Butterflies

David Landis approached Alston Glenn, the Garden's Executive Director from 1993-2002, to put a piece of sculpture at the Botanical Garden for a temporary show. By coincidence, plans were then being developed for the new Children’s Garden, and Landis decided to enter a proposal for the Butterfly Pavilion. His unique offering, in the form of a scale model, helped convince the selection committee to proceed with his concept.

Landis’s huge “Butterfly” sculpture, with its 12-foot wingspan, was placed on top of the Butterfly Pavilion in the Children’s Garden. It was built of square iron beams on site. Landis’s second “Butterfly,” with wings split in half, formed the door entrance to the Children’s Garden. He used stainless steel because of its properties to reflect the sky and the surrounding Garden. In 2015, the Butterfly Pavillion was dismantled to make way for a newly designed Children’s Garden. 

Landis’s “Butterfly” was then placed at the top of a high steel pole to greet visitors at the entrance to the Children’s Garden. Later, two other “Butterflies,” were relocated to the entrance wall of the restroom in the Children’s Garden.