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closeWARNER ROBINS – Renowned Middle Georgia artist Butler Brown’s love for the rural homes and scenes he has painted for more than 40 years has been with him since birth.
“I was born four miles outside of Vienna in one of those little houses with the kitchen on the back,” Brown said.
Growing up in Hawkinsville, the family would gather at his grandparents’ farmhouse every Sunday for dinner.
“I would play with my cousins and visit with my grandfather and grandmother. My grandfather would sit on one side of the fireplace, smoking his pipe with tobacco from one of those little red Prince Albert cans. And my grandmother sat on the other side, a red geranium in the window beside her.
“Their house has been torn down for 40 or 45 years. There’s just a field there now. But I still can see it and them, and I’ve painted that house from all different views, and focused on different parts of it.”
One of the prints for sale in the new Butler Brown Gallery and Custom Framing shop is “Prince Albert and Silver Dollars,” based on his memories of his grandparents and their home.
Brown, who still lives outside Hawkinsville, and his son and daughter-in-law, Tony and Penne Brown, recently opened the new gallery at 1849 Watson Blvd. behind Chick-fil-A in the International Square Shopping Plaza.
A grand opening celebration with children’s face painting and other fun events is scheduled for Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“Tony and Penne are the ones who put up the money and are the actual owners. But they both still work on the base, so I’m here from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, minding the store and trying to get everything finished. We still want to get more artwork on the walls, plus models of the frames we make and sell,” the artist said.
For now, the gallery features only the artwork of Butler Brown, his son, Tony, and 12-year-old grandson, Cameron.
“They are both more versatile than I am. I’ve branched out and paint birds and flowers and other things now, but I still paint the old stuff and the realistic landscapes I’ve always done,” Butler Brown said.
But after the gallery has become more established, Brown said, he hopes to invite local art associations to hang some selected works by other area artists in the gallery and have small art shows there.
Butler and Tony Brown are also teaching art classes at the gallery. And they have a custom framing service.
Butler Brown has had a studio and gallery outside of Hawkinsville for years, but he has closed it temporarily to help get the new Warner Robins location established.
“Hopefully we can hire someone to help here during the day, and then I can reopen the Hawkinsville gallery at least part time,” he said.
“But coming to Warner Robins was a good business move for us. We have so many customers on the base and in Warner Robins, Macon, Fort Valley, Perry, all around. We were a little hard to find in Hawkinsville, and that’s a 100-mile round-trip for folks in Macon. So this puts us closer to our customers.”
One bad thing about the move is that it has left Butler Brown with little time to paint.
“I’m looking forward to getting everything settled here and getting back to work painting,” he said.
Now 71, Brown didn’t start painting until he was 30.
“I worked at the base, running punch cards through the IBM machines. I began drawing old houses, rural scenes, picket fences with birds sitting on them, on the backs of blank punch cards. I’d leave them lying around, and people I worked with started taking them home.”
His late wife, Laverne, who died three years ago, bought him his first set of oil paints and encouraged him to develop his talent.
“I set up an easel in the corner of the dining room and began to paint small pieces. I’d take them to work to show my friends, and they began to buy them.”
He later entered paintings in the Georgia State Fair and had some showings at art galleries in Macon. Jimmy Carter, then governor, first saw Brown’s work in one of those Macon shows and soon had Brown loan him paintings to hang in the Governor’s Mansion.
After Carter became president, his wife, Rosalynn, bought two Brown paintings for her husband one Christmas. When President Carter mentioned in a television interview how much he cherished the gifts, Brown became famous overnight.
“We were flooded with calls and requests. It was a dream come true and a nightmare all in one,” he recalled.
But the attention boosted what has been a lucrative career, and it gave Brown more opportunities to share his art with the world.
For more information on the new gallery, call 322-2220.
LEGENDARY GAMES
Another new business, Legendary Games, opened Thursday a few doors down from the Butler Gallery in the International Square Shopping Plaza.
The collectible cards and memorabilia shop features card games, collectible trading card games and board games, and it has plenty of tables for gamers to use for playing others.
“Some of the bookstores and small card shops set aside small areas for people to play, but they aren’t really set up to handle very many people. We felt this was something needed in the area,” said Billy Jacobs, who owns and operates the store along with partners Daniel Eric Holt and Jacqueline Capshaw.
Jacobs estimates they will draw 30-35 players for Yugioh games and close to 20 for other major trading card games, such as Magic The Gathering and Huntik.
“And we’ll have regional tournaments here where we’ll have several hundred players,” he said.
Holt said players from 7 to 50 years old enjoy the games, but most are in the teenager through early 30s category.
“We have parents who play with the younger children, and we’ll have parent workshops to teach parents how to play the games. But we’ll also have a television area where they can watch TV while their kids play, if they want,” Jacobs said.
Legendary Games is at 1825 Watson Blvd. It is open noon-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday and noon-midnight Friday-Sunday. Call 213-8922 for information.
To contact writer Chuck Thompson, call 923-6199, extension 235.
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