Hand-painted black and white photography is a way for me to express myself more specifically, to make my work more personal. I like to take an image and then add color that might not be entirely true to the original scene, but helps me elicit an ambiance, or a fleeting feeling, that I want to capture. I also delight in the idea that I‘ve revived a photographic technique that once was popular, but now is nearly forgotten. - Niki Butcher

Thirty years ago Niki began focusing her camera on the fading facades and changing cultures of Florida, capturing old shacks on sagging stilts, conch homes in the Florida Keys, a lonesome sandy beach in the Ten Thousand Islands, or the mysterious cypress strands of the Everglades.

Remembering the gentle surreal feeling of those old Florida post cards, Niki choose to interpret her photographic images by hand-painting the scenes in colors that represented her feeling at the time she took the photograph. Her hand-painted photographs bring another dimension to the back and white photography, bringing an artist’s unique view of the magnificent as well as the jocular side of Florida.

Born in Arizona, but raised in Palo Alto, California, Niki enjoyed the intellectual community that formed around Stanford University. The arts became a large part of her life, selling her first painting when she was a junior in high school. She continued her love of art in college, majoring in art and minoring in English. 

Niki and Clyde Butcher married in 1963.

After Clyde graduated in architecture from college he began his first business. Niki left college to work until that business got off the ground. It never did, but they both agree it was a great learning experience. 

In 1965 Clyde joined the architectural firm of William Perreira and in 1967 their daughter Jackie was born. In 1969 their son Ted was born. Niki was a ‘stay-at-home’ mom, but the urge to create caused her to start a small business in the field of portrait photography. She called it “natural family photography”. She only photographed her clients in the environment - school playgrounds, parks or beaches.

When Clyde established his second business in 1971 Niki gave up her small business and went to work full time to become the manager. The business grew to employ around 200 employees. Due to the stress of the business Clyde & Niki sold it in 1977. To restore their spiritual being, Clyde built a sailboat, then trailered it across country to Florida where the family explored the waters off Florida and fell in love with the state.

In 1980 their family moved to Florida and settled in Ft. Myers.  Niki was enamored by the beauty of the environment and the funky ‘mom & pop’ wayside places throughout the state. The large population boom in Florida endangered both the environment and the funky part of Florida, which was disappearing. Niki began capturing with black and white film, then hand-painting those scenes, of a rapidly disappearing Florida that she felt represented the state – both the environment and the funk – saving them on film before they were gone. 

Establishing their third business, Clyde & Niki began doing Street Art Festivals. Clyde exhibited his color images and Niki exhiibited her hand-painted black and white images. Wanting her work to reflect the soft surreal feeling that she sees, Niki began hand-painting her black and white images in the same way the old fashion postcards were created. In 1983 she began selling the framed hand-painted images at the Street Art Festivals. Niki printed her images on fiber-base black and white mat surface paper in the darkroom, then using Q-tips and cotton balls, she applied a thin coat of oil paint over the surface allowing the image to gently be seen through the oil paint.

In 1986, Clyde & Niki’s son, Ted, was killed by a drunk driver. It was traumatic for the entire family. Niki escaped into her hand-painted photography and tried to keep the family together while Clyde went out into the wilderness to renew himself.

“The saddest day of our lives happened in 1986...our 17 year old son was killed when a drunk driver rammed into the side of the car in which he was a passenger. It is hard to talk about even now, so many years later. 

Ted died in the early evening, but we weren't notified until after mid-night. When I heard I collapsed, then wanted to run away, so we walked up and down the street. It didn't help, so we drove to the marina and watch the boats and sat in the car stunned. We finally decided to wait until morning to notify family. Jackie was in college in Ft. Lauderdale, so the next morning, after we told Clyde’s folks, who lived across the street from us, Clyde left to drive over to Ft. Lauderdale and bring Jackie home. My folks and sister flew out the following day, and my cousin, who lives in Orlando area drove up to help. I don't remember much...it's all a haze. I'm glad they came because I don't think either Clyde or I would have done anything but sit and starved to death if they hadn't taken care of everything. So here's a belated thank you. I vaguely remember the house being full of Ted’s high school friends and Jackie's friends.

 The city of Ft. Myers named a soccer field after him because he was one of the young people who helped the community learn soccer. (Newport Beach, Calif - where we were from - was an avid soccer community. He knew the sport very well and was on an award winning soccer team in So. Calif. that had the honor of playing against Mexico.) The high school gave him a wonderful memorial. We had his ashes spread over the Gulf of Mexico - he was a surfer, a lover of water, and soccer.

The death of Ted changed our each of our lives forever. It’s a long story and will be told in the history section of the blog eventually. But to make the story short, we decided rather than anger, we’d respect Ted’s memory by doing good in the world.”

After Ted’s death Clyde turned to black and white photography of Florida. Clyde and Niki were both having great success in the Street Art Festival world, winning many awards and earning a nice income. They decided they needed to think about owning a gallery of their work. In 1992 Clyde and Niki purchased 13 acres located along Tamiami Trail in the Big Cypress National Preserve to build a gallery and home. The gallery exhibits a large display of both Clyde and Niki’s work.

Their daughter, Jackie, joined their business in 2000 and opened the Venice Gallery & Studio where both Clyde and Niki’s work can be viewed, and where the 2000 square foot darkroom is located. In 2001 Jackie’s husband Neal joined the business and became their darkroom technician.

Niki had been photographing using a Pentex 6x7 camera with black and white film. She became intrigued by the digital age of cameras and the use of photoshop. Her first digital camera was only 5 megapixels, not good enough for her artwork. However, as digital cameras improved Niki began using them to capture her images. She now photographs with a Sony A7R2 using Cannon lenses. 

She joined the computer revolution in 2006 when she began creating hand-painted images using a Wacom tablet and Photoshop. The images are printed using an Epson Stylus 4800 on Harman Hahnemuhle paper. The image is then mounted and matted to current archival standards.