Equine theme comes to botanic gardens

As one walks into the Denver Botanic Gardens/York Street, “Charlo,” the most recently created Deborah Butterfield horse sculpture (2015), appears to be happily munching on surrounding vegetation, while nearby, “Ahulani” (1991) is reclining and relaxing. Both are included in American sculptor Butterfield’s 15-piece bronze “herd,” which is spending the summer at the DBG –; located individually throughout the gardens’ acreage in beautiful settings. The exhibit opened May 23 and will remain in place through Oct. 18.

Some sculptures, such as “Lucky,” are named for the artist’s own horses, and others, such as “Red Forest,” are named for places of significance to her. All are life-sized or larger-than-life, and involved some careful digging for underground supports and a crane to set them into the assigned locations.

“Red Forest,” for example, is tall and powerful-looking –; and carefully, tightly placed in the densely planted rose garden, which almost seems like a bizarre sense of humor was at play. He is named, Butterfield said, after the forest near Chernobyl, in the Ukraine, where the disastrous 1986 nuclear reactor explosion turned the needles red on the surrounding evergreen trees. “We need to remember these things,” she commented.

She received an MFA from the University of California-Davis in 1973, already focused on horses –; in contrast to the conceptual art her peers were creating. She shaped them with sticks, mud, metal and wood at first, but these found materials did not offer the permanence she sought, so she began casting the individual pieces she collected in bronze and then welding them together.

They show the different bark textures and forms of their particular source, enhanced by patinas painted on with a brush. Chemicals in patinas give a range of subdued colors. She has focused on horses for 30 years and all but one in the exhibit are made from bronze. “Luna” (1992), lounging by a pool at the far west side of DBG, is made from found steel, welded.

During a May 22 press preview, she described the sources of her wood for some sculptures. “Storm Castle” is composed of driftwood-looking pieces salvaged from a pond near the Hawaiian winter home she and he husband maintain in addition to a primary residence/ranch in northern Montana.

The foundry where she now casts and assembles her works is fairly new, in Walla Walla, Washington –; and is the largest in the U.S. today, she said. Walla Walla Foundry’s website lists a number of prominent sculptors among its clients.

She builds a scaffolding first and slowly assembles the cast bronze branches and sticks, first at the hips and shoulders, then the heads. She tries to make each one approachable. “I want people to be able to kind of crawl in to the horse –; to be in the woods with them,” she said.

She spoke with special affection about “Lucky,” which is loaned from the Denver Art Museum collection and was modeled on her own deeply loved horse, which just died. It is a relaxed, relining form. “He liked to cuddle up like this and have someone sit and pet him,” she recalled, citing Wallace Stegner’s novel, “Angle of Repose”, as a way of describing reclining horses. He is set in a gravel area, raked in circular pattern like a Kyoto, Japan, garden that Butterfield remembers.

When talking about the large “Silver Bow” and the reclining “Cascade,” near the orangery, she veered into a short lecture about how everyone used to depend on horses. And about the personalities of horses: “Like cats, they’ve decided to hang out with us …”

According to the gardens’ CEO Brian Vogt, “this is a year when we are celebrating the Great Plains and similar steppe ecosystems around the world. There is no more iconic animal of the steppe than the horse.”

If you go

“The Nature of Horses” is at the Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York St., Denver, through Oct. 18. Sculptures are loaned by Butterfield (“Hawai’i”) and museums, galleries and private collection. One can self-tour by paying the general admission or one can arrange for a special, docent-led exhibition tour on Saturdays and Sundays for $ 14, non-member (includes admission), or $ 7, member –; or a family, child-oriented tour on June 27, 28; July 11, 19, 25, 26; Aug. 16, 29, 30; Sept. 19, 20 at $ 26 adult/child combo ($ 14 member/child combo and $ 7-$ 13 additional person.) Information: botanicgardens.org.

On June 11, July 9, Aug. 13 and Sept. 10, explore the sculptures with a curator from 9 to 10 a.m. ($ 15/ $ 10 member.)

On Aug. 5, Butterfield will speak from 6 to 8 p.m. ($ 15, $ 10 member.)

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