Edward Butler in his studio
ARTIST STATEMENT
07/06/2011
Edward A. Butler interviews Edward A. Butler.
Edward A. Butler was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1948. He showed his artistic inclinations early in life and in third grade became the youngest student ever admitted to the prestigious Samuel Fleisher Art Memorial School. He continued with this formal art education through high school. He attended the Philadelphia College of Art from which he graduated in 1969. He has been painting constantly since then but is only now showing his work publicly for the first time.
We met the artist in his studio in Queens on a snowy afternoon last February. He gave the impression that he was unaware, or had forgotten about our appointment. I was unable to tell if he really had or was just trying to make some sort of point.
EAB: Mr Butler, let me begin by thanking you for allowing us to visit with you here and take up some of your time.
eab: Not at all, it's my pleasure. And please, call me Edward, or Eddie if you like.
EAB: Thank you. I think the primary thing people are interested in is the source of your art, in other words, where do the pictures come from?
eab: Are we going to talk about art?
EAB: Well, yes. That's the reason I came here.
eab: I didn't know that. I don't actually like to talk about art.
EAB: But you're a painter.
eab: Yes, I am.
EAB: Then who else could be better suited to give us some insight into the creative process, particularly as it applies to you?
eab: I don't have any insight into the process.
EAB: Mr. Butler, Eddie, you're telling me that after having spent your life painting pictures you don't understand the process?
eab: Yes.
EAB: I'm sorry, are you being facetious?
eab: No. I don't know about any process. I am not, after all, a critic.
EAB: Well, we can't all be, can we? So then how do you do it?
eab: What?
EAB: Paint! How do you paint what you paint?
eab: I don't know. Pictures come into my head and I paint them.
EAB: What does that mean?
eab: That means I think pictures and I paint them. I try to paint as many as I can but most get away. There are too many to paint them all.
EAB: Okay, so maybe we're getting somewhere. You sit down and think them up. How do you do that?
eab: I don't do that. I don't think up pictures, I think in pictures.
EAB: But that in itself is a process and, therefore, must have some meaning, some structure.
eab: It's not a conscious process. The pictures are there. They've always been there. I can't explain it anymore than I can tell you how I make my arm move when I want it to. It does, it always has. I don't know about the process.
EAB: If you don't mind my saying so there seems to be some contradiction here. Your paintings almost always have a person in them. A particular person. If you're just grabbing these images from a moving show inside your head then how do these specific people get there? Do you know and catalog so many people that your interior picture show is populated by these individuals? Is it so specific that...
eab: Listen. I like to paint people. Faces are fascinating. But the paintings are not about the people. They are not portraits in the strictest sense. I add the specific person but that's incidental. The specific people are really interchangeable. I just enjoy painting different people. But they are simply the star of that particular painting as I saw it. The face doesn't make the painting what it is.
EAB: So you don't consider these to be portraits?
eab: I don't know. You know so much about art perhaps you can tell me what makes a portrait a portrait.
EAB: Clearly I'm annoying you. I don't mean to, I'm just trying to understand the meaning of what it is you do. People are interested in the process. They want to know what it is you're saying.
eab: I paint, I don't say. Writers say. You look at my stuff, you don't listen to it. You don't read it.
EAB: Again, excuse me for pressing the point, but this is not some new concept I'm trying to pull out of you. Artists do explain their work.
eab: Yeah, well, that just doesn't impress me. If you have to write an explanation then maybe you should be in some other line of work. In my opinion the work, when you presume to show it to other people, should speak for itself.
EAB: So you're telling me you don't care what people think when they look at your work? Aren't you trying to evoke some emotion, some involvement?
eab: Yes, I like to think that people may have some emotional or intellectual response to my work. I just don't feel it's up to me to tell them what that should be.
EAB: No hint, no insight, no guidance? Have you no message?
eab: No, but I believe I have a purpose. You don't need one to have the other. Listen. You stand a bunch of people on a hillside and let them look down on a valley. They don't need guidance for their thoughts. Each is going to have his own. Yes, I'd like to evoke something in them. But only because what they see is beautiful, only because what they see is interesting. I do my part. I paint the picture and hang it on the wall. The rest I'd like everyone to bring with them. Now, can we talk about something else?
EAB: What do you want to talk about?
eab: How about airplanes?
EAB: I love to talk about flying but I'm not here to interview you about flying.
eab: Apparently I don't know enough about art, so you can't interview me about that either.
EAB: Perhaps we should call it a day.
eab: Very well. It was nice to have met you.
718-729-5012
EButler582@aol.com
