SASKATOON — June was busy for local visual artist Monique Martin, as she held two exhibits in the city before heading to separate shows in Edmonton and Vancouver. She held a one-day art installation called Metamorphosis in early June at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, in partnership with North Park Wilson School, an educational centre of excellence for the arts, integrating it into all subject areas to enhance students’ artistic talents.
The event was a multidisciplinary performance where North Park students, part of the school’s Creative Action Program, performed under Martin's guidance. The program involved Grade 8 students passionate about the arts.
Martin told Â鶹´«Ã½AV that her exhibit is composed of 24,000 handmade paper butterflies, which she spent years creating. The idea began during the COVID-19 pandemic, as schools shifted their classes to video conferences. As an art teacher, Martin sought a way to keep her students’ interest. She ordered live butterfly larvae and placed them in her greenhouse.
"We watched them go through the whole cycle. From egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly — and back again. We had three complete cycles that summer. The daily observations became lessons, not just in biology, but in perseverance, patience and transformation,” said Martin.
During her art classes, she used the butterflies to start her online courses, which she streamed from the greenhouse, showcasing the slow changes in butterflies to help students navigate their own emotional transformations.
"The butterfly goes into its chrysalis with no idea what's happening. It becomes complete goo. But it emerges strong, beautiful and changed. That’s how I talked about the pandemic with my students — that even in uncertainty, we are growing,” Martin added.
In making the butterflies, she first used a laser cutter, but it had a hard edge that didn’t feel natural. She wanted the butterflies to feel as if they were alive, to catch people’s attention, to stop and see the small things — like a beetle crossing the road, a bee perched on top of a flower, and ants doing their daily routine of gathering food.
“We miss the details now. Everything is so fast. As you get older, change becomes scarier. But I wanted to remind people that change is not only okay — it’s necessary. It’s how we grow,” added Martin.
To suspend the butterflies, Martin made thousands of wire leaves and attached tiny magnets to each butterfly, hanging them from branches or high overhead. In Saskatoon, they fluttered above crowds, while in Edmonton, they clung to towering glass windows overlooking the city square.
Her butterfly installation — like the dandelion series she exhibited during the height of the pandemic — lingered in the minds of those who attended her show, with families sending her messages praising her work. Her former students remember the lifecycle they watched unfold in real time, and the strength they found in fragile wings.
