small copper, butterfly painting

Credit for the photo reference I used for the butterfly goes to my new friend Jay who has the most amazing photo's of insects, as well as a very informative site about biodiversity .

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a strange little story... well here it is. I'd been trying for weeks to get a good shot of a 'small copper' or a 'bog copper' the little devils had just about stripped my cranberries, and I thought the lest they could do was pose for me, but no, no matter how stealthy I was as soon as I got in camera range, off they would flit.

So plan 'b', find a good pic on the i-net and plead for permission to use it. I found an awesome site and e:mailed the photographer, who is of course Jay. As it turns out he lives in London not far from where I grew up, and just a few minutes from where I live now. Now how's that for a small small world, especially considering the vastness of the Internet.

The painting is called 'a little copper' it's 8x10, and uses found metals and metallic paints.

It is representative of the fragility of nature, compared to and being devoured by, our manufactured world. The pennies first of all, are copper, and a play on the butterfly's name, and secondly a statement that 'it's all about the money' the map symbols in the lower right corner are for boggy ground, the bog copper's habitat. While we are learning, and are not draining wet lands, in particular bogs, at the rate we were, they are still in a precarious situation. London's Sifton Bog is an example. Even though it is a protected area, the area around it is not, and recent construction has caused concern.