What began as a close encounter with a butterfly, ended up becoming inspiration for the art behind a few projects. I'm going to use video and images to help tell my story.
On September 4, 2017, I had found a card that my oldest sister, Dianne, had gifted me in 2005, two years before she had died from Leukemia. On the card front, a handcrafted paper butterfly. Since I can remember, Dianne would always gift me something that had to do with butterflies. She knew how much I loved them.
Inside the card was a beautifully hand written message that was quite timely in 2005, as it was again in 2017, for great were the challenges set before us. What we were leaving behind, was a past littered with events that had left me feeling depressed, fearful, and discouraged. Her reminder to look forward toward a life of "happiness, success and fulfillment", had provided me with some much needed hope.
On September 19, just 15 days after the card and 5 days before the anniversary of Dianne's death, I pulled up to the building which had now housed my business. There, on my garage bay door, was a butterfly resting. This seemed rather odd to me because the building is located on a very busy thoroughfare in a commercially zoned part of town. Of course, I had to investigate and this is what happened...
As you can hear in my voice, I was beyond thrilled with this butterfly encounter aka, "a touch from heaven". He stayed with me for the longest time! I was able to take a few videos and a bunch of photos with my phone...
There was one photo though in particular, that for some reason or another, caught the interest of this artist. I began to play around with the image in Photoshop, removing the background with the intention of using it for a graphic symbol for the design of my business cards, which I did, sort of. This is that photo with the background removed...
AND NOW, all of that has turned into this...
...letters filled with the same butterfly-visitor inspired, business card, background that I love so much. Letters that spell out words which I have personally selected. Words that I find myself playing on repeat, marinating on their meaning until it sinks in deep, and positively impacts my mental attitude. Some of these words come from my beliefs, and some come from my relationship with God. All of them have helped me to grow as a woman and an artist.
From there, I found myself wanting to wear a Word Art imprinted Tee and a Hoodie, to use as tools to "re-center" throughout the day. If that wasn't enough, I must have a Word Art imprinted mug to drink from so when I'm sipping my coffee, I would be reminded to choose joy (instead of complaining or finding fault).Then, I got to thinking, perhaps others will appreciate some Word Art reminders too, so, I have added a few of those items to my store here on my website, and over at my shop on Etsy. As the days pass, I'll be adding more cool items imprinted with my Word Art, so please stay tuned!
Please tell me what you think by posting a comment below....and, if you have any Word Art words that you would like to see make their way onto a hoodie, tee, mug, notebook, tote bag, water bottle, (the sky's the limit!) - please share that with me too, below!
As always, thank you for visiting my website and reading my blog. It's such a great honor and pleasure to have the opportunity to create for you and share my life with you!
Cheers!
♥
Lisa
1/28/22 UPDATE: a video of "I Am Yours"
Link WORD ART / My Art & Merch: https://lisacantalupo.com/collections/my-art-merch
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