Monday, June 20, 2011

The Killing Jars

The "Butterfly Project" is done and dusted. Finito! It was installed today with absolute ease (thanks to some reasonably decent forward planning!) and I am really pleased with how it looks. It is indeed called The Killing Jars - in reference to the jars charged with gas that butterfly collecters have commonly used.


Not the best photo I'm afraid but it gives an overall impresion I guess.

The butterflies have a taxonomy that I created - based loosely on the way butterflies are actually classified in that their names are made up of a family, genus and species. Essentially it reflects the materials they are made of, where that material came from and what it was used for before it was made into a brooch. The family name was taken from the most common family of butterflies found in the region the material originated - so in the UK that would be Lycaenidae. The genus is the material - perhaps aluminium and the species is the what the material was used for - say a beverage can. I translated the genus and species names into Latin American so the result looked something like: Lycaenidae alumina bebida lata. Each butterfly was named using these parameters and labelled accordingly. This was actually a great project to work on - a goodly bit of research was involved so now I am pretty sure I know more about some stuff than I did before I began. That's pretty much always a good thing, right?

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh my goodness, I adore this project! What other names have you designated to your butterflies and what other materials are they made from? Is this an art piece you are selling?gib

Melissa said...

Fabulous!

Lyndel said...

oh I love them, and what a lot of research to make such a stunning art piece. well done you♥

Rustic Tarts said...

You are not just a pretty face. A lot of deep thinking and wonderful creativity there.

ladychiara said...

Just love what you have done with your butterflies and you are so clever to have come up with the names for them!

Ms Kath Pathwalker said...

Wow!! And there it all is! From imagination to fruition... stunning!