Sarpedon

1999                Edition of 5      6 x 8 x 1 inches               $900

50 Graphium sarpedon butterflies collected in India during the mid 20th century, with woodcut on the original paper used to store the butterflies. The butterflies are contained in a cigar box.

Graphium sarpedon were purchased in 1990 from the Butterfly Company, Far Rockaway Beach, Long Island as I remember there was a trip on the A train. I had learned about the butterflies from an artist assistant to someone who had purchased 300 butterflies. I went out and bought the remaining 700. Oh, so very strange to hold 700 butterflies from India. The paper they were folded into was German religious text, Hindi, English, French, novels, newspaper and magazine advertisements.

I created a wood cut of the open winged butterfly and printed it onto every sheet of paper containing a folded butterfly The labor-intensive activity of unwrapping, inking the matrix, burnishing the paper with a spoon and then rewrapping each butterfly was gently contemplative.

They were first displayed in 1990 at the Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC where I had a one person show. All 700 butterflies were placed in a coffin shaped box lined with cotton batting and offered to the public. I gave away 400 over the following years before editioning them as a book.

Hass Art Library, Yale University

Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, Alberta