Join us for an afternoon celebrating the fascinating world of insects! 🐜 🐞🐛
The Insect Films: A Film Screening & Workshop with Amanda Besl @amandabesl
May 16, 2026 1:00pm — 2:30pm
Free with Gallery Admission
This program begins with a screening of three insect-themed short films by filmmaker Amanda Besl, followed by a guided tour of the new Charles Burchfield exhibition, A Vast, tiny World, led by Burchfield scholar Nancy Weekly. @weeklyns
The afternoon concludes with a drop-in insect workshop led by Amanda Besl.
Ant Girl (3:00) 2025
Kissing the Lipless (4:30) 2025
Trilobite (7:00-7:30) (April 2026)
Visit our website for details about this upcoming event and exhibition!
A VAST, tiny WORLD
Burchfield’s Insects & Spiders
Upcoming
May 8, 2026 - Sep 27, 2026
Have you ever imagined being so tiny that you could live among flowers as tall as trees and converse with miniscule creatures now the size of companions? 🪲
Join us at May M&T Second Friday, happening May 8, 2026 from 5:30pm - 8:00pm to welcome in the new and lively exhibition of works from Charles E. Burchfield and Western New York artists, A VAST, tiny WORLD.
In Burchfield’s art, oversized cicadas rattle metallically, crickets fiddle in the grass, and humming mosquitoes sting maddeningly. Cecropia Moths provide an air of mystery to summer nights, and fireflies are “the most beautiful things of the evening.” In his arachnid world, a golden-orb spider weaves a glistening web that captures “drops of sunlight” that glide on gossamer. These windows onto a microcosmic world guide us to appreciate a world for which many of us are blind. His art hones personal observational abilities.
In this new exhibition, the artworks were drawn from the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s substantial art collection and archives and lent from private collections. They offer a glimpse into the artist’s fascination with some of the smallest creatures in the immense ecosystem we inhabit. Through his inventiveness, Burchfield is our nature guide. In addition, a few works by Western New York artists provide alternative views. Specimens and soundtracks of distinctive “insect songs” add to the verisimilitude and learning opportunities.
A VAST, tiny WORLD: Burchfield’s Insects and Spiders was curated by Burchfield Scholar Nancy Weekly @weeklyns and is presented through the generosity of the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation. For their meaningful support in memory of Harriet and Mortimer Spiller, we gratefully acknowledge Lora Spiller, Jill Spiller Underwood, and Harley Spiller. Our heartfelt appreciation, also, to Mrs. John Kociela, for her generous support.
This afternoon at CAM, we gathered for a powerful and deeply personal conversation.
CAM Meets: Women Who Shaped the Arts brought together Nancy Weekly (@weeklyns ) and Chantal Calato (@chantal_calato ) for an intimate program that was both scholarly and profoundly human. Nancy delivered a brilliant overview of women in the arts, grounding her reflections in Western New York history and personal stories that reminded us how deeply connected art and place can be.
Chantal spoke with extraordinary honesty about her own path — the triumphs and the hardships, the good and the difficult — offering a moving glimpse into what it truly means to build a life in the arts. Her vulnerability filled the room.
The audience responded in kind, asking thoughtful, engaged questions that carried the conversation forward. It was a reminder that while Women’s History Month gives us a dedicated moment to reflect, the work and legacy of women in the arts deserve celebration every single day.
We are deeply grateful to Nancy and Chantal for their generosity — and to everyone who joined us and made the afternoon so meaningful.
You can experience Chantal Calato’s work in our current exhibition, Human/Nature: Envisioning the Environment, on view now at CAM. Join us for the Opening Reception on April 9 from 5–7 p.m. (Members Preview 4:30 p.m.) as we continue the conversation.
#CAMMeets #WomensHistoryMonth #HumanNatureCAM #CastellaniArtMuseum
The Grammar of Animacy: Charles E. Burchfield and Mike Glier, November, 2024-February, 2025. Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo NY.
THE END
#burchfieldpenneyartcenter #anthropoceneart #intergenerationalart #contemporarylandscapepainting #burchfield #paintinginstallation @downingyudain@weeklyns@schoelkopfgallery
16. Critical and Celebratory approaches to representing landscape. Early Spring / Doe Inhaling Spring.
MG: …I want to be a part of a legion of people who publicly reject the notion that we have dominion over the earth and all its creatures and replace it with stewardship. I’m always debating with myself about how to support this change in thinking. Is it best to be confrontational and report on abuses, or is it more effective to be celebratory and provide a sense of hope?
NW: Scathing critiques can be effectively dramatic. Burchfield revealed the destructive magnitude of hellish coke smelting and other polluting industries in Ohio as a young man. After he moved to Buffalo, he created some works about the massive steel industry along the Buffalo River. Black Iron (1935), showing mammoth counterweight bridges over the contaminated Buffalo River, is widely considered the best work of his middle years. “I wanted it to look completely hard-boiled and uncompromising, he said in a Smithsonian interview, “ the water itself looked as though it might be liquid iron. It was black and oily and shiny....” But I would argue that Burchfield’s transcendental paintings of his later years are the most inspirational. He wanted people to revere Nature with a capital N. His way of expressing the complexities sometimes tapped his synesthesia—bringing sensory experiences on multiple levels into a visual language. It’s what we notice in his “grammar of animacy.” If people would only pay attention to how beautiful even the smallest detail can be, they might work harder to oppose industrialization and senseless destruction and try to preserve the landscape.
MG: Do you think Burchfield’s approach to representing the natural world was political?
NW: Yes. Political in the same sense as your politics of concern and engagement. Many of us have quoted his famous creed: “An artist must paint not what he sees in Nature, but what is there. To do so, he must invent symbols, which, if properly used, make his work seem even more real than what is in front of him. He does not try to bypass Nature; his work is superior to Nature’s surface appearances, but not to its basic laws.” Text continued comment
Just saw a 36-minute preview of parts of the 2-part, 4-hour documentary “Inside the Mind of a Genius: Leonardo da Vinci,” a film by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon. It was fantastic, and just a taste of how creative the entire documentary will be. It premieres on November 18 & 19 on PBS. The screening was followed by a panel discussion with McMahon & people from different disciplines in Buffalo.
