when i first heard about the butterfly project , i thought it was cool, something that enough other people would probably contribute to. but i couldn't stop thinking about it. so i decided to make something to send to add to the exhibit. really no big deal, right? just me, sending a scrapbook-y butterfly.
then i mentioned it to my friends in the tea club ( our art journal group) and they wanted to make butterflies too, so i brought some stamps and a couple of die cuts. we meet at the church, and that evening we were sharing the downstairs with a potluck supper. the meal was mainly for the work campers who were staying at the church while they helped rebuild from the flood. so a bunch of them wanted to make butterflies too. now it's a lot of butterflies from a lot of people. pretty cool.
here's the poem that sparked the idea for the butterflies:
The Butterfly
The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing
against a white stone....
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ’way up high.
It went away I’m sure
because it wished
to kiss the world good-bye.
For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto.
Pavel Friedman, June 4, 1942
Born in Prague on January 7, 1921.
Deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp on April 26, 1942.
Died in Aushchwitz on September 29, 1944.
here's mine:
check out the link if you want to send one - the exhibit is planned for 2010.
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