19 Apr Sunday…with Butterflies

As part of the Brighton Open Houses in May which take place during the time of Brighton Festival I always create a shed installation with a different theme each year.

This year’s theme is ‘Nesting’ and I have collaborated with West Elm to form part of the piece.

It reflects on creating a cozy, safe space to be, held together with found, functional and precious things ( like birds creating nests… ) as well as collections, and colour which have both played a large part in the installation … as have nests and butterflies…

Partly because of this theme I asked one of my guest artists to be Shyama Ruffell  who hand paints and makes beautiful displays of butterflies, beetles and moths in vintage boxes… For part of my own project in the shed, I colour photocopied my vintage cigarette cards and an old poster about local Brighton butterflies which I’d saved from when my son was little… and then cut them out… I then spiked them through with wire and secured them underneath with a twist of the wire… I then secured them to some twigs which are becoming part of the installation…

…and I also played around with them of course!

If you’d like to come and visit the Shed and Open House during May, have a look here  and/or here for more details and there’s also a Steller Story here