Patti Gallant, a Paris resident and local freelance artist, has been working on creating a cheerful and unique installation for the upcoming 2025 Culture Days.
Culture Days, which takes place across Canada from September 19 to October 12, celebrates arts, culture, and heritage, while providing communities with an opportunity to to appreciate varying artistic expressions.
This year, the County of Brant has once again been selected as one of sixteen Ontario Culture Days “Festival Hubs,” and the multi-week festival will feature a host of activities, events, workshops, performances and installations throughout its run.
As a long-time artist who has spent the past three years dedicating herself to her craft, Gallant is no stranger to creating art.
After participating in Culture Days on the Trails last year, Gallant was inspired to go above and beyond this year with an installation titled, “Brant Butterflies.”
“I saw something similar when I was in Vancouver, there were all these butterflies that were just hanging around and they were huge,” said Gallant. “They were clearly made out of some sort of plastic so they could withstand the weather but I was totally in awe.”
Moved by what she saw, Gallant decided she would put her own twist on the project by using upcycled materials.
“I believe that’s one thing a lot of, if not all, artists just do,” she said. “We really try to think about how we can use the stuff we already own instead of having to buy it because buying something new just dips into your own money, right? So if there’s something you can use and reuse again that is already available, that’s what you’re going to do. Even for this project, the only thing I’ve really spent money on is wire, some tape and a few pool noodles, but the rest has been stuff I already had around the house or items I used cardboard from the ReStore.”
While Gallant only set out to do ten large butterflies at first, she’s already created upwards of 14 out of various materials and in different sizes, including a string of extra small butterflies out of toilet paper rolls.
“There’s really a mix and so far I have about five made out of wire and then the others are made out of cardboard,” she said. “I don’t like to waste anything so while I was making larger butterflies, I decided to actually make some smaller ones too because there were extra pieces of cardboard that were perfect for that. There’s just much waste in the world and really, it’s not hard to utilize what you have. I even used the party hats from my daughter’s birthday to decorate one of the butterflies too so it’s stuff like that.”
Gallant has also incorporated craft materials such as mini pom poms and shrink plastic from a nearby craft library, as well as different fabric materials she’s picked up along her travels to Prince Edward Island.
At the end, the idea is to suspend the butterflies around Paris and a few bordering Brantford, on the streets in parks and in various stores and establishments.
“I do have to be careful where I put them outside, which is why I have to wire ones, but the other cardboard ones will have to be reinforced and covered in some way too,” she said. “It’s been interesting trying to figure it all out and how I’m going to hang some of them. I’ve already hung up a couple outside of my house, just to see what they’ll look like and they actually look pretty neat which is fun. I’m just so excited, and I can’t wait to have them up so that they can be seen by everyone.”
Gallant said that while the project was time consuming at first, she’s started to pick up speed and is just having fun with the process.
“I have a garage and so I was out there one day spray painting and there were sparkles everywhere,” she said. “It was a total mess, but man, I’ve had so much fun doing it and every single minute I’ve spent on these has been well worth it.”
Overall, Gallant said she hopes her installation will just bring joy to those who see it, and that her butterflies will inspire people to try their hand at creating something they may have overlooked.
“Even if these spark a discussion around using simple things to make art or an object that you see as amazing, that would be great,” she said. “And really, who doesn’t love butterflies? They’re so great and they’re everywhere this time of year, how could you not get excited when you see a butterfly?”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
