Over 200 steel butterflies installed in Geyserville’s latest public art project

If you find the scenery along the freeway tiring day after day, all you need to do is take another look. The ongoing outdoor installation of nearly 220 steel butterfly figures, with cutout wings welded to vintage railroad spikes and painted in bright colors by local schoolchildren, has brought new life to the Geyserville Sculpture Trail.

If you’re headed north on Highway 101, on your right you’ll spot “Victory,” Bryan Tedrick’s long-standing, 25-foot-tall steel and redwood statue of a horse, near the Geyserville/Dry Creek exit.

It stands guard at the sculpture garden that anchors the southern end of a trail of outdoor public art running north to the other end of Geyserville. Home to an array of sculptures large and small, the garden now has a brand new feature.

Dubbed “The Brave Butterflies Project,” the installation began its final phase last week , finishing a process that began with an idea in 2019, came together through a workshop process in 2021, and gained speed earlier this year with the participation of 210 local students who painted the butterflies.

“Sometimes there’s a certain stuffiness about art and that can be off-putting,” said Bryce Jones, who conceived the idea for the new butterfly public art installation.

“We want to break down that kind of barrier,” said Jones, owner of the sculpture garden property and a longtime volunteer with the sculpture trail.

Each butterfly measures 8 to 9 inches across and they come in a dozen different shapes, taken from mock-ups designed by graphic artist, poet and printer Katie Nealon, owner of Folding Bones Printing Press in Sebastopol.

From her patterns, the butterflies were cut from half-inch steel by Reliable Hardware and Steel in Santa Rosa. Mounted at three-foot intervals on thin metal rods, the butterflies are flexible.

Jones got the idea for the project from butterfly sculptures he spotted on Pinterest four years ago and thought they’d make a fitting tribute to the butterflies, bees and other insects that pollinate the sculpture garden’s colorful plant life.

“It gives us a chance to talk about the role of pollinators in agriculture,” Jones said.

Jones and Nealon became partners on the butterfly project last year through a program called ArtSurround, which paired artists with businesses, municipalities, nonprofits, who were willing to be hosts of new public artwork. The program was organized by Creative Sonoma, the public agency established in 2014 by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to support and promote the arts.

“It was interesting for me as a printmaker to get paired with a sculpture garden,” Nealon said. “This is definitely my first sculpture project.”

The butterflies were painted by students from the Geyserville Unified School District. Teachers at the high school level incorporated the project into their curriculum, while Nealon spent two days working with elementary school students.

“We provided them with tons of paint pens, with all the colors of the rainbow,” Nealon said. “Working with the kids, it was great to see them using their creativity.”

Look for butterflies with individual patterns and names on them, she added.

“We have enjoyed our partnership with Katie Nealon and Bryce Jones in creating/painting butterflies for the Geyserville Sculpture Garden, ” said Deborah Bertolucci, superintendent of the Geyserville Unified School District.

“We are grateful for the support from Creative Sonoma and the Geyserville Community Foundation,” she added. “All students had the opportunity to participate in this project.”

The project is funded by a $5,000 grant from Creative Sonoma with an additional $2,500 from the Geyserville Community Foundation. The foundation granted another $2,500 for the butterfly project’s official dedication party, to be held from 4:30 to 7: 30 p.m. Oct. 1, Jones said.

“We’re inviting students, parents and faculty,” Jones said.

Victoria Heiges, who had created a similar outdoor art program in Marin County, brought the Geyserville Sculpture Trail to town in 2009.

Two years later, with seed money from the Geyserville Chamber of Commerce, she started the Geyserville Community Foundation to help fund it.

“The response to the trail has been enthusiastic,” she said.

In addition to sculptures at the north end of town, Heiges had a few installed at the southern end, on the formerly vacant lot at 20355 Geyserville Avenue, which Bryce Jones bought and now maintains as the Geyserville Sculpture Garden.

She sees “The Brave Butterflies Project” as another step forward in the ongoing quest to spark community involvement in the arts.

“My mission is to make art accessible. I don’t want art to be intimidating. I want people to be exposed to it,” she said. “We wanted something that would get people involved.”

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts.