their own. Oh, there you are!
Hang on. You don’t glue these amazing arrangements in place? I don’t. That’s part of the therapy. I create it, and then I brush it away. I send it back to nature or recycle it; I’m making a small footprint. People always ask me, “Why don’t you glue and sell the original?” But I’m not interested in that. It’s a lot of pressure to make it permanent, and for me, anyway, that was part of the whole healing with my mom, letting it go. I still feel that connection with her when I’m working on projects.
Do you gather all your materials yourself? Some of my neighbors know what I do now, and I’ll come home and find a bag of clippings on my porch. My sister-in-law dropped off a bag one day, and there was a bunch of dried clippings on top and, underneath, different flowers. I put the dried stuff on my board and searched the bag, all excited, and then I stood up, looked at the dried stuff, and thought, “That looks like a nest!” At the time we had two nieces expecting babies, so I decided that instead of a bird I was going to put a baby in the nest. That was my first baby shower invitation.
