Bailey Lyn Simon-Sherman

Hometown: Kaplan, Louisiana

Age: 37

Artistry: Watercolor artist, Papillons de Pervenche

Online: @bailwinkle.periwinkle and @papillons.de.pervenche on Instagram

The most eye-catching aspect of butterfly wings isn’t accounted for by their pigment, but by their very structure. Iridescence isn’t just skin deep. The fluttering insect’s every movement can radically alter its color palette—a butterfly fact that artist Bailey Lyn Simon-Sherman takes intimately to heart.

“Having an opportunity to change your life is an important thing to internalize and remind ourselves of,” says the watercolorist, stationery designer and naturalist who grew up running through the fields and wildflowers of her grandparents’ farm in Kaplan. “We can grow from hard things and remain positive about our struggles and use our effort to help others. And that creates meaning in the world, and it brings joy.”

A veteran salon owner and stylist, Simon-Sherman calls herself “a bit of a hippie” and only began taking her art seriously in 2022 at the urging of her husband, Danny. This creative restlessness came a few years after a personally challenging period—the end of her first marriage and single motherhood.

Now, her art brand Papillons de Pervenche (Butterflies of Periwinkle) is a family affair with Danny and her son, Lake, helping at markets and hand-stamping and folding her greeting cards together.

Each of her pieces is a miniature impressionist painting, hundreds of small dots, dashes and splashes flooded into the anatomically-accurate forms of cypress trees, florals and gorgeous butterflies. Gazing at her prints at markets, people ask how she presses the insects. Spoiler: she doesn’t. The self-taught artist works from photographs and without a single sketch or pencil mark. The butterflies now swarming the gardens around their new property in Baton Rouge are alive and well.

“Without sketches, I think that’s me taking a risk,” Simon-Sherman considers. “I had a lot of times in my life where I played it safer than I should have, because I was afraid— but not with the butterflies.”

Expression through art invites change and can always feel like a risk. That’s why our self-talk, Simon- Sherman says, should remain soft and supportive. In other words, it better not sting like a bee, but float like a butterfly.

“My advice is to be kinder to yourself,” she says. “It’s okay to be critical, because that’s how we improve, but don’t be too harsh. Gentle criticism is the best.”

Papillons de Pervenche artwork is available at the Baton Rouge Arts Market downtown on the first Saturday of every month, Magpie Café and Red Stick Reads in Baton Rouge, Beavers Abundance Native Plant Nursery in Prairieville, and The Corbel and The Conundrum in St. Francisville