Artist Christina Bothwell explores the powerful relationship between mother and child in her sculpture Butterflies. A seated female figure holds a miniature version of herself on her lap. Vines creep and butterflies fly across their translucent, glowing skin and clothes. These other-worldly figures appeared in the lucid dreams Bothwell experienced after the birth of her daughter. Sleep-deprived and full of fear over her daughter’s health, Bothwell imagined herself floating over herself and her daughter, entirely detached from her body. Similarly, she also imagined the child in Butterflies levitating, with only the power of a mother’s love keeping her from floating away. The butterflies represent innocence and delicate, fleeting moments. Bothwell feared that her daughter’s health was precarious, and that at any moment she could float away from her forever.  

-Linnea Seidling, Assistant Curator of Glass