“What Did Butterflies Remember?”

In “What did Butterflies Remember?”, I have used transformations of butterflies to explore the severity of what we all may be facing….a world where what is left is a carapace of our respective beings. Perhaps the viewer will gain a greater visceral understanding of how the future could be and hence be inspired to prevent our collective demise. That many Earthly species are unwittingly facing extinction is a crisis that only humans can prevent.

While researching the role of the butterfly in folk lore and mythology I came across stories of butterflies said to be able to pass between the world of the living and the world of the dead. They were attributed with being the souls of, or carrying the souls of, the human dead. For me, the next obvious question was, “Do butterflies themselves have souls?” We do, so why not other creatures? (Certainly dogs do!) From that point on it became clear to me that this work is not only about what the butterfly’s soul will remember, but my own as well, as I experience my ultimate metamorphosis.

These images are from an installation project at the A Smith Gallery in Johnson City, TX in 2019. The installation included images printed on fabric, mixed media pieces, as well as a photo book of the graphic extinction of "butterflies".

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