She wrote extensively on twentieth century installation and craft artists, focused on those who worked in California and the American West.
She attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and graduated with a degree in Theater Arts.
[1] Butterfield worked in public relations at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from its opening in 1965 until 1970.
A "profusely illustrated, entrancing survey," it investigated "an art that takes shape through the viewer's directed perception."
The book profiled Robert Irwin James Turrell, Larry Bell, Maria Nordman, Douglas Wheeler, Bruce Nauman, Eric Orr, DeWain Valentine, Susan Kaiser Vogel, and Hap Tivey.