The following is an excerpt from Skip Clement’s new book, Fly Fishing Everglades National Park
Shutter Speeds
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f you were to meet Clyde Butcher at his home in Big Cypress Preserve, Florida you would within minutes know that he and Niki, his wife, are joined at the hip and you’d admire their relationship.
Clyde grew up in Missouri in a family that was grounded in blue-collar traditions. His father was a sheet metal worker and his mother was a traditional homemaker devoted to her son. Niki, his wife, grew up in California in an erudite family that enjoyed the out-of-doors, associated themselves with matters concerning the environment and art and were committed to college educations.
Clyde became his family’s academic anomaly when he entered the University of California Polytechnic at San Luis Obispo, California to study architecture, and Niki was on her family’s intended course of academic pursuits at Foothill Junior College. Clyde and Niki were from different planets, but that has advantages. They married in 1963.
Clyde, from childhood, was intrigued with what a camera could do with a subject. His talent with spatial relationships is native to him, and his skills with perspective were intuitive. Clyde’s earliest photographic works were coveted by his friends, and later by his professional associates. Niki’s perspective on art would also influence Clyde’s. Niki said, “One day, while we were visiting an art gallery, we happened upon a black and white photograph of a solitary giant redwood tree. Clyde could not understand why anyone would buy a black and white photograph of a tree. As an architect, he only saw a tree as so many board feet. However, with time and the influence of the California photographers of that day; Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Wynn Bullock, he eventually came around to see the art in that same tree.”
In 1964, after graduating from Cal Poly with a degree in architecture, Clyde began working with a well-known and highly respected west coast architectural firm. Here, he introduced the camera as a tool in architectural work. However, after five years of working in architecture it seemed to him that there was more politics in architecture than creative work. And so one day Clyde simply came home and announced to Niki that he was making a career change – corporate life was not what he was about. It was art and creativity that Clyde was about. Niki, an artist, understood.
Aperture
Literally, to launch his new career as a photographic artist, Clyde took the black and white photographs of nature off the walls of their condo and displayed them at an outdoor art festival. He made as much that weekend as he did in an entire week as an architect – this was the direction he wanted his life to go.
Risk taking has never been something the Butcher’s feared. They are not mortal that way. Bold adventures, new beginnings, or transitioning to a new location are viewed by them as opportunities to unwind, re-tether, and become whole again. But, it wasn’t an easy lifestyle.
Exposure
Art festivals are not a steady flow of income, and the ups and downs resulted in them loosing their condo, and having to move to a tent trailer. For most families that would have made for more than just rough sledding, more like an unraveling, but not for the Butcher’s. Clyde would leave Niki and their two children, Jackie & Ted, at the tent trailer and travel from art show to art show persevering with his dream of becoming an art photographer. No one complained.
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[information]
Venice Gallery & Studio
Open Tuesday-Friday 10-4
237 Warfield Ave
Venice, FL (Sarasota Area)
Phone: (941) 486-0811
Email: info@clydebutcher.com
Big Cypress Gallery
Open 7 days a week 10-5
Hwy 41 Tamiami Trail Mile Marker 54.5
Ochopee, FL (Everglades)
Phone: (239) 695-2428
Email: bcg@clydebutcher.com
[/information]
Coral Coast, Cuba.
Agawamuck Ceek, NY.
Monterey Surf, CA.
Apalachicola River, FL.
