BUTTERBAUGH: August 2011

Headboard

60'w x 15"h acrylic on canvas, 2008
"Just lolling in bed, loving it - make it up your way."

For Sale

Wisdom

54"w x 54"h acrylic on canvas, 2003

"The life of an initiated conversation - by one's own will, leaping into the unknown."

For Sale

This painting was created while assisting at the Wisdom Course, a course offered by Landmark Education Corporation - a company whose mission is personal transformation such that one is able to create in the face of upset and threat. One of the projects during this 10 month course consisted of initiating a conversation in the world and continuing to create it through the seven steps of its development until it is out in the world and part of the culture's conversation.

The process of doing this requires continual creation and breaking through the places where one wants to hang on to something he thinks he knows or some comfortable way he behaves that actually stops the continued creation of the conversation in the world.

Three of the steps of the process are stenciled across the paintings. Some of the days of the project are stenciled from bottom to top in the painting. The dark blue, water-like shape at the left represents the old self. The wild "wingy" shape at the right represents the willingness to throw oneself out of his comfort zone, like a fledgling out of the nest for the first time. You do learn to fly.

The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit

36"w x 48"h acrylic on canvas, 1998

"Most of us contain our 'unquenchable inner fire' by our concerns for how we look, how we fit in, whether we are doing it right. But, there are times when the fire erupts anyway - even when we are uncomfortable with how it looks."

For Sale

The Rise of the Warrior Spirit

60"w x 48"h acrylic on canvas, 2005

"Enough of the flowers and flo',
This is happening 'cause I said so."

Owner: Sami Nnaji, Miami FL

The Primal Past

60" x 72" acrylic on canvas, 2004

"The passion is there; you can handle it."

$3200.00

Life Drained by Unchosen Shoulds

48"w x 60"h acrylic on canvas, 2004

"Hell - Living life without the fuel of one's values."

$1800

The Aftermath

30"w x 9"h acrylic on canvas, 2004

"Silence and blood - what's left after the fight you had to have."

$150.00

This painting was inspired when friends were on safari in Tanzania. They told a story of staying at an encampment on the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater. The crater itself is no place for humans. It is a habitat for all the wild animals of the region. Camping on the edge of the crater, one cannot go to the restroom without an armed guard. The painting conveys a sense of the threat to a human that this pristine crater represents. Violent death is a fact of life here. This is the silent aftermath.