If you go
› What: Byron Keith Bird art sale.› When: 3-5 p.m. Saturday.› Where: LaFayette-Walker County Public Library, 305 S. Duke St., LaFayette, Ga.› Cost: Limited-edition prints are priced at $50-$100.› Phone: 706-638-2992.
A LaFayette, Ga., native whose art is on display in museums and galleries around the country will give back to his hometown on Saturday with a sale of limited-edition prints to benefit the LaFayette-Walker County Public Library.
Byron Keith Byrd, an abstract expressionist artist, will be selling signed prints of four of his paintings at the library on South Duke Street.
A portion of the sales will be donated to the library, which recently underwent renovations. While in town to visit his brother, Byrd heard about the redesigning process from some old high school friends, who encouraged him to host an event there.
"I decided to do [the event] there because I love libraries and books, and I'm trying to help offset their costs," Byrd says.
Tim York, the library's branch manager, has expressed his gratitude for Byrd's desire to help the facility, which he says will use the donated proceeds for needs such as programming and purchasing new material.
"We're just excited that one of LaFayette's native sons has chosen to look back on his hometown's public library," York says. "Our funding is limited, and so any help that we can receive from anyone, we're just excited to have him think about us and help us."
Byrd started painting when he was 3 years old and received his first oil paint set from his mother, Barbara Stephenson Byrd, on Christmas when he was 13.
"My mother recognized my talent, and I have to applaud her because she really encouraged me," Byrd says.
After graduating from LaFayette High School in 1974, he attended the University of West Georgia, where he received his B.A. in fine art in 1978.
Encouraged by a roommate/fraternity brother, Byrd says he moved to New York in 1979, where he held his debut show on Madison Avenue and was eventually featured in The New York Times.
"I'm very grateful that I knew someone to make that step because it was really the thing to do," Byrd says. "I was there at a very exciting time when Madonna and [artist/activist] Keith Haring came up. It was just a great time to be in New York."
Byrd says he met Andy Warhol "time and time again" in New York art circles and was inspired by Warhol's famous Campbell's soup can art to create a "Campbells Soup" work featuring a red universal product code. That 1982 work, a 42- by 31-inch silkscreen on Archess 88 paper, is in the permanent collection at the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga.
Other works can be found in private collections and museums and galleries from New York to Michigan to Texas.
Byrd currently divides his time between New York and Florida and is co-author of two illustrated books, "O Christmas Tree" and "The Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center."
He draws his inspiration from "numerology, archaic symbols and rhythmic, primitive petroglyphs," according to his website. He says he "arrived" at abstract art after being trained for pencil drawing and exploring surrealism throughout college.
"I guess going to all the galleries and everything was just a transition from the real to the nonobjective work," Byrd says. "With an abstract piece, there are really no rules with color and balance, and I just find it more intriguing, more mysterious, more difficult."
Byrd describes his abstract work as something that "has to be released" when it starts "bubbling up," leaving him no choice but to reach for the nearest paper or canvas.
"I find them as moods on canvas; it's just whatever is on the inside at the time," Byrd says. "That's one reason why now I like to do abstract, and I like for each person to find what they like or want to see in it."
Byrd will have unframed prints available from $50 to $100 each, as well as a selection of framed works available at various prices at the library. For more information, visit www.byronkeithbyrd.com.
Contact Kimberly Sebring at life@timesfreepress.com.