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Literary Butterfly Painting Contest, Win An Original Painting By Thyroid Patient And Advocate, Allyson Jones Averell
Allyson Jones Averell (Ally) was featured in Thyroid Awareness Month and Thyroid.About.com by Mary Shomon, for a facepainting she did in honor of thyroid awareness month.
Allyson’s work is gorgeous. She’s launched a “Thyroid Figher Files” series about fighting thyroid disorders and cancers. In fact, 10% of proceeds are donated to the American Cancer Society.
A bit about Ally: “Ally has attended Campbell University, Philadelphia University, and Rutgers University all where she studied art. However, for the most part Ally is self-taught. All art work is done by eye and freehand. Drawn to her love of Disney and animals, she began as a child recreating characters and her pets on a regular basis. Ally is happily married and lives at her home with her three crazy, highly intelligent (but much loved) border collies.”
To win this exquisite original painting by Ally, here are the Contest Details and Guidelines:
- We are only accepting 20 submissions (no later than July 15th). Your literary task, thyamily, is to write butterflygraphs (paragraphs), about your relationship with butterflies post-diagnosis. If you want to write more than a paragraph, please feel free to do so.
- The community will vote on the first round of submissions.
- The submissions that make it to the top 5 will be posted. Ally will choose the winner, to be announced on July 31st.
All entries must be submitted via email by July 15th. Your entries will be posted, so the community can vote. On July 31’st, the top 5 submissions will be posted and the winner will be announced.
Tags: Allyson Jones Averell, Dear Thyroid contest, literary contest, Thyroid fighter files painting series, thyroid patient and artist, win a free butterfly painting
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4 Responses to “Literary Butterfly Painting Contest, Win An Original Painting By Thyroid Patient And Advocate, Allyson Jones Averell”
Leave a Reply to PhillipBarnes
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How exciting!
Is there a word limit on the single paragraph submission?
Which email address do we submit entries to?
It amazes me how butterflys have invade my life since diagnosis. I have a 5 year old daughter who is absolutely crazy about butterflys. She has several butterfly nets and even catches moths because if it’s beautiful it must be a butterfly. I have a white polkadotted one in the kitchen right now. It wasn’t untill a couple weeks ago though that I found a paralell between my thyrois and butterflys. I was walking down our dirt lane and came upon a puddle that had started to dry so it was very sticky mud. In that mud there were several butterflys stuck struggling or dead. In that moment I felt like I could identify with the stuck in the mud feeling. My struggle with thyroid problems often leave me feeling stuck. Hopefully I can soon regain my freedom again and feel like a beautiful butterfly.
Is Ally still on the east coast? Some of those universities are right near me in Philadelphia!
Since facing the death of my thyroid gland and the birth of “butterthies” 15 years ago, I’ve become accustomed to having butterthies in my stomach, throat, heart, mind and stomach on a regular basis. These beautiful creatures, born from adversity, have a migratory pattern dependent upon my body temperature and internal hormone levels. For example, when my body temperature hovers around 95, I can count on having butterthies fluttering through the fog in my brain, sending tiny thought moths fluttering into oblivion. It’s a beautiful site, or would be if my mind worked well enough to comphrehend it. When my hormonal levels elevate to the point that my body temp rises to 100 on a good day, the butterthies choose to migrate to my heart, where their fluttering can often be felt between its missed beats. It amazes me how these beautiful creatures, born from adversity and kept alive through the environmental fluctuations in my body, sometimes choose to create new colonies in my colon, where they manage to completely halt the absorption of any food I eat. Occasionally, the environment of my body causes the butterthies to flee to the outside world, where they can flutter and roam without being subjected to the constant environmental fluctuations of my body. I look forward to the day when my only exposure to them will be in my garden, and when I will no longer feel them fluttering through me body, mind and spirit.