-Busy Bee- still bank c. 20th century

This metal ‘Busy Bee’ still bank – we don’t know who made it, or when, exactly – is a really lovely, humble thing. I imagine it was made industrially, but it has that real handmade feel to it, a touch of the personal. The whole thing is covered in text, little dots, and other graphic elements. I’m picturing the artist, or designer, thinking about how this object might encourage saving. How do you make a virtue visible? I imagine the poem was written by someone who believed in hard work and teaching kids to be frugal – you can picture them at their desk, thinking and writing. You can almost see it as a type of drawing. I love the metaphor of the busy bee as a way to describe saving. This object resonates with the work of other artists who use text and image together, like Jenny Holzer or Kay Rosen. These artists were, or are, also in conversation with the graphic arts, where typography and images merge. It's all one big, inspiring, conversation.