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Talented
Louisiana Artist Murrell Butler Popular Feature Of Audubon Country
Birdfest Article by Anne
Butler -
Photos
by Patrick Walsh
(St. Francisville, Louisiana) Besides his enormous talent
and creativity, evolving over an artistic career spanning half a
century, the one thing that stands out about St. Francisville
painter Murrell Butler is his immense generosity of spirit. This
is an artist who has always been willing, even anxious, to share
his time and talents for a good cause, and over the years he has
donated countless original works and prints to wildlife
preservation groups, historic associations and birding
organizations to raise funds as well as awareness. Most recently
he has painted the featured bird for each annual Audubon Country
Birdfest, donating the limited edition prints made from the
coveted originals.
Murrell Butler originals sell for thousands of dollars, so his
generosity is considerably more appreciated now than in his
early years, when he sold one duck portrait for the lordly sum
of a nickel. Of course his work has developed commensurately
during the course of a career that has ranged from the
"Painted Bunting" by Murrell Butler
2005 Audubon Country BirdFest
challenges of painting huge 17-foot-high dioramas in wildlife
museums across the South to rendering minutely detailed and
incredibly accurate small-scale illustrations for field guides
to birds, and everything in between.
He modestly resists the inevitable comparisons to John James Audubon,
flamboyant French artist-naturalist who arrived in the St. Francisville
area in 1821 and painted many of his famed Birds of America studies
while employed as a tutor at Oakley Plantation. Audubon was spellbound
by the staggering scope and variety of birdlife in the Felicianas, with
habitat areas ranging from the hilly loessial bluffs and steep shady
ravines of the uplands to the swampy bottomlands with hardwood forests
seasonally flooded by the Mississippi River, and Murrell Butler even as
a small child felt the same fascination. He grew up, after all, scouting
the same unspoiled woods and hollows, hills and creekbeds as Audubon,
studying the same species, and never losing the sense of wonder at the
beauty of the natural world surrounding him.
A young Murrell Butler
Raised in a family of hunters and great game cooks, Butler’s
interests always ran more toward conservation and art.
Fortunately he received encouragement from his mother, a gifted
fashion illustrator, and his grandparents at the family
plantation now called Butler Greenwood, where the walls were
hung with Audubon prints and the library shelves overflowed with
books on natural history, old National Geographics and
ornithological works by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Major Allen
Brooks and other prominent 19th-century bird artists. Murrell
Butler studied these works every moment when he wasn’t out in
the woods studying nature first-hand, sketching, observing,
recording, and always bringing home fledglings fallen from nests
to raise and release. His elementary school teachers put him to
work illustrating school bulletin boards with nature drawings,
and his school bus drivers recall the owls and
other flying friends that followed him out to the bus stop every
day. During one period of fascination with the necessary
lifecycle contributions of birds of prey, friends often
telephoned in alarm upon noticing the large numbers of buzzards
circling above the family home.
Butler’s formal classroom art training, like Audubon’s, was limited;
after a few semesters at Tulane, he mostly developed his talents on his
own, supplemented by workshops with recognized artists across the
country. Armed with field glasses, camera and telephoto lens, he made
embarked upon picture safaries throughout the West and Southwest, as
well as Florida, Mexico, the tropical bird paradise of Tikal in
Guatemala, Belize and other locales to study the native birdlife,
marveling at what he saw and returning to paint and preserve it.
A
study of taxidermy provided understanding of anatomical
intricacies, and participating in bird banding and raptor rehab
projects for the government provided knowledge of migration
patterns and life spans. Besides field observation in the wild
and among flocks of wild turkeys and other species he raised
himself, preserved bird skins in museum collections allowed the
artist to exactly duplicate the amazing range of plumage
coloration, feather configuration and other intricate
variations.
Years before the ecology movement focused national attention on
the complicated interrelationships among all living things,
Butler recognized the importance of painting each bird or
waterfowl in an appropriate setting.
Working on his latest painting.
Unlike Audubon, who allowed his teenaged assistant Mason to paint
many of his backgrounds, Murrell Butler always did his own landscapes,
showing the featured bird in exactly the proper habitat with great
attention to detail. It is this very accuracy and faithfulness to detail
that has allowed him to do encyclopedia illustrations, award-winning
wildlife stamps and other coveted commissions. His work is represented
in museums and private collections across the country.
Over the years Murrell Butler’s work has evolved as he has grown as
an artist. His most recent works are large landscapes and swamp scenes
showcasing his wonderful feel for sunlight and shadows playing across
still swamp waters, evincing his great love for his native state and her
wide variety of pristine wilderness areas. They exhibit a fantastic
feeling of artistic freedom not so apparent in his more careful and
tightly controlled earlier paintings, an exuberance perfectly suited to
the rich lushness of the Louisiana landscape.
"Deer on Bayou Sara" by Murrell Butler
If his artwork shows an expanding openness, so too does this shy
and retiring artist’s lifestyle. Gratified by the increased
popularity of birdwatching in recent years, he has opened his
home Oak Hill for birding programs and conducts guided bird
walks across the surrounding acreage. His nature walks are among
the most popular of field trips for the Audubon Country Birdfest.
Oak Hill has a wonderful diversity of bird habitats, from the steep
slopes and deep hollows of the Tunica Hills to sandy creek bottoms, from
Bayou Sara to the swampy Maynard Lake, from cleared cow pastures to deep
dark woods, so participating birders usually spot 30 or 40 different
varieties on the property. The April Birdfest walk at Oak Hill promises
lots of spring birds…warblers, orioles, tanagers, yellow-billed cuckoos,
Eastern king birds. There are Eastern bluebirds in nesting boxes, and
always a pair of horned owls with young in an old hawk’s nest clearly
visible through a telescope trained on a large pine tree. Around the
pond and the lake, woodducks flash through the trees as they leave their
nests in boxes and hollow trees, and herons and ibises fish in the
shallows. Having roamed these woodlands since childhood, the resident
artist knows just where to find what birds and when, readily identifying
them by sight and sound but taking along a guide book and binoculars to
help beginners with identification.
Even non-birders enjoy the outing, which always begins in his
wonderful two-story log house, beautifully landscaped and shaded
by ancient live oaks, a blossoming oasis on a hillside in the
midst of open pastureland. In the brick-floored studio where he
paints, hanging from the exposed ceiling beams are oriole nests
gathered on birding trips around the world…Belize, Guatemala,
Trinidad, Mexico…and even a weaver bird nest made of palm fibers
in Thailand. On an easel there is usually a work in progress;
prints of earlier paintings are available as well. Outside the
windows are half a dozen bird feeders, usually crowded with
finches and cardinals, red-bellied woodpeckers and goldfinches,
red-wing blackbirds and sparrows, grackles and thrashers, while
the hummingbird feeders attract dozens of the tiny flashing
birds. First-time visitors marvel at the sheer number and
variety of birds that can be seen without ever even leaving the
house, and that’s not counting the parakeets in the huge outdoor
aviary.
"Champion Cypress" by Murrell Butler
Scheduled for April 1 through 3, the fourth annual Audubon Country
BirdFest offers beginning and advanced birding, with transportation
provided, through historic plantations and antebellum gardens with such
evocative names as Live Oak, The Oaks, Wyoming, Rosedown, Afton Villa
and Ouida. Other field trips feature spectacular preserved wilderness
areas like the series of waterfalls in the Clark Creek Natural Area and
the new Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge, a heartwarming example of
private and governmental cooperation in conserving significant natural
resources. Canoes and life jackets will be provided if the Mississippi
River is "up," because Cat Island is one of the largest tracts of virgin
wetland forest along the Mississippi not protected by levees from
cyclical flooding. Sometimes inundated by 15 to 20 feet of water in the
spring, the wildlife refuge provides ideal habitat for huge populations
of wintering waterfowl and is home to the world’s largest Bald Cypress
tree, believed to be between 800 and 1500 years old and an astounding 83
feet tall.
History and hiking, canoeing and conservation are all part of the
BirdFest weekend put together by the Feliciana Nature Society, with
activities geared to every age and interest level. Birding tours and
field trips are led by recognized experts through areas rich in the
flora and fauna for which West Feliciana is famous. Besides personally
conducting the bird walks through his own property, Murrell Butler has
as usual painted this year's fund-raising limited edition print of a
pair of spectacular Painted Buntings.
Birding at Butler Greenwood Plantation - 2004
Audubon Country BirdFest
For novice or less energetic birders, some field trips are rated for
beginners, including one excursion that promises interesting sightings
right in the middle of St. Francisville's oak-shaded National
Register-listed Historic District and along the Mississippi River. Other
trips include historic home tours, and the Asphodel visit combines birds
with bugs to take advantage of the expertise of the current owner of
that antebellum plantation.
Special hands-on nature activities and games designed to appeal
especially to youngsters are offered at Audubon State Historic Site. The
famed artist John James Audubon arrived in St. Francisville by steamboat
in 1821, penniless and with a string of failed business ventures behind
him, but rich in talent and dreams, having set for himself the
staggering task of painting all of the birds of the immense fledgling
country. Hired to tutor the beautiful young daughter of Oakley
Plantation, now preserved as Audubon State Historic Site, he was allowed
his afternoons free to roam the woods, sketching and collecting
specimens, painting a large number of his famous bird studies and
cutting quite a dashing figure with his long flowing locks, frilly
shirts and satin breeches.
Field trips and tours are scheduled Friday afternoon, all day
Saturday, and Sunday morning. On Friday evening, the opening social
takes place in Jackson Hall next to historic Grace Episcopal Church,
with the eminent landscape expert Neil Odenwald discussing how to
attract birds to southern gardens. BirdFest headquarters are the St.
Francisville Inn next to Parker Park, right in the heart of historic
downtown St. Francisville; all tours originate there, and participants
may register at headquarters or in advance (telephone 800-488-6502, mail
P.O. Box 2866, St. Francisville, LA 70775. Detailed online information
is available at
www.audubonbirdfest.com; since each birding tour is limited to 20
participants, signing up in advance is a good idea. A large tally board
recording bird sightings is located in the park, site of exhibits,
artists, demonstrations, children's activities and nature-related
vendors.
A view from the artist's work studio.
The St. Francisville area offers excellent birding opportunities
throughout the year, especially in the springtime. In the summer, the
Feliciana Hummingbird Celebration (July 29 and 30, 2005) centers around
the large numbers of these colorful little birds at several sites near
St. Francisville, with banding and other activities. Rosedown State
Historic Site also offers periodic guided bird walks through its
antebellum gardens and extensive grounds, and Murrell Butler conducts
guided birding tours year-round.
In the St. Francisville area, there are six antebellum plantations
open for daily tours: Rosedown and Audubon State Historic Sites, The
Myrtles, Greenwood, Butler Greenwood and The Cottage; Catalpa is open
part-time, and Afton Villa Gardens opens seasonally, with spring usually
the peak of its blooming season. Picturesque 19th-century structures
throughout downtown St. Francisville are filled with an eclectic
selection of little shops, and reasonably priced meals are available in
a nice array of restaurants. Some of the state's best Bed and Breakfasts
offer overnight accommodations ranging from golf clubs and lakeside
resorts to historic townhouses and country plantations; a modern motel
has facilities to accommodate busloads. Recreational opportunities
abound in the Tunica Hills, with excellent hiking, biking, hunting,
fishing, golfing and horseback riding, in addition to the superb
birdwatching.
St. Francisville Inn 5720 Commerce St.
St. Francisville, Louisiana 70775
225-635-6502 | 800-488-6502 |
Website |
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