The Enchantment of Butterfly Art!

Freda Savahl
3 min readNov 11, 2024

Themes of Renewal and the Ephemeral Nature of Life.

Author’s photo from Kate’s art collection in Colorado 11/3/2014. Artist unknown.

Art of an African lady in butterfly attire:

The image above is a photo I captured that hung in the entrance hall of Kate’s home in Colorado. I was intrigued by her butterfly attire!

It is an African lady dressed from head to toe in unique butterfly attire.

Butterflies in African culture.

In various African cultures, butterflies represent transformation, rebirth, and spiritual change. Their life cycle, moving from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly, embodies personal growth and development.

The African Monarch butterfly is one of the first butterflies depicted in art: a representation was found in a 3500-year-old tomb in Luxor, Egypt.

In Nigeria (among the Yoruba people) and Uganda, butterfly and moth wings are used for decorative purposes.

These wings can be glued to paper, pressed between sheets to create imprints, or used as they are, as seen among the Mossi people in Burkina Faso. Butterfly wings serve as templates for designs on fabrics and stamps.

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Freda Savahl
Freda Savahl

Written by Freda Savahl

Retired Nurse Practitioner WHC /Contract Provider Deployment Military Services. US Citizen. Immigrant from South Africa 1978.

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