Dr. Jerry Butler’s artwork invokes an odd sense of joy. While the subjects are joyful, the honesty in the pain and difficulty that they also experience is also evident. For Butler, this dissonance is intentional. “I want people to see that, no matter what people do to them, they can still have a good time,” Butler said when describing his piece, “Descendants of the Disenfranchised.”
On August 15th, Butler sat down with Dr. Reuben Anthony, CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison, for a fireside chat at the Black Business Hub. The room was filled with art enthusiasts of varied experience eager to hear about Butler’s life and work.
Butler was born in Louisiana but grew up in Mississippi. When thinking of his earliest memories as an artist, he recalls clearing spaces in the dirt and drawing there. After seeing his work, his grandmother was the first to call him an artist. Young Butler responded with “That sounds cool!” and an artist was born who would come to gain international acclaim.
As with many Black children, Butler honed his skills in church where members would ask him to draw images for their Sunday school lessons. Eventually, he became the illustrator for Sunday school. He also became the school artist. Despite not having an art teacher in his high school, he continued to build his portfolio.
Eventually, Butler’s history teacher took him to Jackson State University to seek a scholarship. Butler carried a makeshift portfolio with all his work to show to the head of the art department who came in on a Saturday to meet them. Butler left with a scholarship.
Butler recalls his childhood with warmth. “I had a community,” he said. And when it came to the racism of the Jim Crow South, Butler was aware of his place. “You had to submit in all things,” he remembered. “You had to submit to never being right on any issue outside of school and there were consequences.” Despite this environment, Butler felt insulated by his community where “we did things our way and had fun.” It is this fun that shows up in his work today. When describing his work, he says: “It is hard for me to create images about the American experience without an element of fun…even if it’s hard.”
After graduating from Jackson State University, Butler became a teacher. One day, he received a call from Madison offering him $6900 per year to teach here. Butler was excited by the money because it was $4500 more than his salary. But could he reach his other goals here? After negotiations, Butler accepted the position with an agreement for the school district to pay for his schooling. Butler worked as a middle school teacher in the Madison Metropolitan School District and his wife worked at LaFollette High School. In higher education, Butler was an associate dean at Madison College and professor of Art and Art Education at Central Connecticut State University. In the meantime, he completed his MFA in 1972 and Ph.D. in 1995 from UW-Madison. He also earned an MA in Landscape Architecture.
When asked why he does his art, Butler shrugs. “I just do it,” he says, “I’m not really sure why I do it.” But the messages that he sends through his art are clear. In addition to joy through pain, Butler also highlights influential women in his life such as his mother and grandmother and Madison’s own Milele Chikasa Anana.
Butler sees potential in Madison’s current Black art landscape with its diversity of young Black artists. However, he would like to see a more robust buying scene from Black art in the city. Although there are some collectors here, Butler observes that most of his support is not from Madison.
Butler shows no sign of slowing down. In May 2025, he will have an installation with the Wisconsin Arts Academy titled “Echoes from the Arc.” This installation is inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “We shall overcome because the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Butler muses that the arc does not bend on its own, so it needs “art benders.”
