About the Artist
Butch Anthony began to paint in 1994, using found objects to
help tell legends about people who live near him. He currently
lives and works in Seale, Alabama. His paintings often depict
humorous musings of modern habits as well as work, life,
death, money and women. Butch also creates sculptures in a
variety of sizes using wood, tin, wire and other found objects.
Butch is often recognized by his “art car,” a black hearse
adorned with a variety of found objects.

About the Art
The Mobbin Tree tells a story of blue jays protecting their
babies from a deadly snake attempting to attack the nest.
This simple theme takes on a monumental and magical
aspect as it is played out in the branches of an actual sumac
tree that is painted a rainbow of colors. Outlandish birds with
human eyes and tail feathers in the shape of human hands live
in the tree. This sculpture was inspired by the artist’s
observation and great appreciation of nature. It is also shaped
by elements of both folk art and modern art: modern art
because the birds, which are cut from tin and colored with
house paint, reference modernist theory borrowed from the
cubism of Picasso and Joan Mirü; it can be categorized as
folk art because of the number of found materials that make
up the work.

The Mobbin Tree
Once upon a time a boy in Alabama went out hunting in the
woods, and while he was walking he heard a noise that was
strange to his ear. He followed the strange noise and came to a
strange tree where he saw a giant snake, a white oak runner
snake, holding a blue jay in its mouth. The boy shot the snake
and it dropped the bird to the ground. The boy saw that the bird
wasn’t dead it just had a broken wing, so he took it home to
raise it for a pet. He built the bird a cage and fed it corn that he
bought from the money he made from selling the snake’s skin.
When the bird got well he took it to the woods to let it free. Right
before the bird flew off he told the boy that every time he saw a
snake he would holler and mob the snake so the boy could hear
him and come kill it for its skin. That was a long time ago, now
all the blue jays in Alabama know how to do this, but all the
people don’t know how to hear them.

B. A.
Seale, Alabama