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BY BECKY ANTIOCO / PHOTOS BY CLAUDIA JOHNSTONE

SPREADING HER WINGS

Adriane Grimaldi educates and inspires at Butterfly Wonderland

“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” So the saying goes, attributed to many different people, including Mark Twain. But no matter the author, the sentiment rings true: work doing what you love, and it will seem more like play. That’s certainly the case for Adriane Grimaldi, the director of education at Butterfly Wonderland, who has turned a lifelong passion for butterflies and more than 20 years of experience as a teacher into her dream job. Grimaldi’s childhood home in Southern California housed a tree that was a host for mourning cloak butterflies. As a child, she

would gather the caterpillars, put them in jars and feed them during their metamorphosis. When the chocolate-colored butterflies, adorned with blue spots, would emerge, she would name them all. “However, as an 8-year-old trying to come up with a hundred different names, I became incredibly stressed,” she says. “Instead, I decided to name them all ‘Buttercup.’ If I saw one flying in my yard, I would say, ‘Look, there’s Buttercup!’” Shortly after graduating from Arizona State University with a journalism degree, she went on a butterfly tour in southern Arizona with Jim Brock, a longtime lepidopterist (the official name for someone who studies moths and butterflies) and author of several books about butterflies. On that trip, Brock shared something that has stuck with her. “He said, ‘When we see a butterfly, we are seeing a survivor. There is something at each stage of a butterfly’s lifecycle – egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult butterfly – that can prevent it from going onto the next stage. Butterflies are fragile yet resilient; when we admire their beauty, color, or species, it’s important to appreciate all it took to get there.’”

Career Metamorphosis

Butterfly Wonderland (www.butterflywonderland.com) is the largest butterfly conservatory in America, where thousands of butterflies fly freely in an indoor rainforest setting. The one-of-a-kind center also features interactive exhibits, a butterfly emergence gallery, a 3D movie theater and more. There, Grimaldi works with a staff of six education employees, plus interns and volunteers, who serve as resources for visitors as they share facts and show them how Butterfly Wonderland receives and cares for more than 1,200 chrysalises each week from butterfly farmers around the world. She also handles school and tour groups, educational programming, workshops, and events. “The beauty of my role is that I never stop learning or taking away new experiences about butterflies and the rainforest – and the creatures that call it home,” Grimaldi says. “Through these incredible opportunities and experiences, I can be the best educator to the visitors at Butterfly Wonderland.” Most of what Grimaldi has learned about butterflies came through reading books, and attending classes, seminars and conferences with other butterfly experts from around the globe — and simple observation of her butterfly garden, which has attracted 25 species to her own backyard. She has built about 30 similar butterfly gardens in cities and schools, giving lectures about butterflies and how to cultivate the gardens. She is a teacher at heart, having designed Butterfly Wonderland’s school field trip curriculum so that it meets Arizona science standards “To be able to share my knowledge with others is what I love most,” she says. “I get to talk about butterflies to students and guests each day. I love seeing the expressions on students’ faces as they see the butterflies at Butterfly Wonderland and watching the guests’ eyes light up in amazement when they realize those butterflies are born in our facility and released into our conservatory that day.” Grimaldi’s position has also taken her exciting places. She visited Mexico to see the monarchs over-winter in the Oyamel fir trees and went to the butterfly farm in Costa Rica where Butterfly Wonderland gets their Blue Morpho butterflies (the large, gorgeous iridescent blue butterflies that are most popular with guests). “This position with Butterfly Wonderland has presented me with amazing opportunities that have been extremely memorable, and impactful,” she says. “It puts in perspective their journey from that farm in Costa Rica, as merely a chrysalis, to their arrival at Butterfly Wonderland in Scottsdale where they eventually emerge as beautiful butterflies.”

Beyond Butterflies

While butterflies are her main calling, Grimaldi is an accomplished long-distance ocean swimmer, and is currently working on an inspirational book about her swims, which have included the Alcatraz swim, a 5.2-mile swim from one Cayman Island to another, and an upcoming 3-mile swim in Puerto Rico. She was also a foster parent for 10 years, which inspired her to establish the Sewing Project, where volunteers make kidfriendly backpacks out of pillow cases and give them to foster children. “The sad reality is that when children are taken out of the home due to neglect or abuse, they are given a trash bag to carry out whatever personal items or special belongings they are taking with them,” Grimaldi says. “To me, that felt so harsh and sent such a negative message to these kids, who are already going through so much.” Through the project, more than 75,000 pillowcase backpacks have been made and donated to foster children all over Arizona and across the country.