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catalytic, sincere energy can galvanize followers. The couple and their teenage daughter, Minerva, live in a turn-of-thecentury cottage on the property that adjoins the studios. Lemesoff, who also serves as cultural and arts advisor for Hive, owns Montrose watering hole and events space AvantGarden, housed in a charming Arts & Crafts bungalow. Until now, Topchy's complex has been largely private, and few even in the art world have been invited in; it's been reserved for meetings with a handful of board members and true believers in the artist's aforementioned utopian, grandest vision yet — Hive. But, with this article, change is in the air. "It takes a village to raise a village," he says. He now has a dozenplus years invested in this art enclave, which birthed the DNA for Hive, a $25 million nonprofit project involving 44 shipping containers at its perimeter, surrounding an inner stacked beehive of 148 containers, as well as an alfresco amphitheater sited on the side. The entire encampment will serve as live-work spaces, community gardens, crafts markets and more. Plans call for a three-phase roll out once the ideal near-downtown 10acre lot is identified and acquired. Si Dang, principal of Andria Design, and Hive board member, serves as architect. "People have done a lot less with $25 million," Topchy says of his ambitious dream. For more buzz on Hive, to donate or participate, visit hivehouston.org. OPENING PAGE, FROM TOP: The artist surveys his kingdom, gazing across a pond whose water lilies rival Giverny. "We needed to work on our next place, or I didn't want to stay in Houston," says Topchy of the closure of TemplO. Topchy's Eightness, a hypnotic pigment/wax resist on canvas from around 2010. Shown in the "Archetapas-Gastronanza" service trailer. "The table is for serving the gelatins edible corpus," the artist notes of a future artplus-food endeavor. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The artist contemplates his next move in one of two intimate studios that are home to icon production (an ongoing series of paintings showcasing Houston's visual community) and the Ukrainian art form of pysanky, which the artist is transforming from Easter eggs to edible gelatins thanks to an Idea Fund/Warhol Foundation Grant for "Archetapas-Gastronanza," a collaborative art-and-culinary project with Houston toque Robert Rosenberg (aka Chef Bob). Minuscule brushes and a litany of symbols are tools in stock for pysanky painting; Topchy's exhibited his exquisite revival of this Ukrainian tradition in a solo at the Galveston Arts Center in 2008 and internationally at the Ivan Honchar Museum, Kiev, in 2011. An orb, painted the same ethereal shade as Yves Klein Blue, hovers in a tree at the front of the property, a sign that this is an artist's abode and something big is up. Pigments readied for a future icon or egg. NEXT PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: In studio, eggs to icons evoke Topchy's Ukrainian heritage, which he raids for his richly layered contemporary practice. The vaulting and simple white-plaster walls suggest an Italian medieval ossuary for saints' bones. "It's bubbling up from the Collective Unconscious. Mystery is embraced, not explained," he says. "Geometry is always a guiding principle." Future icon subjects from the pantheon of Houston artists, curators, collectors and gallerists, including, shown in the photograph (upper left), dealer David Shelton. A fleet of soft-soled shoes stands guard inside the studio. Our protagonist in traditional Ukrainian garb, a nod to his paternal roots. The artist's icons of important Houston art-world personages were first shown in a one-night-only exhibition, "Iconic Portrait Strand," at Geo. H. Lewis & Sons Funeral Directors in September 2010. This May, Topchy continued the tradition at Geo. H. Lewis & Sons with "Incorpus Articum." Center row, fourth from left, Walter Hopps, founding Menil director. The cupola-topped Chapel occupies a remote nook in the yard, adjoining the water lily-filled fish pond. It was a repurposed structure from the original TemplO complex, circa 1998-2000. (The mythic Zocalo/TemplO existed in the West End from 1989 to 2001, co-founded by Topchy with fellow creatives Rick Lowe, Dean Ruck and Jim Pirtle.) "Hive is … a living work of art, a self-sustaining village and an environmental action." SEPTEMBER | PAGE 40 | 2013