Over Coffee® is on hiatus during production of a special-edition episode. Please enjoy this reposting of one of our top episodes of 2024!

This post and podcast are for informational purposes only, and are not intended as healthcare advice. Please contact a medical professional with any health-related questions.

“I wish I was three people,” says artist/worldbuilder and “Bee Queen” Sara “Tink” Mapelli.

“I would love that.”

She’s referencing all the opportunities she sees to create, learn and grow as an artist, both in physical and in immersive space.

Tink is the creator of Artopia, the first artist district in the Multiverse. She’s also a gifted world builder in Meta Horizon Worlds, as well as an artist with her work on exhibit in her home studio in Washington.

And she is a community leader: every Tuesday at 8 am Pacific, she hosts free “Women of Wonder” meetings in VRChat. Attendees explore and learn emerging technologies together.

But she also has a unique creative medium.

As an energy realignment specialist, Tink performs dances with live bees.

The “queen” in her power

With thousands of live bees on her body, she enters a meditative state. Then, she responds to the motion of the bees as she dances for attendees.

She works with each person in the group, sometimes presenting her bees as she focuses on energy realignment.

“I think of bee dance as a duet among many,” Tink says, on her website, of the live performances she has been doing since 2001.

She also sees a real parallel between her bees, pollinating the world, and creatives in the metaverse space, collaboratively creating magic.

“What if that was like a hive?” she asks.

“…Which cell am I going to explore? And then, each one of those has subdivisions, like groups of people doing things together.

“…To me, that’s like the hive mind.”

Tink talked about her creative journey, shared the story of her work as a bee dancer and offered a closer look at her worlds in the Multiverse.

On this edition of Over Coffee® we cover:

• How Tink first realized her calling as an artist;

• A favorite experience, from her growing-up years, that fueled her creativity;

• How Tink came to take her creative talents to the Multiverse;

• Her creative journey, to building immersive worlds;

• A closer look at her world, Tink’s Playground Queendom Hub;

• How she first began dancing with bees;

• Why dancing with bees is “her favorite thing in the world”;

• One unexpected experience she had, during one of her bee dances;

• Why she doesn’t get stung!;

• How she relates “hive mentality” to humans in the metaverse;

• A closer look at some of her Meta Horizon worlds;

• Where to find her art, her worlds and her bee dance videos;

• One of her exhibits, in her virtual gallery;

• Her biggest creative challenge.