Authentic connection threads throughout Elizabeth Butler’s process and body of work. For her, that’s when the real magic happens. That’s where her state of flow exists––where she feels fully surrendered to the creative process and simply becomes a channel for beauty and creativity. It’s also what she wants her collectors to experience––that when they connect with one of her pieces, they’re actually connecting with something within themselves.
“Authenticity is one of my core values,” Elizabeth said. “I want to be authentic in everything that I create and make it from a place of authenticity and love.”
Surrendering to that core value, has led Elizabeth to boldly explore new subject matters and mediums. Tapping into her intuition to guide the process, she has been experimenting with blending metal leaf with her oil paintings of florals and landscapes to create an interactive experience. And the experimentation has also challenged her in new ways, sparking a sense of freedom and boldness along the way.
In this interview, Elizabeth shares how she’s using metal leaf to create a dynamic, interactive experience with her paintings, and how authenticity guides her process.
Q&A with Elizabeth:
How do you describe your work?
My work is always changing and evolving, which is great because it’s not static. I cover a variety of subjects. I usually generalize and say, “anything beautiful”. That’s what I like to make. I have a lot of florals that I do using gold and silver leaf backgrounds sometimes. Other times, it’s traditional oil on wood panel. I like working large, if possible––large floral scapes, as the whole point of the composition is to experience an interaction with flowers that I’ve arranged.
I’m also working in landscape too. With those, I’m really interested in the sky with a lot of the painting aspects of it––playing with some of the opacity and transparency of oil paint on panel, and especially the expansive stormy skies that we get out here in the Southwest. I’ve been exploring landscape especially with gold, silver and metal leaf. Some of that with painting in a mixed media way and some of it in full metal leaf collage. And when I say metal leaf, I’m talking about gold leaf, silver leaf, different karats of gold leaf, like 12, 16 or 18 karat gold as well as dyed silver leaf. I break and tear that up to create the landscape.
What brought you to metal leaf?
Play and experimentation. I do a lot of experimentation and I try to be responsive to what excites me, and that usually happens just by seeing something lying there. I had a packet of gold leaf that my aunt had given me years ago and I had it sitting around for quite a while. I had an old painting that I was going to paint over, but instead I put leaf over it and then I painted on that. It was fun. So it just started there. Over the years, I’ve really dove in and investigated the material and the technique in a really exhaustive way.
I like to explore that subject to the fullest depth possible until I feel like I’ve really mastered it. So, I did that with florals and leaf and explored that material and how I could work with paint for quite a while before I moved into doing that with landscape. The more I started working with landscape and gold leaf and silver leaf, I started exploring different kinds of leaf and was introduced to some of the dyed silver leaf that I’m using now. I love it for its interactive ability because the leaf is very reflective, so it changes with the light, the kind of light, the amount of light and where you stand. You actually have to move around to really fully experience the piece since it changes in that way, especially if I use oil paint on top of it. The way oil paint catches light is different than the way metal leaf reflects light.
I’ve really enjoyed that exploration because it’s an invitation to experience the environment and it’s a little more, for me, connected.
What do you love most about the creative process?
Being in flow. It makes me emotional to think about. I feel so lucky that I get to experience that. It’s the most beautiful experience of flow. And when you’re really in it, nothing else exists. Time goes away and it feels like love. I’m just a channel and I get to experience the full flow of beauty and creativity and divinity just coming through. I get to be there for a while and then it’s over and I’m very grateful. And it’s not always that connected, but when it is, it’s just magic and it’s really good.
It’s outside of the cognitive aspect when you work on something just through a place of play and curiosity and love without all of the knowledge. I have a lot of knowledge. I’ve worked really hard to study and to learn. And that’s important too. But it is a totally different experience when you’re just working in flow and you’re not thinking and your decisions aren’t rational, but they’re purely intuitive and responsive and surrendered. If you can really trust the creative inspiration, you stop questioning why or if, you just move and then you finish and you’re like, “how did I do that?”. And you didn’t really do it, someone else did it. You just said, okay, and moved.
How has your creative journey evolved?
Ways that my work has evolved that is more obvious is the subjects and brushwork. It’s evolved in my use of materials. It’s evolved in my handling of paint. It’s also evolved for me in how I experience the making of the work. I feel a lot more freedom. So that’s the evolution.
There’s a boldness and a freedom to move in new ways with a lot less questioning. Freedom and boldness are experiences that I’m having more frequently while I work. Practically speaking, I’m using metal leaf in more of a collage way. I like it to read more as a painting first, but the reality is that I’m using metal leaf and breaking it up to create the majority of the composition. So some of my newer pieces are maybe 99% leaf with a little bit of paint on top to pull out some of the shapes. That has been a major evolution in the way I’m working, especially because I’m a painter.
I consider myself a painter. I still call them paintings. But there is a different process where there are marks that I’ve never seemed to be able to make with my brush that are coming out in these shapes that I’m breaking with my fingers. It’s a really kind of physical process too. I think I enjoy that part of it. It’s also quite intuitive because you have very little control around how it breaks. I also have a limitation in terms of the colors of the leaf that I have available. These new constraints are creating huge jumps, creatively having to solve the problem in different ways with different tools than I’ve had previously.
What is the most rewarding aspect of what you do?
I just saw a collector who purchased a piece from me a number of years ago, and she came back to visit and say hi. Looking at my new body of work, she said, “I still think the piece you made for me is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever made.”
That was perfect. It’s beautiful because, to me, that meant she had a really authentic connection with something and authenticity is one of my core values. I want to be authentic in everything that I create and make it from that place of authenticity and love. She connected to something there and loved it, and she still feels that powerful connection.
What keeps you coming back to the Celebration of Fine Art?
One of the beautiful aspects of this space is the exchange between the collector and the artist. Being able to watch people experience your work is really valuable and fulfilling. To develop a relationship with your collector is really special. To meet and see new people experience your work for the first time, is really special. There’s a relational aspect to this show that gets missed in most other gallery spaces. I really treasure the ability to watch someone and interact with someone as they experience my work and see how it moves them.
