NPN eARTh: Deborah Butterfield
Deborah Butterfield
Deborah Butterfield first began creating sculpture in the form of a horse in the 1970’s using mud, clay and sticks. In 1977, she moved to a ranch in Montana and in 1979 began using scrap metal and found steel. For the past decade, she has been making bronze work, cast from “stray, downed pieces of wood.” Butterfield carefully, intuitively, selects the branches and sticks which are used to "draw" her horses. "The lines of the branches do not simply outline the forms of horses, they create the contours through an accumulation of simple or energetic lines that seem to build up from within. [1]
Referencing her materials, Butterfied has said, "When I walk past my pile of junk, I am inspired by the things I see. It has to do with finding and identifying objects of interest that I can work with. Working with junk is a way of recognizing a quality of line and appropriating it to my sculpture. [2]
danesecorey.com/artists/deborah-butterfield
Quoted in Wausau, Wisconsin, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Mind and Beast: Contemporary Artists and the Animal Kingdom, text by Thomas H. Garver (Wausau. 1992), p. 25.