Buckfast Splendor is a reconstructed trade book originally entitled, The Splendor of Love. Beekeeper Kurt Allerslev painted the pages of the book with beeswax, reassembled, and rebound the book. Eliana Pérez, also of a beekeeping family, continued to paint the pages with beeswax over the course of one and a half years, adding lush encaustic paintings of insects, flowers, birds, and beekeepers. Housed in a case of wood, copper, and honeycomb and modeled after a Langstroth beehive, the book is a unique meditation on the practice of beekeeping and the lifestyle that it inspires. The text is from a Sylvia Plath poem entitled, “The Beekeeper’s Daughter“.

9×6”; 28 pages
Book: wax, spices, encaustic paint.
Calligraphy and font design: Eliana Pérez
Box design by Josh Klatt and built by Guillermo Alvarado