Study (Butterfly Rest Stop 1/9 Scale)
October 7-18, 2025
Gregg Museum Lobby
A colorful fiber sculpture focusing on the role butterflies and other pollinators play in our Earth's ecosystem.
Image above: Janet Echelman, Study (Butterfly Rest Stop 1/9 Scale), 2022, Chiostro del Bramante, Rome, Italy. Photo: Giovanni DeAngelis
Study (Butterfly Rest Stop 1/9 Scale)
Echelman’s colorful fiber sculpture is a 1/9 scale maquette for a 186 ft. long permanent sculpture in Frisco, Texas which is located on the migration pathway of the Monarch butterfly, titled Butterfly Rest Stop.
Echelman’s art practice explores the interconnectedness of humans and nature in the public sphere, and stems from the artist’s fascination with interconnected systems of the natural world of which we are a small part.
This sculpture project focuses on the role butterflies and other pollinators play in our Earth’s ecosystem. Monarch numbers have declined substantially in recent years due to the loss of milkweed along their migratory routes, which resonated with Echelman’s focus on the interconnection within larger cycles and systems in our physical world.
The aesthetics of the artwork explore the form, pattern, and color of native species of the milkweed flowers that sustain the Monarch butterfly throughout its migration. Two five-petaled sculptural forms composed of soft braided fiber nestle together and float gently in the air.
This artwork is also a conceptual inquiry into perception, as it poses questions about how a flower appears to the eyes and minds of a species which sees in a completely different manner from human beings.
Unlike homo sapiens, Monarch butterflies have compound eyes which enable them to simultaneously see up, down, forward, backward and to the sides. Also unlike humans, they are unable to see these images united into one continuous picture – more like a series of still photos rather than a movie.
The artist’s installation within the architectural space encourages gallery visitors to walk around the artwork to see its color, pattern, and form from multiple vantage points, which can only be sewn together in our minds, highlighting our awareness of visual perception in our own species in contrast to a much smaller species upon which our very survival is inextricably linked.
Programs
| Title: | Date: | Time: | Location: |
|---|---|---|---|
| NC State LIVE’s InterweaveFest, a week of dance, dialogue and discovery | Multiple events Oct. 6-11 | Multiple locations | |
| Radical Softness: A Conversation with Janet Echelman, Rebecca Lazier and Andrew Sageman-Furnas | Oct. 9 | 6-7:30 p.m. | Gregg Museum |
| Rebecca Lazier’s NOLI TIMERE, a soaring aerial peformance on a Janet Echleman sculpture, presented by NC State LIVE | Oct. 10 and 11 | 7:30 p.m. | Stewart Theatre |
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Janet Echelman
Janet Echelman is an artist known for sculpting at the scale of buildings and city blocks, creating large-scale, fluid installations that merge art, architecture, and engineering. Her work transforms with wind and light, inviting viewers into immersive experiences rather than static observation. Echelman uses unconventional materials—from atomized water particles to fiber stronger than steel—blending traditional craft with advanced computational design.
Her monumental works anchor public spaces across five continents, in cities including New York, London, Sydney, Shanghai, and Singapore. Permanent installations in locations such as San Francisco, Vancouver, and Porto continually evolve with shifting light and air. Echelman’s unconventional path includes a degree from Harvard, five years living in a Balinese village, and graduate studies in both painting and psychology. Oprah ranked Echelman’s work #1 on her List of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow!, and she received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Visual Arts, honoring “the greatest innovators in America today.” Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, she has taught at MIT, Harvard, and Princeton. Her interdisciplinary approach challenges artistic boundaries and redefines urban space through experiential public art.
Study (Butterfly Rest Stop 1/9 Scale), 2022
Janet Echelman
