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Butler SteltemeierSteppin’ Out

W hen you meet Butler Steltemeier, you’ll be in medias res, but you'll be glad you did. She’s charming. Quirky. Entertaining. Wears her heart on her sleeve. She’ll even let you call her “But.” A conversation with her

makes you pause to wonder what life would have been like had she picked up a microphone instead of a paintbrush. !ank heaven she didn’t. A world without Steltemeier’s magical realism of watercolor art would be far less enchanting indeed.

First things "rst. Before you ever see her paintings on clayboard, you know from "rst impression that her subject matter can’t possibly be hay bales, French waiters, or pears. She’s just not that kind of girl. Steltemeier paints lifelike animal portraits on black backgrounds. Her fauna of choice is the sheep, which she renders with exacting clarity. Typically, her subjects are meticulously “blinged out” with earrings, clover chains, and/or birds perched on their heads. Or they might even be sporting a blueberry cake chapeau, worn with a jaunty tilt.

by Emme Nelson-Baxter | photography Jerry Atnip

ARTIST PROFILE

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44For all the whimsy coupled with the spot-on realism, Steltemeier is a member of the National Watercolor Society, American Watercolor Society, and Alabama Watercolor Society. Her work can be found in corporate collections throughout the United States, including the Tennessee State Museum, Bell South, American Airlines, and the Nashville Public Library.

Private collectors include myriad celebrities, such as Whoopi Goldberg, who bought a monkey-themed piece; Billy Joel, who acquired a series of cigar paintings; Al Gore, who owns a music-themed work; Michael and Amy McDonald, who bought a couple of sheep paintings and a portrait of their black lab; and Steve and Eugenia Winwood, who have a sheep, a lady, and a rooster painting.

To the public, there is no middle ground with her work. “You either like my work or you don’t,” she says matter-of-factly. “Fortunately, there are enough people who like sheep with trinkets on their heads that it pays the mortgage.”

!e Nashville native—who grew up a stone’s throw from Belle Meade and attended St. Cecilia Academy—is delighted to have been able to make a living for herself in the career she loves for over a quarter century. Now in her early "fties, she maintains that she has never "lled out a job application.

Steltemeier’s talent was evident early. At nineteen she won Best of Show for the State of Alabama while attending

Gatekeeper II, Watercolor on clayboard, 20" x 16"

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45Spring Hill College in Mobile. She left school to apprentice at the New York Art League. Life after that stint was an ongoing road trip as part of the national outdoor art circuit. “It was a nomadic life,” she explains, her eyes twinkling as she remembers the thrill of the road.

Her work at the time included still lifes of $owers plus portraits of a variety of animals, including pigs, sheep, cows, donkeys, and ostriches. She began focusing primarily on sheep about thirteen years ago. Today, she works from her studio in Leiper’s Fork where she divides her work time between painting commissions, gallery pieces, and scenes for children’s books that Reader’s Digest representatives have approached her about producing.

When you meet this delightful personality, the idea of immortalizing sheep in watercolor starts to make sense. It’s an inevitable spell the artist has on her many followers. Steltemeier is part hippie, part guardian angel always but an artist to the core. What you see is what you get, and the commentary is beyond entertaining.

Butterfly, Watercolor on clayboard, 12" x 12"

Barley Nest with Pearls, Watercolor on clayboard, 12" x 16"

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46“We’re all so afraid of imagination, of passion,” she observes. “I’ve got so many passions, it’s like a high.”

!ose passions range from painting to lecturing to mission work. Some of that work is in faraway lands, but much of it evolves from her own community. Steltemeier literally opens her home to souls, whether it’s a one-eyed pug, an abandoned donkey named Jack, or a couple of down-and-out guys who need a place to stay as they straighten out their lives.

She’s that kind of girl. A one-of-a-kind kind of girl. Steltemeier is not the sort of artist who hibernates in her studio and plans to still be gripping a brush on her deathbed. She’d rather be surrounded by friends, family, and animals, taking her inspiration from all of them.

A central character in her life is not a person but a place. Butler "ts right in with the cast of characters that comprise the community of Leiper’s Fork. “I couldn’t be more lucky having a studio in the quirkiest place in America,” she observes. To illustrate the point, she launches into a description of a fellow Leiper’s Forkster who likes to sport a football helmet with a live chicken on top as he rides downtown on his banana-seat bike with the car steering wheel. “When I saw Floyd getting o% his bike at Puckett’s, I knew I could live here and be normal.”

The town she describes is a mix of old timers, musicians, celebrities, and artsy folk who don’t really seem to care what the others do in their day jobs. “The only way you get kicked out of Leiper’s Fork is if you don’t have a good heart,” she notes. “People are so nice that when your dog or cat dies, the neighbors bring you a casserole.”

!e neighbors also don’t appear to mind if you have a donkey in your backyard that you sometimes dress up in a hat and red lipstick and have pose for portraits. Or that you organize dinner parties in the creek in your backyard. No one raises an eyebrow when the creek is temporarily "lled with a sofa, iron chairs, a table, lamps, and a chandelier—and one hundred close friends and family.

So many people have enjoyed Steltemeier’s charming and imaginative painting style that serial copyists have arisen over the years. Steltemeier lets this gently roll of her shoulders. “You’re not really an artist when you copy,” she says. “When people are copying me, it’s the universe telling me that I’ve got to up my ante, that I’ve Something in Common, Watercolor on clayboard, 12" x 12"

Helen's Crown, Watercolor on clayboard, 16" x 12"

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47gotten lazy. I can let that go because I can just take two steps forward.”

How does she decide which inanimate objects she will use to ornament her sheep? “It’s not too heavy,” she says. “I don’t know myself.” Maybe, she explains, she’s at the grocery one night and buys a box of donuts. She eats them for dinner. !e next morning she wants to make something round with a hole in the center. She maintains that her choices of bling are purely imagination, not dreams or symbols. It is what it is.

Steltemeier’s current projects include several children’s books with working titles such as Rose and Mr. Weed, !e Silver Road, Shelby the Slow Reading Snail, and Hannah the Swimming Librarian of the Sea. But if you ask her what’s next in her life, she responds this way: “Being grateful for every day, man. Maybe I’ll go be a . . . I don’t know . . . or maybe I’ll get married! It’s all in God’s time.”

Butler Steltemeier is regionally represented by Leiper’s Creek Gallery in Leiper’s Fork, TN and L. Ross Gallery in Memphis, TN. www.leiperscreekgallery.com www.lrossgallery.com

A Mane Event, Watercolor on clayboard, 16" x 20"

Gathering to Play, Watercolor on clayboard, 16" x 20"