The son of a carpenter and a community missionary, David Butler was born in 1898, in Good Hope, Louisiana. Butler worked at a number of jobs in local sawmills before an accident left him partly disabled at the age of sixty-two. After his forced retirement, he began to create sculptures and display them in his yard in Patterson, near Good Hope. He constructed his sculptures with flattened roofing tin that he cut with a knife or ax head and hammer. He embellished his creations with cutouts, bright paint, and attachments such as plastic toys, metal discs, and costume jewelry. For more than thirty years, Butler entertained himself and his neighbors with a changing environment of multi-colored assemblages and flashing whirligigs. Taking his inspiration from dreams and from his deep religious faith, Butler created both fantasy animals such as flying elephants and religious scenes such as the Nativity and the Crucifixion. A genial man, Butler was happy to explain his environment to visitors, especially local children who also delighted in his extraordinary bicycle—adorned with cutouts and pinwheels—which he rode around the neighborhood.

Windmill with Rooster, driven by blades cut into a four-pointed tin star and by paddles of wood and irregularly shaped tin, delivers a series of visual surprises. The maniacal face of a plastic jack-o’-lantern adorns the front of the drive wheel. A blue and red speckled rooster runs and flaps its silver wings and appears to pull a topknotted creature riding a fantastic spotted animal, perhaps a mule with an outlandish tail. When wind blows against the cutout blade attached to the mule’s belly, the entire construction rotates. This colorful, flashing whirligig, once a part of Butler’s environment, is a masterpiece of kinetic possibility.

Cheryl Rivers, "Windmill with Rooster," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 379—380.