Butterflies.
It’s part of my story.
Butterflies have so many significant meanings to different people. But did you know it’s also the national symbol for bereavement? I became painfully aware of this after 8 years of being a special-needs mother and then losing our son to heart disease and a genetic difference called idic-15.
In probably the darkest time of our life, butterflies were also my inspiration to get back to my art again. I’d stopped painting for a few years but became fascinated with butterflies in their natural or almost natural habitat. I would go to butterfly gardens across Florida and take pictures and then come home and create magnified paintings of them up close in all of their brokenness.
Butterflies have such brevity of life and many of them in the Rainforest (Gainesville) and enclosed habitats were extremely battered. I related at the time to that brokenness and that Broken Butterfly paint series ended up selling in a silent auction we held that benefited children’s hospice – Pedscare.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about their meaning and how many people find inspiration in them for getting through a metamorphosis or change in their life.
Whatever the challenges or losses that we all walk through at some time, butterflies offer inspiration.
So in 2025, I decided to incorporate a small, obscure butterfly into each one of my medium to large oil paintings. I’ve gone back through most of the paintings in my studio and to make sure they each contain a hidden, somewhat camouflaged butterfly – not too obscure but enough to search for it. Some may call these Easter eggs. When my second son was little, we thoroughly enjoyed playing I-Spy on the computer and similarly, I found so much joy in painting these butterflies, thinking about the viewers searching for them.
From here on out, any piece that leaves my studio will be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity as well as an explanation of the butterfly, for them to find.
I recently had a viewer on my YouTube channel comment about how special it was that I was keeping Joshua’s memory alive with each butterfly I added to a painting. And although I had not really described it that way, I realized she was right. After all, our lives and experiences become a part of us, and make up who we are as artists today.
You can search for them yourself in an upcoming exhibit at the Jacksonville Airport, main lobby gallery. TAKING FLIGHT features art by Sophie Dare and St. Augustine artist, Martha Ferguson.
Feb 6th – June 30th
Reception TBA
Sophie Dare
info@sophiedare.com
(attached photo is the Kindness Butterfly Mural on Kingsley Ave. sponsored by St. Michael’s Soldiers
A butterfly lights beside us, like a sunbeam…
and for a brief moment
it’s glory and beauty belong to our world…
but then it flies on again, and although
we wish it could have stayed,
we are so thankful to have seen it at all.
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