Green Expo Butterfly Mural
A Red Spotted Purple Butterfly mural live painted at the Greater Newburyport Green Expo in May 2025. Thanks to the kids of Bresnahan, the older adults at Newburyport Senior Center and everyone who voted on social media to decide which butterfly to paint.
As an adult the butterfly eats carrion, feces, urine, rotting fruit and drinks minerals from puddles with a dash of flowers including Pepperbush and Meadowsweet.
This mural shows the full lifecycle of this incredible butterfly who feeds on keystone tree species like oaks and cherries as a caterpillar. It even rolls itself in a leaf to overwinter, called a hibernaculum. I painted leaves being eaten, by the caterpillar who looks like bird poop. It is related to the White Admiral butterfly and a mimic of the Pipevine Swallowtail.
Special thanks to the Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’ Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Action Grant, administered through the Greater Newburyport Green Expo and the City’s Resiliency Committee.