All Her Stories
This is for Sonya. Inspired by the tales of a certain author, this piece is primarily formed of the wings of several common butterflies local to the area in which I live, as well as the whole body of a butterfly that I found in the weeds below the bird-bath in the front garden. Varnished onto iridescent slate and the vertebrae of a deer, the wings reflect the light which has created a glare in the scan that does not exist in the original. The background of the piece has been painted copper with iridescent highlights and several bones that resemble wings have been affixed to it or to the stone itself. The frame has been painted with black enamel and protectively surrounds the elements of the work. It measures 8 inches high by 6 inches wide. In the details are the wings and face of the butterflies that decorate the piece. No creatures were harmed in the making of this art—all were found as is either in the thin forest by the lake or in the artist's garden. The back has been titled, signed and dated by the artist and includes the vignette, All Her Stories. Words land with a delicate touch upon our fingertips, they raise our earthen feet up from the ground, and lift us out of our brittle shells. We, who lay in the chrysalis of our somnolent stupor, are broken open on the edges of her prose. She offers transformation: clay into flesh, flesh into spirit, the metamorphic powers of love, and we who seek that highest peak will find it hiding in between the sentences that lay like gossamer upon our skin. They sing and swirl and weave us in their spell; all her iridescent stories shine like the wings of one hundred butterflies, that flutter round, that daze and dazzle and illuminate our darkest day. Private Collection
