1. The Butterfly Girl
• Meaning
• Design
• Realisation of
the Clay Model
• Colour
• Final Result

2. THE FLYING BUTTERFLY IS A LIBERATING SYMBOL. On a spiritual level, the butterfly is
the symbol of the immortal soul and the short-livedness of life.

3. VULNERABLE, BEAUTIFUL AND FRAGILE: A butterfly is very beautiful and graceful, but
you can hardly hold it without hurting it.
The same is true when it comes to people: we must treat each person with admiration for
his beauty, but with great caution and respect.
We must not catch or hold children, lovers, friends, ... people, but release them. When
they love you, they will stay with you or they will come back to you. To hold them is not
only useless, it is suffocating, dangerous and unnecessarily endangers emotions of
affection and love. The butterfly you are holding cannot fly.

4. DANCING, MOVING, FEELING: Butterflies encourage us to rise, take off and move.
When they move, it's as if they're dancing. Thus they remind us that we should not take
things so seriously in life. They awaken in us a sense of lightness and joy and make us
see life as a dance. Dancing in itself gives great joy. Dancing gives us the sweetness of
life. This is further underlined by the fact that butterflies have taste receptors on their
front legs. Walking around on flowers, they taste them.

5. BEAUTY, JOY AND HAPPINESS: The Chinese and Japanese see in the butterfly a symbol
of beauty, marriage happiness and joy. In Greek mythology, the butterfly is
representative of Psyche, whose name translates to soul. Psyche is linked to love,
because of her passionate bond with Eros, the god of love. These two are described as
hopelessly in love.
For this reason, releasing butterflies during a wedding is a symbolic gesture of
celebrating the love between the newlyweds. To express their love, as well as the joy of
this new life transition, the bride and groom can perform a release of one or more
butterflies.

6. CHANGE: The dance of
the butterfly also reflects
the need for change; from
where we were and are,
to the next phase of our
existence.
The light playfulness of
the butterfly gives a
double message: Yes,
there is a deep, powerful
transformation taking
place, from earthly,
material things to a
higher, spiritual world, but
all this shrouded in color,
joy and lightness.
If a butterfly appears, ask
yourself how much or how
little joy you experience in
your life. Look up, look
forward to change.
Realize that change is
good.

7. An old Native American belief is that
in order for a wish to come true, a
person must first capture a butterfly,
whisper his or her wish to it and
then let it go.
The butterfly would then fly silently
to the heavens, unable to reveal the
wish to anyone but the Creator, who
would grant it.
To send your personal wishes to the
universe, you release your own
butterfly, whispering your wishes
before sending them out into the
universe.

8. TRANSFORMATION: The literal metamorphosis from caterpillar, cocoon, to butterfly
is the ultimate symbol in our nature for transformation.
Presumably no other animal has become so symbolic for the process of
transformation and shape change as the butterfly.

9. Every new idea and every step of self-development
is reflected in the development of the butterfly.
1/ His egg phase stands for the birth of an idea.
2/ In the larval stage it is up to the time to
determine whether this idea will be converted into
an act.
3/ In the cocoon one has to go inside himself to
connect the idea with his own person.
4/ The emergence of the butterfly is the birth of a
new reality. Now the joy of the new creation can be
shared with others.
These four steps of change takes place constantly in
life. They are necessary for our further development.
The power of the butterfly helps to organize thinking
and to make the next step conscious.

10. Every day we transform, every day we change. Experience your transformation to
the fullest, see it as a wonderful gift and discover and develop the range of
possibilities that you obtain and already possess.
Use your wings and fly into the wide world!

11. RELIGIOUS MEANING: For Christians, death is the transition to a better life, the
transition from a vale of tears to the Heavenly Kingdom.
The butterfly symbolizes that the soul, upon the death of a human being,
transcends its physical envelope, much like a tranforming butterfly.
The butterfly also symbolizes the three stages that the human soul goes through:
life, death and resurrection.

12. sources:
https://marreiki.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/symboliek-vlinder/ - Mariane - Eigenwijzer
https://www.butterfliesathome.com/live-butterfly-releases.htm

14. The original design showed a
kneeling girl with a number of
butterflies taking of from het
outstretched hand.
Soon, it was decided to use only
one butterfly because the hand
with the multiple butterflies
might have opened copyright
discussions, since a sculpture of a
hand alone with a flight of
butterflies taking off from it,
already existed.
By keeping only one butterfly and
making the girl lean forward
some more, the statue became
stronger and its meaning more
clearly expressed.

15. The butterfly girl
Clay Mold

17. Playing with colour
in order to obtain
the best visual result

23. Contact me at
Eddyadriaens@yahoo.com
For more information about
the Butterfly Girl bronze statue
for gardens and parcs