In 1976 she moved to Montana to teach and started making horses out of natural materials. Using a wire armature, her horses became abstract sketches in mud and sticks. Following in the twentieth-century tradition of assemblage art, Butterfield began working with found objects which she gathered at dumps and on her ranch. Although the Museum's horse seems quiet and still, there is a great deal of movement in the combinations of materials, solids and voids, colors and textures. Patches of rust look like paint, and light plays over the beaten, corroded metal as it would over a twitching flank.
Horses have a long tradition as political and philosophical symbols in the history of art.
Butterfield's horses counteract the Western tradition of masculine, military equestrian statues. Her horses are vulnerable and fragile rather than mighty. They are made of materials that continue to rust and decay. Butterfield's horses are stand-ins for us and pose pointed questions about our history rather than glorifying it. Art writers have interpreted these sculptures as new images of the American West, echoing ghost towns and junkyards in their materials, and reflecting changes in our way of life.