BUTTERBAUGH: REPRESENTATIONAL WORK

The Sword and Shield of Phi Delta Theta

36"w x 42"h acrylic on canvas, 2010

Owner: Indiana Gamma Chapter, Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, Butler University, Indianapolis, IN

Sleeping
12"w x 12"h acrylic on canvas, 2007

Owner: Jean Lloyd

The B. Wright Family Home Idea
42"w x 24"h acrylic on canvas,1999

Commissioned by the Wrights

The North Florida Farm
30"w x 24"h acrylic on canvas, 1999

Commissioned by Neal Croker

I Am A Gateway
30"w x 24"h acrylic on canvas, 1997

Artist's Collection

I think this was my first painting.

EYE on the SPIRIT

These paintings show the artist's spirit - where his consciousness (thoughts, feelings, ideas, hunches, intuition) is at a particular point in time.

Trained as an architect, on the one hand Butterbaugh sees these paintings as abstract. On the other, he sees shapes, lines, color, and texture, the sense data of visual form. Site planners (see Kevin Lynch's writing) and architects use knowledge of this to create a particular kind of experience. One vivid example is Louis Kahn's Unitarian Church in Rochester, NY. He wanted to create the experience of tranquility for the person sitting in the sanctuary. His solution was to have no shadows, the presence of which create mystery.

Any creator (artist) interested in the experience that people will have in the presence of their work are highly attuned to this information and its effects.

Proceeding from visual information one can arrive at one of several interpretations for the array of light and suggested form on the canvas. These paintings are interpretations in terms of a state of mind - many about what it is like to be in the creative process itself.

A creator must be able to abide a lot of questions before he discovers the central principle(s) which can then generate the solution which meets all the criteria that the created idea had to satisfy - that value that generated all the energy to engage the creative process in the first place.

Interestingly this is true of the process of creating an integrated philosophy of life and living. For a look at how Butterbaugh took on that process, see www.heldhightorch.com.

BUTTERBAUGH

REPRESENTATIONAL WORK

EYE on the SPIRIT

"I Create" - the course

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