Original monarch butterfly diptych by Scout Cuomo
Mid-September in Western Mass, the fields turn gold and violet, and then they fill with wings. The monarchs that come out of their chrysalises now are unlike the generations before them. Where their parents lived only a few weeks, this last brood of summer, called the Methuselah generation after the longest-lived man in the Bible, can live for eight months, and they spend these days drinking from goldenrod and asters, storing up the fat that will carry them nearly three thousand miles to the mountain forests of central Mexico, a place none of them has ever seen.
These two paintings were made inside that feast: one field across two panels, a season of mass migration held still for a moment. They are a reminder of how precious this ecosystem is, and that the ordinary meadows at the edges of our roads and farms are fueling stations for one of the great journeys on Earth.
Original diptych: two panels, 32″ × 48″ each
Painted September 2026 in Western Massachusetts
Available as a pair or as single panels
Original monarch butterfly diptych by Scout Cuomo
Mid-September in Western Mass, the fields turn gold and violet, and then they fill with wings. The monarchs that come out of their chrysalises now are unlike the generations before them. Where their parents lived only a few weeks, this last brood of summer, called the Methuselah generation after the longest-lived man in the Bible, can live for eight months, and they spend these days drinking from goldenrod and asters, storing up the fat that will carry them nearly three thousand miles to the mountain forests of central Mexico, a place none of them has ever seen.
These two paintings were made inside that feast: one field across two panels, a season of mass migration held still for a moment. They are a reminder of how precious this ecosystem is, and that the ordinary meadows at the edges of our roads and farms are fueling stations for one of the great journeys on Earth.
Original diptych: two panels, 32″ × 48″ each
Painted September 2026 in Western Massachusetts
Available as a pair or as single panels
