Quick-Fire Quips is a speedy questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the State of Alabama!
In this episode, Alabama Public Radio host Baillee Majors talks with Butch Anthony, a self taught artist, storyteller and maker of oddities from the small town of Seale, Alabama.
He created the Museum of Wonder, started in the 1970’s as his taxidermy shop and artifact room, which is now filled with art, artifacts and antiques and strange items.
Anthony also created what's being called the World's First Drive-Thru Museum. The attraction is billed as an accessible, 24/7 art experience, free and open to everyone. Is described online as an experience that provides a unique opportunity to view a wide range of artworks without traditional barriers.
It's located at 970 Alabama 169 in Seale. Admission is free, donations are welcomed.
Baillee: Hey, Butch, how are you doing today?
Butch: I'm doing good. How about you?
Baillee: I'm doing great. Before we get into the questionnaire, tell me about the Museum of Wonder.
Butch: Well, it all started back when I was about 14, and I found one of the first dinosaur bones in Alabama, and had a little museum right beside my house and stuck it in there, and people started coming. So it just grew from that.
Baillee: What can people expect when they come to visit, even the Museum of Wonder or the drive-thru Museum?
Butch: It all started back when I was about fourteen, and I found a one of the first dinosaur's bones in Alabama. And I had a little museum right beside my house and stuck it in there, and people started coming, and it just kept on growing and kept on growing. So, I decided to make a Drive-Thru Museum. I locked all the people out, and they can just drive through and serve theirselves.
(Baillee laughs)
Baillee: What does your art typically look like? What are some things that you're working on right now. What's your typical style?
Butch: I'll go to junk stores and find other people's paintings that they painted and graffiti over them with skeletons and bones. Right now, I'm weaving things out of bones, bone quilts and stuff like that.
Baillee: Oh, that's awesome. What other kinds of oddities do you have or have made or that are on display?
Butch: When hunters and fishermen go out in the woods, they find something weird [and bring it to me]. Somebody brought me a garfish with a Bing Crosby CD hung on its bill. Just weird stuff like that.
Baillee: Is there any piece that you're particularly proud of or excited to showcase?
Butch: The whole thing as a whole, like the whole Drive-Thru Museum, it's 35 windows that you can drive through there and look and see all the different artwork. The whole thing is my masterpiece, I guess, if you want to call it.
Baillee: What inspired you to do this type of work, to create this kind of work... to add on to these types of oddities that are already kind of there?
Butch: I grew up wanting to study dinosaurs and biology and collecting plants and things, I never thought anything about the art world. I just kind of fell in it. Just one thing led to another and turned into art. So, here we go.
Baillee: All right, now that introductions are done, let's get you warmed up to answer the questionnaire. And to do that, I want you to say Quick-Fire Quips, three times fast.
Butch: Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips.
Baillee: Perfect. All right, here's the first question, what is a Southern phrase or two that you catch yourself using a lot?
Butch: Oh, let's see. In the dog house. That's where I stay a lot of the time.
(Baillee and Butch laugh)
Baillee: I love that. Okay. Next question, what is a hidden gem in Alabama that you think more people should know about?
Butch: Oh, a hidden gem? All the little creeks around Alabama. Not everybody knows about the big rivers, but they don't know about all the little feeder creeks that go in and they're full of fossils. Alabama is so rich with fossils. My favorite place is a little creek called Hatchechubbee Creek, right down the road from me.
Baillee: What is a bad stereotype or something that people get wrong about Alabama?
Butch: People think we're just very unworldly. We get around... This the whole art world has taken me all around the world. I've been all over in Europe and London five times, having shows and fancy museums. Qatar, all over in the Middle East. Korea. I've been everywhere.
Baillee: What is something you wish more people knew about art?
Butch: Go to an art store and buy fancy art supplies, fancy art paints. I'll find all my stuff in dumpster diving, or somebody will call me, say, "I need clean my garage out." I go over there, and I found more stuff to make art out of than you shake stick at.
Baillee: Do you have anything that inspires you when you're working on these creations?
Butch: I just sort of go where the art takes things, a lot of welding of scrap metal, and go to junk stores and find other people's paintings that they painted and graffiti over them with skeletons and bones.
Baillee: What is something that people misunderstand about creativity?
Butch: You don't really have to know a whole lot about art to make art. It's just you either got it or you don't got it. It's like playing a guitar, either you know how or you don't.
Baillee: Would you say there's such a thing as good art versus bad art?
Butch: Well, yeah, I see a lot of bad art. [I] paint over it. If you see some bad art, that's a good canvas for you, just grab some paint and paint over that art. A lot of people get mad at me for painting over all these art students' paintings, but I kind of like it.
Baillee: Do you think there's anything that might hold people back from making art?
Butch: Oh yeah. They think they don't know how to do it, but I don't really know how to do it.
I just fell in this art oral thing. I didn't go out and make art. I was like studying bugs and snakes and stuff like that. I think I've painted over 20,000 paintings so far.
Baillee: Do you have a local artist or an artist in Alabama that you think more people should know about?
Butch: Mr. John Henry Tony. He was an old black artist that just sat in his trailer and painted every night, just sitting in his bed, painting these paintings, and I learned everything just watching him.
Baillee: I love that. Okay, next question, do you have any superstitions or irrational fears?
Butch: I really don't like to be down in a hole or something like claustrophobia. That's one of my fears. Sometimes somebody wraps a sleeping bag around me or something, I might tear out of that thing. I don't like to be claustrophobic. I can't imagine those people that go down in a well or something to clean it out. I freak out.
Baillee: Yeah or cave diving, I think it's called spelunking. That would freak me out.
Butch: Oh, somebody tried to get me to go in a cave up there and wherever the caves are in Alabama. I was like "oh no, I ain’t going down in that."
Baillee: Next question, what is the best dish to bring to a potluck?
Butch: Oh, my go to dish is like deviled eggs. But by the time I get there, I've already eaten them all. But the new thing I've been making is butter bean dumplings, like chicken and dumplings. I put little green butter beans in, it’s some old dish my grandma made back in the day, butter bean dumplings.
Baillee: What is something on your bucket list?
Butch: On my bucket list? Well, every year I try to float down the Choctawhatchee River down there, between Dothan and Enterprise and Geneva down there. And supposedly they spotted an Ivory Bill Woodpecker down there. My bucket list is to find a tail feather from an extinct Ivory Bill Woodpecker that might not be extinct.
Baillee: Well, here is our last question. What does Alabama need?
Butch: What's Alabama need? Needs more dirt roads. Instead of building all these four lanes all over the thing, they just followed the trails back in the day. But now, when they build these four lanes, it’s just straight and it's boring. And the interstates, I hate an interstate.
Baillee: That's it for today's Quick-Fire Quips, a speedy questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the state of Alabama. That was Butch Anthony, a self taught artist, storyteller and maker of oddities from the small town of Seale, Alabama. I'm your host. Bailee Majors.
Keep up with with everything that's happening with Butch Anthony and the Museum of Wonder on social media and online!
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- Facebook
- Website
Don't forget to check out Alabama Public Radio on Facebook and Instagram for more Quick-Fire Quips. Local support for the show is provided by JMF Technologies.
