There is something wonderfully captivating about butterflies and bees.
They are small, fleeting creatures that can so easily go unnoticed — and yet, when you stop to look at them, they reveal an extraordinary world of colour, pattern, movement and detail.
My latest piece, Butterflies & Bees, is my attempt to capture some of that magic in glass. The idea for this piece came from thinking about the sheer abundance of life that can exist around us.
Rather than focusing on one particular butterfly or bee, I wanted to create a sense of movement and collective energy. The individual insects almost become part of a larger swirling form, while still inviting you to look closer and discover each one.
Much of my work is inspired by the natural world, and particularly by the creatures that we can so easily take for granted. Butterflies and bees are familiar to most of us. We see them in gardens, meadows and hedgerows, often without really stopping to consider what we are looking at.
But they are extraordinary.
Their patterns, colours and structures have evolved over millions of years. Their lives are relatively short, their movements often fleeting, and yet their importance to the wider ecosystem is enormous.
For me, making art about the natural world is also a way of encouraging people to notice it. The closer you look, the more there is to see.
Butterflies & Bees is now complete, and I'm very pleased to finally share it.
It feels like a celebration of summer, of movement and colour, but also a small reminder of the incredible natural world that exists all around us — sometimes only inches away, if we take the time to look.
