Bridgette Guerzon Mills | Tender Passages, encaustic mixed media 7×5 inches
Tender Passages was started in my encaustic workshop back in November, but it wasn’t a demo. One of the women in my class had brought butterfly wings. She showed me her collection and my I was like, wow, that’s an enormous amount of butterfly wings! She told me that a praying mantis had smartly made a bush in her yard its home, which apparently attracted butterflies, which then would become its breakfast, lunch, dinner and plenty of snacks. She said she would come out there every morning and all that would be on the ground would be the wings. And as as true creative person, she picked them up to see what they might inspire. She gave me one to experiment with and I adhered it to my wood piece with medium. That’s all I had time to do at that time. But it reminded me that I had a little tupperware in my studio that an artist friend had given me years ago. She used to paint butterflies and when she moved on from that, she gifted me her collection. She thought I could use them in my mixed media work sometime.
Fast forward many years, several moves across states lines, and I finally took those preserved butterflies and moths out and played around with them. Butterfly and moth wings are so soft and so delicate. It’s pretty amazing that these fragile structures are strong enough to carry them for miles and withstand the elements. Truly, a wonder.