An Assembly of Tiles: Part 1 - the Comma Butterfly

Tile in progress showing Freya Levy's painting of a comma butterfly

Neil Glendinning, a ceramic artist based at the Canal Warehouse Workshops, Chester, and Freya Levy,  a local artist from Birkenhead, have collaborated together to create six bespoke decorative tiles for the brick pillars supporting the Silver Jubilee Gates at New Ferry Butterfly Park.

The painting of the tile nears completion

Freya painted the tiles at the workshop periodically from May until September. She worked on several images with some designs not making it, such as a railway tile and some butterfly species including the gatekeeper, the small copper, the brimstone, and the burnet moth, as these did not fit in aesthetically with the gates and pillars. Neil coached Freya about the colours as they do change once baked.

Neil Glendinning with the completed tiles

The completed art works were glazed, and the tiles baked at 1250oC in a kiln to vitrify them into stoneware, making them waterproof and sun resistant. Each tile is dedicated to a person or group. In a series of small blogs each dedication will be explored, starting off at home base.

The Comma Butterfly tile is dedicated to the Wirral Wildlife group who support the park. This tile remembers the Comma (community art) Project of 2012. The original art concept of the butterfly was by Carol Ramsay and is the logo for the park and the comma logo can be found on the wardens' clothing. It is the butterfly on the gates. Pictured are Stephen Ross and Linda Higginbottom of Wirral Wildlife committee with the tile dedicated to Wirral Wildlife.

Stephen Ross and Linda Higginbottom with the tile dedicated to Wirral Wildlife.
Note the comma butterfly on the Butterfly Park T-shirt and fleece!

Stephen Ross, chair of Wirral Wildlife entertains the guest of honour on our opening day and promotes the park whenever he can. Stephen suggested that the butterfly committee should apply to the Duchy of Lancaster for £5,000 funding for the gates. The application was successful and enabled the gates to go ahead. Linda Higginbottom, Wirral Wildlife Publicity Officer, amongst many other projects organises the warden rota for the summer Sunday afternoon openings and assembles teams to host group visits. Linda designed the logos for the New Ferry Butterfly Park wardens branded T-shirts and sweatshirts. Linda is a great communicator, running the Wirral Wildlife Blog, sending out regular Wirral Wildlife emails and hosting the Facebook page of New Ferry Butterfly Park and Wirral Wildlife. Wirral Wildlife group host an impressive plant sale on the park’s opening day each season and from there on after nearly to the end of the season. This plant stall is another attraction for the Sunday visitors. Recently Wirral Wildlife have started hosting apple days at the park too.

The Comma butterfly has distinctive ragged wing edges which camouflage it. At rest it looks just like a dead leaf! The Comma can be seen at any time of the year, occasionally awakening on warm winter days.The butterfly emerges from hibernation in March, giving rise to the next generation which appears at the end of June and start of July. The majority of the offspring have dark undersides, and these go on to hibernate. However, the remainder of the offspring have quite light undersides and brighter uppersides, and are known as the form hutchinsoni. This form is named after Emma Hutchinson who discovered that this form goes on to breed and produce another generation that then overwinter. As a result, there is another emergence of fresh adults in late summer. The food plants of the caterpillars are nettles, elm and hop which are all present at the park.

Paul Loughnane

New Ferry Butterfly Park Reserve Manager