Bonding project

Artist connects people through ‘Trail of Bees’

Sonata Kazimieraitiene’s path to Pompano Beach has followed public art projects from Palm Beach County to Coral Springs to Tamarac, and is a metaphor for her career: a trail of shaped tile, found items, cut glass, and all leading to a specific destination.

In Pompano, that destination is the “Trail of the Honey Bees.” Soon to be under way between the Ali Cultural Center, Bailey Contemporary Arts Studio and the new Pompano Beach Cultural Center, the idea behind the project is to create an artwork that connects the community through artwork and education.

The trail itself is the art work and will be comprised of about 38 mosaics. The works are individually crafted in a workshop, by Kazimieraitiene and four apprentices who are learning a craft about which they know nothing. That answers part of the grant.

The mosaics range in size and feature bees, and the vegetation bees pollinate, and range in style from near-caricatures to Audubon-worthy. Mounted on walls and on the path itself in the sidewalk or hung on a building, the artworks will lead from Ali Cultural Arts west of I-95 to Bailey Contemporary Arts, inviting viewers to participate in a scavenger hunt that leds through the city’s art district.

More of a path than a picture, Pompano’s Trail of Bees is no Ravenna, Italy. But still, the 38 miniature mosaics invite contemplation of the art - and the subject - which was topical in its time.

“When the 10-year master plan was completed and approved in 2015, the honeybees were dying off and we thought it important to educate the community on the importance of honey bees for pollination,’ Kazimieraitiene explained. “The second part of the project is, “Music Leads the Way.”

That part? It’s a year away, when the honey bee part is complete. Located in the Pompano Beach Amphitheater, it is set to begin in October 2018, and will be music-themed mosaics, forming murals in the Pompano Beach Amphitheater — with a third and fourth project to follow.