Today we’d like to introduce you to Butch Anthony.
Hi Butch, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
The Museum of Wonder is my cabinet of curiosities, a place where art, artifacts, old relics, and found objects all end up together. Every piece has a story. Some I made with my own hands, some I stumbled across, and some simply found their way to me.
The whole thing started when I was fourteen years old. I built a little one-room log cabin on my family’s land in Seale, Alabama. It was my workshop, my hideout, and eventually my first museum after finding a dinosaur bone.
In 1979, my friend Joe Kunze and I were walking a creek in Seale when I noticed something sticking out of the bank. I pulled out my pocketknife and dug it loose. It turned out to be a 65-million-year-old Mosasaur vertebra. Before long, people started coming to see the cabin, the fossil, and all the strange things I had gathered. The museum kept growing until it finally outgrew the log cabin.
In 2014, I built what became the world’s first drive-thru museum out of shipping containers along Highway 431 in Seale, Alabama. I liked the idea that people could experience art without ever getting out of their car. You can drive through at your own pace, stop when something catches your eye, and hopefully leave seeing the world a little differently than when you came in.
I’ve always thought of myself as a maker more than anything else. I’m a self-taught artist, builder, collector, and storyteller. I grew up on eighty acres in Seale, and I still live here today in a house I built with my own hands. Around here, life and art have never been separate.
Over the years, that way of thinking became what I call Intertwanglelism. “Inter” means to mix, “twang” is that distinctive way of speaking, thinking, behaving, and seeing the world, and “ism” is simply a philosophy. Intertwanglelism is about discovering unexpected connections—finding relationships between things that seem unrelated and realizing that everything is intertwined if you look closely enough.
My fascination with anatomy and the natural world grew while I was studying zoology, geology, and biology at Auburn University in the 1980s. A comparative anatomy class especially stayed with me and eventually found its way into my artwork through bones, veins, and other natural forms. I’ve always believed nature is the greatest artist there is.
I have recently created a traveling museum show titled The Persistence of Form in Life’s Remains featuring seven large-scale works crafted from bones. Blending natural history with artistic imagination, I was able to transform skeletal remains into thought-provoking compositions that challenge perceptions of life, death, and transformation. With my signature blend of curiosity and craftsmanship, this exhibition invites viewers to ponder the persistence of form beyond life itself.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Nothing about the road has been smooth, but through it all, I’ve always kept one thought in the back of my mind: it always works out in the end. Maybe not the way I imagined, but usually in a way that’s more interesting. Some of my best ideas, opportunities, and discoveries came from things that looked like failures at first. I’ve learned to trust the process, stay curious, keep making, and let the road take me where it’s supposed to.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
What do you do? Honestly, I’m still figuring that out. Every day I wake up and make something. Sometimes it’s a painting, sometimes it’s a sculpture, sometimes it’s a museum, a garden, a tractor shed, a zine, or an idea. I just follow my curiosity and see where it leads. Chasin Butterflies is what I call it.
What do you specialize in? I guess I’d say Intertwanglelism.(inter = to mix; twang = a distinctive way of speaking, thinking, behaving, assessing; and ism = a theory) It’s the philosophy I’ve spent my life developing. It’s about making connections between things that don’t seem related, and discovering that everything is intertwined if you look closely enough.
What are you known for? Some know me from the Possum Trot Auction, which was featured on American Pickers, or building the world’s first drive-thru museum. Some know me from my bone quilts or skeleton paintings.
What are you most proud of? Usually it’s the last thing I made. Right now, that’s The Persistence of Form in Life’s Remains exhibition and my current summer garden. Every day I get about a 5 Gallon bucket of squash, okra, corn, peas, tomatoes, and green beans.
What does success mean to you?
At the end of the day, success for me is having the freedom to keep chasing butterflies.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.museumofwonder.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/museumofwonder
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/museumofwondersealealabama
