Greensboro may not have its own giant troll, but there’s another, more futuristic, large-scale friend gracing the city.
In February, the city unveiled “May-Bee & The Bot (in the uncanny valley)”, a 24-foot, steel robot (and little bee!) off West Market Street along the Downtown Greenway. This week, we caught up with its maker, Pete Beeman, an artist from Portland, OR, about the bot’s origins and lore.
On April 12, there will be a dedication of the installation as well as a celebration of technology and art on Greensboro College’s campus.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me briefly about your story as an artist. How and when did you get into visual art?
My father was an engineer, my mother an artist. She taught me woodworking as a kid and an appreciation of aesthetics my whole life. It wasn’t until my second year of college when I took an intro art class and realized how much I loved it, how important it is to me.
When and why did you start making large-scale sculptures?
I am 6’8” tall and have been since about sophomore year in high school. But I am a nice guy, pretty sensitive to people around me. I found my whole life, I have sort of dialed my size back to not intimidate people around me. I think I find camaraderie in large things, but also a way to express myself more aggressively or invasively than I ever would in human interaction.
What is your connection to Greensboro? How did you come to make the sculpture here?
I look for work everywhere, and somehow my work seems to click in North Carolina. I also have pieces in Raleigh, Charlotte, and the zoo in Asheboro.
I was shortlisted on a Greensboro Greenway project 10 or 12 years back and thought highly of the folks that have been making the greenway happen, of what it adds to the city. So when I did not get that project, I stayed in touch and kept my eyes out for another opportunity. Here we are.
How did you come up with the idea for “May-Bee & The Bot?”
I built a giant wasp on a 20-foot-tall microscope a few years back in Oregon. The selection panel enjoyed that piece, so I started looking at what insects would live in Greensboro on that stretch of the Greenway.
I locked on the honey bee, North Carolina’s state insect. I started thinking of the honey bee as a great representative of our natural environment. A simple, innocuous critter, without which our plants would not get pollinated. I think keeping our environment healthy is one of the greatest issues we face as humans.
So my immediate thought was, well, what else am I worried about? That landed me quickly on tech and AI. I wanted a whimsical, light way to bring that in, not a heavy, dark way, and I thought a retro ‘50s robot was the perfect emblem of tech and AI.
What does the title say about the work?
Honey bee wings are preposterously small, mechanically complex. There are four that lock in to act as two to fly, but are not very visually interesting. So I stole wings from another critter that would live at the site along that stretch of greenway—the mayfly, an ugly bug with gorgeous wings. Hence May-bee, to acknowledge bee and mayfly, but also to make it a question, point to the uneasy state of existence.
The final bit [in the uncanny valley] is a gesture to how uneasy I am about the environment and AI/tech. The uncanny valley is a robotics term referring to the unease people can feel as robots become more and more human and real. So it was sort of a comical way to point at my very real unease with the topics.
How long did it take you to make the bot?
About a year start to finish, but only four months of actually building with my awesome crew. Design, engineering, coordination, and waiting take the rest of the time.
What was the most difficult part?
The main body of the bee, the segment that the wings mount on! It is hammered bronze, and I thought we could force it to the shape we needed, like we did the head and back segments, but it wore three of us out, hammering endlessly for bad results. I finally changed the plan, designed a stainless inside frame, then fit smaller bronze bits to that form. So much better.
The most fun part?
I love following the thread from a lousy sketch in my notebook to CAD plans to engineering, ordering laser-cut parts, getting cones and cylinders rolled, prepping, welding finishing, assembling, mechanizing, lighting, powering. The final step is installation, which was the most satisfying and enjoyable part (it often is), but it is only so powerful because it is built on all that came before.
How does the work fit into the larger landscape of your portfolio/other works?
Nicely. I have a lot of work with human-powered cranks, as this has (to flap the wings). For many years, I have made quick, rough humanoid figures out of metal scraps and given them to friends at parties. This robot is very much a full-scale one of those, modelled partly on one I made my older daughter for her 18th birthday. She and her sister were on the crew building and installing this project.
What do you want people to take away from the work when they see it in person?
A smile. I think about a lot of things when building sculpture, but my hope is that it offers something surprising to a new viewer, something they didn’t expect to find on their drive into Greensboro, something they can wrap their own meanings around, and maybe cracks them up a little bit.