On the Feminine Side : Nancy Macko’s multimedia show brings together images of goddesses and honeybees. It blends female spirituality with the potency of nature.

When the Brand Library Art Galleries agreed to give Nancy Macko a solo show about three years ago, she decided she would do something different.

Rather than attempt to fill the large main gallery with her two-dimensional prints and collages that garnered her a spot on Brand’s schedule, the professor of art and director of the computer art program at Scripps College “started thinking about getting off the wall, of doing an installation. It seemed so freeing and involving,” she said. Macko asked herself, “If I could do what I really wanted to do, what would it be?”

Her answer was to create an ancient matriarchal temple within a modern context. Integrating her artistic skills with some research on women of the Bible, pre-biblical goddesses and honeybee society, she has abundantly fulfilled that goal in the “Dance of the Melissae.”

Melissae is the plural of Melissa, the Greek word for bee. In Macko’s multimedia installation, her handmade and computer-generated artwork brings together images of the honeybee society--including queen bees, bee priestesses, the natural hexagonal form of the honeycomb and the molecular structure of glucose--with abstractions of mythological goddesses.

“For Macko, the goddess symbolizes a female-centered spirituality and the bee society represents the feminine potency of nature,” writes Mary Davis MacNaughton, director of Scripps College’s Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery.

“Her temple-like space refers to an ancient polytheistic world before male gods overthrew female goddesses, when nature and spirituality were joined. Her honeycomb is a metaphor of connection; it reminds us that we are part of nature, and not its master.

“Macko’s work also suggests that science and art are linked though human imagination, for science, like art, not only observes the world but re-envisions it.”

The exhibit consists of eight sections. On one end of the gallery is the “Honeycomb Wall” of 100 wood panels containing objects related to honeybees, references to the geometry and chemistry of honey as well as printed images from linoleum blocks and Cibachrome prints of computer-generated images.

Some of the panels have been treated with beeswax. Among the images are text statements such as “Pythagoreans worshiped bees as sacred creatures of Aphrodite” and “Honey was a symbol of resurrection.”

At the center, beneath the skylight, is “Aphrodite’s Lattice,” a 12-by-12-foot hexagonal floor piece made of wax and lead. At its center is an elongated vase filled with honeycombs and computer chips.

At the other end of the gallery stands the “Stations of the Goddess,” 11 thought-provoking displays made of various objects and perched on pedestals. Although they make reference to the Stations of the Cross, “they are not about guilt and forgiveness,” Macko said. “They’re about life.”

Sly humor beams from such stations as “Fertility/Fecundity,” in which round plastic-like beads mingle with similarly shaped contraceptive devices. In “Nurturance,” plastic baby bottles are filled with honey, but sport well known soda pop names. “daughters” contains Macko’s first pair of dress shoes and a photograph of her at age 3 wearing them. They rest on a mirror that reveals, in words, her own sexual awareness.

Next to the stations is the “Vestments of a Bee Priestess,” including a coral silk cocktail dress that belonged to her grandmother and a traditional beekeeper’s helmet. One can see pictures of Macko in the outfit on the “Honeycomb Wall.”

Macko has also adapted to the gallery walls ancient cave drawings that recall early honey hunters and gatherers. Her fascination with honey comes from, among other things, the fact that it “has been around since the beginning of time, that it was the only sweetener and that the first alcohol came from honey. It was integrated with sexuality and sensuousness,” she said.

Enhancing her sensuous visual environment are the sounds of a cappella tap dancing, the humming of bees, chants of Tibetan nuns and other rhythmic sounds, which emanate from a continuous audio track. The smells of beeswax, coriander and lavender also permeate the gallery.

Macko said she is “offering an alternative vision” to the societal structure that has governed our lives since at least biblical times, but “it doesn’t have to be set in stone.” Her creation is just that: a personal rather than doctrinaire view of anything past or present. Also in the gallery are pastels by Nancy Popenoe. Among them are several evocative, almost surrealistic night scenes of Los Angeles area bungalows, corner cafes, liquor stores and familiar dives. The hot light within these energetic scenes draws one into the pictures, making one wonder what is going on inside.

Where and When What: “Nancy Macko: Dance of the Melissae” and “Nancy Popenoe: Pastels.” Location: Brand Library Art Galleries, 1601 W. Mountain St., Glendale. Hours: 1 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays, and 1 to 5 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Ends Feb. 22. Call: (818) 548-2050. Also: Lecture by Nancy Macko at 2 p.m. Saturday in the gallery.