Artist gives non-verbal teen art worth $10K after seeing viral video of his reaction

By Fiona Jackson via SWNS

An artist gave a non-verbal teen an original $10,000 artwork from a museum after he saw the lad's delighted reaction to it.

Odin Frost, 19, doesn't speak very much but fully understands the world around him.

When he saw a mechanical flipbook of butterflies by Juan Fontanive he was so excited he yelled the word "butterfly" for the very first time.

His parents Tim and Deanda Frost, 38 and 41, posted a heartwarming video of his joyful response online.

When the artist saw the clip he boxed up the artwork and sent it to Odin.

It is now on display at their home in Tyler, Texas, and Odin watches it every day.

Odin's dad Tim said: "It's so beautiful, it totally soothes him.

"Now when you walk into our house it’s the very first thing you see."

Deanda suffered from preeclampsia when she was pregnant, and Odin was born three weeks early, suffering a bleed on the brain.

He has severe, non-verbal autism and needs a wheelchair for long distances.

The family visited the Tyler Museum of Art on March 9 2017 to see a flora and fauna exhibition.

Tim said: "It was a free exhibit and Odin loves art so we were just strolling through and we only happened upon it.

"He said 'it’s a butterfly', he doesn’t speak a lot.

"He's non-verbal but can speak a few words, but butterfly is something he'd never said before.

"After we filmed that we thought 'wow, he said butterfly, that was really beautiful.'

"We went home that day and we were looking up maybe we can buy one of these, and then oh no, we can't buy one of these!"

The New York-based artist Juan Fontanive hand-painted every frame, and built every piece of the flipbook machines - which cost about $10,000 each

In the hope of sharing the joy, Tim found Juan on Instagram and sent him the video of Odin reacting to the butterfly piece, called 'Colorthing.'

"It was almost a full year later that he finally saw the video," said Tim.

"He gave us so much thanks, like thank you so much for sharing this, it really cheered him up."

About a week later, in August 2019, musicians Deanda collected a mystery package and brought it home to unbox with Odin.

Tim said: "We were having a really rough day.

"When she opened the box she was just as excited as Odin was.

"Both of us were like 'what in the world?' We just cried for a full five minutes."

Tim filmed Odin's reaction, and immediately placed the artwork in Odin's room with some nature sounds playing in the background.

Tim said: "When Odin saw it for the first time he knew what it was, when Odin sees something he remembers it forever.

"We plugged it in right there in front of him.

"Then we laid down and snuggled and my wife got it set up on his dresser to look at.

"It's kind of our nightly routine now, we snuggle, say a prayer, read a book and talk about our day."

Apprehensive that Odin may accidentally grab and break it, the parents moved the butterfly to the front room in a plexiglass box for all to enjoy.

Tim said: "Colorthing is just constantly going, usually with an old record playing which sets the mood.

"When people walk in they're kind of drawn to it.

"Odin gets to see it as the very first thing when he walks into the house."

Tim says the artist now "feels like family."

"Kindness truly matters in the littlest and biggest ways," he said.

"Kindness ripples, the kindness Juan showed to us is rippling to many others.

"Be kind to people, love people, and see what happens."