About Jode

Jode Roberts is an artist, community builder, writer and perpetual schemer.

For more than a decade, Jode has been developing fun, engaging programs that connect urban residents with nature in their neighbourhoods. He currently works for the David Suzuki Foundation, leading the organizations’ national pollinator programs, including the Butterflyway Project, BIMBY (Bees in My Backyard) citizen science project and oddly successful #gotmilkweed campaign.

He has been creating acrylic, oil and encaustic paintings for almost twenty years. He has exhibited his work in more than a dozen group and solo shows in Toronto.

Jode began learning how to keep honeybees from his father-in-law over twenty years ago. He had rooftop hives in Toronto’s Christie Pits and Little Italy neighbourhoods for several years. Jode has taken a break from urban beekeeping due to new research documenting the dramatic increase in urban honeybee hives and the impact these non-native species are having on wild bees, like the 360+ bee species found in the Toronto-area.

In addition to art, work and honey bees, Jode has also helped initiate a ton of neat community projects, like a lending library for street parties, reimagining city street signage, musical bike parades and scale solar system art projects in city parks.

To get in touch, feel free to email him at joderoberts@gmail.com.

Or you can find out what he’s up to through his periodic Instagram updates.