City Walks – Butterflies

Building an identity

Butterfly sculpture on porch

Most butterflies are just happenstance

Butterflies are popular decorations, and most are placed seemingly on a whim, like this garden decoration.

Butterfly sculpture in garden

These people have hung a ton of different things from their tree’s branches, including a butterfly to go with a pig, van, frog, buffalo, disco balls….

Butterflies With A Purpose

But in one neighborhood, butterflies are part of a plan.

Butterfly mosaic
Butterfly mosaics on house

About ten years ago one artist decided that her neighborhood could benefit from a unified identity, and set about creating one. She decorated her own home with mosaic butterflies and started convincing her neighbors to start putting up mosaic butterflies on their houses. She obtained grants to offer them free to neighbors and taught classes at the neighborhood middle school and learning center to enlist more people in the effort, and now there are dozens of homes in the neighborhood decorated with them.

The effect is impossible to measure, of course, but there are anecdotal reports that neighbors feel the area is improved, and the effect is really striking when you walk through the area.

Butterfly mosaics on house
Butterfly mosaics on house
Butterfly mosaics on wall
Butterfly mosaics on wall
Butterfly mosaics on house
Butterfly mosaics on house
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