Butch Anthony: The Persistence of Form in Life‘s Remains
May 17th – August 15th
By Monica Jones
Step into the Bo Bartlett Center now through August 15, and you’ll find yourself transported to a place where the familiar meets the fantastic, and where the echoes of life persist in the most unexpected forms. Butch Anthony: The Persistence of Form in Life’s Remains is a captivating exhibition by the self-taught Alabama artist, offering a profound and often whimsical journey through seven large-scale works crafted predominantly from bones. It’s a show that will make you rethink what art can be, and what stories the silent remnants of nature can tell.
Bo Bartlett, renowned artist and the center’s namesake, recently sat down with Anthony for a revealing radio interview, broadcast from the mythical town of Magnolia, Georgia (aka Columbus). Bartlett introduced Anthony as an “outsider artist,” a collector of things – bones, old photographs, forgotten objects – which he “rearranges and reassembles and reorganizes and turns into his own art.” Anthony, who once studied biology, zoology, geology, and anatomy at Auburn University, lives on his family farm in Seale, Alabama, where his unconventional creative process unfolds.
Bartlett coined the word of the day for the interview: entanglement, a quantum phenomenon where particles share the same state regardless of distance. He then playfully linked it to Anthony’s own term for his work: intertwangleism. As Bartlett mused, it’s about “two things that are connected, that have a little southern twang to them, put into some sort of overriding theory or philosophy of art.” This concept perfectly encapsulates Anthony’s artistic approach, where disparate elements – from cow bones to discarded drawers – are woven together into new narratives, imbued with a distinct Southern sensibility. Anthony’s personal philosophy is equally direct: “They can think the way they want to think, and I’m going to think the way I want to think.” It’s a sentiment that speaks volumes about his independent spirit and singular vision. Intertwangleism itself is defined by Anthony as: (inter = to mix; twang = a distinctive way of speaking, thinking, behaving, assessing; and ism = a theory).
Anthony’s connection to bones runs deep, stemming from a childhood discovery. At age 14, while camping by a creek in Seale, he quite literally stumbled upon a dinosaur bone – one of the first found in Alabama. This sparked a five-year stint traveling the country, digging for the Auburn Paleo Lab in the early 80s. While there are no dinosaur bones in this current exhibition, Anthony’s fascination with skeletal forms clearly endured. Today, he gathers cow bones from local pastures, allowing nature – “beetles, fire ants, buzzards, the sun, rain” – to be his patient employees, cleansing the bones over at least three years until they are ready for his artistic hand. “Each bone looks like a sculpture by itself,” he observes.
The exhibition features monumental works that command attention, none more so than the Ossuary. This towering piece, forty feet wide and twenty feet tall, is a reimagining of the Golden Chamber of St. Ursula in Cologne, but with materials gathered along the historic Federal Road in Seale. Anthony describes it as a mix of old church windows from Georgia and discarded drawers that people toss by the roadside, all filled with bones. It evokes the medieval catacombs where plague victims’ bones were stacked, creating a poignant and powerful tribute to forgotten histories. He notes that the shoes and various pieces incorporated into the wall represent the “foot tracks of the Trail of Tears,” as the Federal Road was also part of that tragic route where Native Americans were forced to walk to Oklahoma. It’s a compelling example of how Anthony transforms discarded remnants into a shrine blurring the sacred and the forgotten, echoing the deep history embedded in the land itself.
Another striking piece is The Dream House, or The Bone House. Anthony recounts building forts as a child – tree forts, underground forts, even beaver lodges. His dream of a house made of weightless, drifting bones was inspired by tales of the first migrants to North America, who built shelters from woolly mammoth tusks and leg bones. This work, with its ribcages forming vaulted roofs and vertebrae stacked as columns, is a beautiful and haunting exploration of survival made sacred through necessity, “architecture carved from extinction.”
One of the most talked-about pieces in the exhibition is The Legend of the Hoop Snake. Rooted in Southern folklore, it brings to life the chilling tale of a serpent that rolls like a hoop, then strangles its victim before sticking its tail up their nose to confirm death. Anthony intertwines this legend with a personal anecdote about meeting the filmmaker behind Hoop Dreams, inspiring him to create a unique interpretation. The immense snake is crafted from twenty-one pieces of petrified cedar trees from his farm, riddled with nearly 5,000 nails salvaged from demolished 19th-century homes. He worked six months, seven days a week, often with the help of CSU students, hammering each bent nail straight on an anvil.
At the heart of the “Hoop Snake” piece, a centaur (a horse skeleton with a human skeleton atop) shoots a golden basketball into the snake’s mouth, its tongue serving as the basketball goal. The net? A truly remarkable detail made from 200 chicken wishbones. As Anthony humorously recounts, “It takes a long time to eat 200 chickens!” The piece is a testament to his intricate craftsmanship and his ability to weave together myth, memory, and material in a way that is both playful and profound.
Adding another layer of sensory experience to the exhibition, Anthony has incorporated “smell-o-ramas.” By the “Hoop Snake” piece, you can lift the lid of a jar and take a deep whiff of Horse Leather, a smell which transports Anthony back to his childhood joy of riding horses and the scent of a sweaty saddle. Similarly, near the Bone Bouquet (Osseoalbus phalli) – a stunning creation of over 100 raccoon baculum bones, deer and cow bones, and chicken wishbones – you can experience the scent of Southern Wax Myrtle, a favorite childhood smell from the woods around his farm. This inventive taxonomy, where he creates his own species, playfully references the Adam and Eve story and challenges our perceptions of natural classification.
The exhibition also features It’s a Nice Day for a White Wedding, Anthony’s interpretation of Alabama haute couture: a stunning wedding dress built from over 500 pounds of animal bones and miles of aluminum electrical wire. Drawing inspiration from 16th to 18th-century corsets structured with whale bone, it stands as a monument to endurance and the hidden structures beneath beauty. At the opening, a live model will even stand in it, complete with a bone snake wrapped around her.
Anthony’s collaborative spirit extends beyond the Bo Bartlett Center walls. His friendship with renowned filmmaker Les Blank led to two decades of filming for a documentary, now being completed by Blank’s son. Beyond that, the film Chasin’ Butterflies—directed by Joshua Harding, Adam Hobbs, and Matt Klug—offers a layered portrait of Anthony himself. Much like his art, the film is eccentric, playful, authentic, and deeply original. As a self-taught artist from a one-horse town in rural Alabama, Anthony defies easy categorization. Through glimpses of his drive-thru museum, trophy-covered Cadillac, and pontoon pirate ship Llatikcuf (read it backwards), the film invites viewers to meet the Butch behind the Butch—and see him as he truly is: an original.
For those eager to dive deeper into Anthony’s world, a visit to his Museum of Wonder in Seale, Alabama, is a must. Located right on the old Federal Road (Highway 431), it’s described as the country’s only drive-thru museum, open 24/7. With 35 windows, it’s a “giant cabinet of curiosities that you get to drive through.” Anthony’s advice for aspiring artists is as practical as his art: “I don’t buy any of my art materials; I find them on the side of the road, dumpster diving.” This philosophy, embodied by his upcoming Kudzu Zoo (topiaries made from scrap metal and rebar, trimmed with kudzu), underscores his resourceful and imaginative approach.
Butch Anthony’s exhibition, The Persistence of Form in Life’s Remains, is more than just a collection of artworks; it’s an invitation to explore the beauty in what remains, to ponder the interconnectedness of things, and to see the world through the eyes of an artist who finds wonder in every discarded object and every silent bone. It’s a truly unique and memorable experience that bridges art, history, and the richness of Southern life.