California Artist

Deborah Butterfield

One of todays most influential Artists and Educators in the American Visual Arts scene is Deborah Butterfield. The California Native was born in 1949 in San Diego on the day of the 75th running of the Kentucky Derby. This fortuitous event was an omen of the close life-path her life with equines would take. She herself credits the event of her birth on Derby Day as the determining factor of her career as a modernist sculptor of horses. Deborah, a former Colt, attended Crawford High School and was a member of the Class of 1966. Yes! She a Colt! Staring to see the connection with horse?

After her graduation from Crawford High School, Deborah went to San Diego State College, and then on to the University of California at Davis for her Bachelors Degree, which she received in 1972. She then continued her studies in Fine Arts in the East Coast. Where upon completing more work in developing her creative skill set, she then subsequently returned to the University of California at Davis to finish her advanced graduate studies. In 1975, Deborah earned her Masters of Fine Arts Degree from UC Davis.

Her artworks, from the early 1970’s, were fragile creations made from mud, sticks, straw and found metal. These exquisite works of sculpture were very telling of the emerging talent that was blooming from Deborah. Her creative soul has given birth to horses of all sizes and shapes, from the small, to the full-sized constructs. And,
Deborah’s designs of her equine sculptures evoke the spirit of horses either standing or at rest.

It wasn’t until Miss Butterfield’s work was shown at the Whitney Museum of Art in 1979, at the Whitney Biennial, that she became noticed. Today her widely collected sculptures can be seen in some of the most prestigious collection across the United States and Europe. This California Artist currently lives and teaches in Bozeman, Montana. Deborah is a faculty member of the Montana State University at Bozeman.

Her honors include a National Endowment Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Citation for Excellence Award from UC Davis, and two honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts. She is a true Renaissance woman. Deborah is a triple threat… Educator, Artist and Author.

Butterfield says of her work, “I guess that my work with the real horse is so much about language and that my art has to do with imagining another form of life. It’s that empathy; I’m trying to get the viewer to project himself or herself into the form of the horse.”