Bev Butler studied ceramics at the Canberra School of Art prior to relocating to the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. In 1978, Bev started Butler Craft Studio, producing domestic stoneware and employing three trainees until the mid-80s, and finally ceasing production in 2000.
At the same time, from 1995, Bev took on the role of caring for her elderly mother. During this period, she also dabbled with silk painting, pictorial quilts and slumped glass. Bev also developed a technique for printing onto curved surfaces on pottery. She subsequently toured, delivering workshops from Cooktown to Bendigo teaching the technique from 1998 to 2000. Bev also started producing lampworked glass pieces in 1998, a practice she has continued ever since.
When COVID hit, Bev pulled out her sewing machine to produce face masks and found fabric too special to cut up stashed away! She decided to make a quilt, watched a lot of tutorials and bought a better machine.
Bev is now enjoying free motion quilting on fabric she has dyed and/or printed. She entered the QNSW Show in 2022 and won two firsts with a quilt called ‘Foliage’. Beginners luck? Well perhaps, but more likely her extensive studies over the previous 60 years had something to do with it!