"God Knows When Children Enter A Garden" Brookside Gardens is a peaceful conteplative setting which has drawn me to visit through the years. Living in Takoma Park, this garden also became a place I brought my drawing classes to do observational drawings. In my retirement the butterfly garden exhibition occurring in late summer into early fall, became the backdrop for this portrait a little girl. I wanted to express the quiet freedoms of growing up as a child of color in contemporary times. The biblical concept of metamorphosis.