Twin Peaks Prop – Deer Meadow Sheriff’s Department “Log Jam” by Walton Butts

Work pulled me away from the wonderful and strange Twin Peaks these past few weeks. I’m thrilled to return to town with a new discovery from my favorite David Lynch film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Thanks to fellow Bookhouse Boy Matthew Haywood, we now know which Washington artist created a print hanging in the Deer Meadow Sheriff’s Department from this 1992 film.

“LOG JAM” BY WALTON BUTTS IN THE DEER MEADOW SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

Agents Chet Desmond and Sam Stanley are dispatched to Deer Meadow, Washington to investigate the murder of Teresa Banks. They stop at the less-than-friendly Deer Meadow Sheriff’s Department to inquire about her murder.

I’ve previously identified the lamp on the side table next to Agent Stanley and the reindeer print behind the giggling secretary. Matthew was intrigued by the print hanging above the lamp in this scene so he created an image stack of the framed item.

You may recall Matthew previously used this image stacking technique to identify the book on Gordon Cole’s desk later in the film.  Once he created the stack, it didn’t take much time to identify the print and artist.

“It took about 10 seconds to find it by searching ‘Log jam painting’ on Google images,” said Matthew. “I can’t believe I didn’t try that before and wasted ages reverse image searching for the print.”

Hoquiam, Washington artist Walton Butts created the image titled, “Log Jam.” While researching this article, I found three different versions of this image. The one above appears to match watch is displayed in the Sheriff’s office. It was part of an auction of seven silkscreen prints from Butts sold in August 2011.

Matthew found a slightly different second image which contains additional birds and logs. It’s unclear when Mr. Butts created these prints or which version was created first.

A third variation is like the second image but the water is seen as blue, not orange.

WHO IS WALTON BUTTS?

Walton Francis Butts was born on July 14, 1922 in Ritzville, Washington to Walter Herman Butts and Bernadine Lamb Butts. His moth died in 1926 at the age of 22 due to blood poisoning when Walton was only four years old. At some point, the family moved to Spokane where Butts served in World War II. He was stationed in England for three years during his tour of duty with the Air Force.

After the war, he married Lowene Stone around 1950 when they were enrolled at the University of Washington. Butts majored in fine art and art education. In 1956, he became interested in the silk screen process and studied with his contemporary Elton Bennett. Walton would spend years as an art teacher with the Hoquiam school district. By 1967, he became a full time silk screen artist creating a number of prints and was exhibited in Seattle Art Museum and other Northwest artist shows.

Lowene and Walton had two children, Steven and Kathy. He passed in his hometown of Hoquiam on December 7, 1996 at the age of 74 and was buried in Sunset Memorial Park.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF “LOG JAM”

Butts’ “Log Jam” only appears during the first scene at the Deer Meadow Sheriff’s Department. When Agents Desmond and Stanley return to the office to take Teresa Banks body back to Portland, they are met with resistance from Sheriff Cable. I found it interesting that Cable blocks Butts’ print during this scene, which implies a different kind of “log jam.”

Thank you to Matthew for helping identify this image which now joins the extensive catalog of props and set decor.