My Grandfather passed away when I was in eighth grade. The day of his funeral, I had a track meet, I was on a relay so I had to leave the funeral and go straight to the meet. I thought a lot about the service on the drive to the meet. I thought about how my mother lost a father, how my grandmother lost a husband, and I thought about how my siblings were handling loosing a grandparent for the first time. I got to the track meet at the same time my relay was about to start, I hopped on the track and within a minute it was my turn to race. I grabbed the baton from the girl before me and as I started my run around the track, I noticed a butterfly just ahead of me. My grandfather loved butterflies and that is how my grandmother chose to memorialize him since his death. As I continued around the track, the butterfly began leading me. The butterfly flew the whole way around the track, and nearly crossed the finish line with me.
As I was reflecting on this story recently, I realized my interest in art directly coincided with the importance of butterflies in my life. I started to become seriously interested in the art field when I was in eighth grade. The same time my grandfather passed, the first major death within my close family. Even though butterflies had not appeared visually in my artwork until college, I have always had a firm connection to them. My art practice has always been connected to my family, I had never realized just how strongly.
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