Butterflies

Butterflies, a universal symbol across cultures for transformation, rebirth, freedom and the soul. I did not know that the Greek word for butterfly is psyche, such is the wonders of these small computers we are now holding all the time. Endless trivia and knowledge….

It seems the right time of year to be launching into butterfly-making. In New Zealand it is the time of the winter solstice and our very special Matariki celebrations. A time for remembrance, celebrating the present and looking to the future, it feels to me like a ‘pause’ before moving on with the year.

Matariki is the Māori name for the Pleiades star cluster meaning' ‘little eyes’ or ‘eyes of the god’, appearing in the midwinter dawn sky. It’s nice to see over the years more midwinter celebrations here in NZ, helped also by a new public holiday celebrating Matariki.

I always feel we miss out a bit on the impact of sparkly lights at Christmas time as it’s the middle of Summer and it doesn’t get dark till about 10.00pm when all the kids are asleep. (I talk about the kids, like I’m pretending I’m not in bed by 9.30 every night). It feels good to be celebrating something with meaning to our country.

We had our own family celebration last weekend, and it was nice just to all be together, we decorated with lights and sparkly things and had a meal and some sparkly activities for the kids. (I do like my sparkly things!)

I am surrounded by Mum’s artwork.

I feel we all did Mum and Dad proud; they both believed family connections were the most important thing in this life. I think of them all the time, I hear Dad’s voice in my head and am surrounded by Mum’s artwork, still miss a good political debate with Dad and a ‘show and tell’ art session with Mum.

I think of all the important people in my life no longer with us, Rose and Bert, grandparents, friends, and how fortunate I have been to have had these people in my life. Continuing to make the time to get together as a family is the best possible way we can honour their legacy as we move into the future.

Loved playing with the metallic paints!

So, the butterflies, I’m a bit limited with what I can do at the moment, with one arm still in a cast, (no good for twisting wire or some of the larger works) so I’ve been upping my butterfly-making techniques, with a view to making larger sculptures out of lots of small pieces.

I loved the idea of magnetic butterflies that could be put on different parts of the sculpture, able to be rearranged in different configurations.

Working small is tricky, I wasn’t blessed with small dainty fingers (got good, capable man-hands), so I just went as small as I could, even with tools you still have to handle them and the clay deforms easily when soft.

Trick for new players when using magnets, make sure you get the polarities right when making your magnetic butterfly stick to its ‘port’ on the main sculpture! Have to come clean and admit I did this more than once and that was while apparently making sure they were in the right way. The magnet idea still requires a bit of thought!

First ‘structure’ with butterflies

At the same time as I’m doing this, I’m re-reading Stephen and Owen King’s ‘sleeping beauties’. It features swirling mobs of moths, so despite being fairly phobic about moths (I dislike the way the smash around uncontrollably inside and you sometimes swallow one-long story), it also gave me this idea of swirling insects. Butterflies though because I’d be charmed by a swirling mob of those gorgeous critters (sorry moths!)

Fantastic book, mysterious and thought-provoking.

Painting them was fun! I just went nuts with the gorgeous metallic paints I’ve got. I’ve tried a couple of bases to put them on, they’re a little busy so something to work on, I wanted them to look as good without butterflies, but with all the butterflies it’s maybe a bit too much.

Colour-wise, I’m in different territory, something that goes with the metallic butterflies but not too colourful itself', as I want the butterflies as the main focus. I tried one green and one in shades of silver. I’ll still play around with the idea a bit maybe I’ll try a really airy structure in a dark colour.

Second attempt, in silver

Much to my disappointment this work actually looked the best with maybe 1-3 butterflies instead of about 6. Sometimes the artwork itself tells you to just settle down and make better decisions!

I hear it now speaking to me…’stupid decision, settle down…less is more’ (Going to be a battle of wills I can see, the artwork hasn’t yet realized I hold the ultimate power as Creator!)

Sometimes I say ‘more is more’

It actually looks best with less.