The Museum of Wonder, Alabama
**Artist & Currator - Butch Anthony - Museum of Wonder
Greetings!
Welcome to the first blog in my Travel Blog series! In my previous post, I wrote about lightning catching my and my girlfriend’s apartment building on fire in New Orleans, and how we decided that since we don’t have any stuff or rent, we’d venture out to other cities and eventually find a new place to call home.
Our first stop was Athens, GA, where I’m writing this post right now. On our way here, we stopped at the Museum of Wonder in Seale, Alabama, and it was quite wondrous indeed!
It’s a small drive-thru museum/art exhibit made mostly of shipping containers with glass walls so that you can see inside them when you drive slowly past. The containers are full of old bones, sculptures, paintings, artifacts, and taxidermy. The outside of the shipping containers are covered in murals.
The whole museum is created & curated by the artist Butch Anthony.
Butch Anthony - The Artist & Curator
According to the Museum’s website:
At the age of fourteen, Butch built a one-room log cabin that became a workshop for his many creations and eventually the first incarnation of the Museum of Wonder. As his skills developed, Butch began to build and fashion furniture, sculptures, and many other works of art and constructions. The Museum soon became too small and too popular for the log cabin to contain.
In 2014, Butch built The World’s First Drive-Thru Museum out of shipping containers. It sits off U.S. HWY 431 in Seale, Alabama and exhibits a rotating display of Butch’s handcrafted designs and curiosities for the wonderment of visitors and passerbys alike.
Below are photos of the artwork & artifacts in the shipping containers.
(Click on photos to enlarge)
Past the shipping containers are more sculptures and artwork, a tree with shoes hanging from the branches, giant red balls with saying written all over them, and old marquis signs with sayings on them as well:
(Click on photos to enlarge)
The Museum offers a peek into the magical, the strange, and otherworldly, while also feeling oddly close to the everyday world we inhabit. It definitely lives up to its name and instills a sense of wonder in those who visit.
Enjoy these photos and be sure to check out the Museum if you’re wandering through Alabama!
—Andy
