Image of the Day, December 13, 2011

By Donna Poulton

“It’s more like I’m discovering the personality of the horse that I’m working on. I can’t really preconceive what it is that will work, and so it’s just trying to see as many things as you can and to incorporate them.” - Deborah Butterfield

Private collection. Credit:  My-West.com archives ©

Deborah Butterfield likes to explain her passion for horses by recounting that she was born on the 75^th year of the running of the Kentucky Derby.  In grade school she remembers sketching horses and when she went to college at the University of California at Davis, her sustained interest in images of horses continued, even in her conceptual classes. Using found objects and driftwood, she creates large-scale abstract sculptures. In a more complicated series of steps, the model is then cast in bronze. Butterfield’s work is in over 50 museums, including the Whitney and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is found in numerous private collections.  She lives and works in Bozeman, Montana.

Private collection. Credit:  My-West.com archives ©