Artist in Residence, Miranda Creswell, has once again been busy for Horatio’s Garden, this year creating a Butterfly Table as part of her ‘Looking Out Glasgow’ project.
Miranda, who works with archaeologists based at Oxford University as part of the EnglaID research group, has long-supported Horatio’s Garden. Her latest creative venture for the charity has taken her to the Oxford Museum of Natural History, where in April she could be found painstakingly sketching numerous butterfly species.
Dr James Hogan, Collections Manager of Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera, has been incredibly generous with both his time and patience as he found the distinctive insects amongst the millions housed at the Museum. As the table will be in Horatio’s Garden Scotland, Miranda wanted to feature Scottish butterflies specifically too, immediately identifiable by a solitary white spot on each of their wings.
She also plans to include some of the plants the butterflies feed on to add further depth to the artwork. Interestingly these species tend to eat rather colourful plants, for example the protected Northern Brown Argus feeds off the bright yellow Common Rock Rose. By drawing the flora, Miranda hopes that the vividness of the flowers will emphasise the exquisite subtlety of the butterflies.
Now that the artwork is largely complete discussions with joiner Niall, who will be building the table, have begun. Their meetings have largely been taking place in the garden, so that anyone who’s interested can join the conversation and learn more. In late May, Niall shared his initial design ideas with both Miranda and Head Gardener Sallie, so we are very much looking forward to seeing the plans develop from here.
Miranda has poured her heart and soul into this project and says “I hope these delicate insects will inspire patients in the garden room in Glasgow in future as much as they have inspired me.”
