by Bella Erakko

Alliance Art Gallery continues to celebrate its 20th anniversary by inviting prior members to return as guest artists. Becky Butler considers herself a ceramic artist. “I don’t work with a pottery wheel. Mine are all hand-built.” Her love affair with clay began at Quincy University. Unlike parents who worry about children getting a fine arts degree, Becky was blessed with an artist-father, and a hippy-style upbringing.

Her specialty is practical usable beauty. “I love to make functional stuff, not dust collectors. But she admits, “people think they are fragile and they’re afraid to use them.” Her current fascination revolves around garden orbs. They are not solid, so they’re not that heavy. “I like natural leaves and flower designs, and I have an obsession about koi fish.” She also creates clay paintings that are basically pictures with a lot of 3D dimension built into them. Becky does commission work on occasion for the Walt Disney Home Town Museum in Marceline, Missouri admitting that “we are a Disney family.” And her favorite character? Mickey. Why? Because her parents pulled her out of kindergarten to see Mickey Mouse on tour riding the very train where her grandfather worked as an engineer.

Today, as a professor at QU, she teaches ceramics. She also owns “The Budding Artist” in Quincy—a paint-your-own pottery studio, The Budding Artist, where children and adults create, and she is expanding to include fused glass.

An opening reception will be held on Saturday, August 12, 2023 from 4:00 until 7:00. This event is free and open to the public.