Eco-Art Competition 2022

"Life is a circle. The end of one journey is the beginning of the next." - Joseph M Marshall III My artwork shows the cycle of a monarch butterfly and the cycle of a seed. These two cycles are interdependent. The quote above relates to my art because all life is a cycle that depends on each other. In my drawing, this is shown with the seed, which grows into plants like milkweed. Milkweed will only grow if a seed is planted and is required for monarch butterflies to survive. After the seed grows into milkweed, the cycle of that seed is over, but milkweed helps butterflies survive and lay new eggs, therefore starting the beginning of a new cycle. This relates to the theme: "Plant the Seed" because monarch butterflies are pollinators and they can move pollen between plants. This movement allows plants to make seeds, and the seeds can make other plants. This is important to me because the population of monarch butterflies have decreased by 80% in the last 20 years. This happened because of pesticides destroying milkweed (the leaves monarch butterflies lay their eggs on) and deforestation in their winter habitats. I have shown both cycles of a monarch butterfly and a seed, and connected each step of the cycle to show that everything has to coexist. I hope when people see my entry, they are more aware of monarch butterflies starting to go extinct, deforestation, and how the small action of planting a seed could contribute to solving these problems.