Brooke Burgee’s ‘Community Project’ Brings Her Home For Show, Demo

The Herald......click to link to article
By Martha Slater
Randolph, VT
May 29, 2008

On Saturday, May 31, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. the community is invited to join nationally-known artist Brooke Burgee, for an intriguing live sidewalk demonstration of her unique style of sculpting with acrylic paints.

Burgee, who grew up in Randolph, is part of "Imagining the Future," the show opening this weekend at the Chandler Gallery on Main Street in Randolph. In addition to work by Burgee, the show, which runs through June 22, will feature work by artists Paul Calter and George Lawrence.

Burgee is known for involving the community in each of her pieces. She recently finished a residency at Randolph Elementary School and a four-panel art piece that the kids were instrumental in creating will hang in this current show.

Burgee’s work is very colorful and her technique of using palette knives instead of brushes is unique.

"My life as an artist began when I threw away my paintbrushes," she notes.. "In 1993, under the mentorship of internationally known artist Wosene Kosrof, my brushes were taken away and replaced with palette knives. I haven’t used a paintbrush since. My work has evolved over the following 15 years, from painting thinly on paper to covering custom gallery-wrapped canvases with thick explosions of texture and color. Texture is my way of inviting viewers into my paintings...to feel as though they are within the three-dimensional surface. Each color in a painting has its own voice, its own purpose."

Burgee’s idea for involving the community began as The Neighborhood Collection, then grew into The Community Collection, as she traveled across the country last summer to art shows.

In Randolph, as in all the places she creates, the public is invited to come and be a part of Burgee’s "color choice" for her latest project. As part of this event, her "portable" art studio will be set up to truly bring the studio experience alive. Complete with her color wall, photo booth, digital recording arsenal and diary, the painting that will be created Saturday will be yet another addition to her collection. She envisions this series as culminating in "a slew of paintings," in addition to a video-documentary set to music to share the art, stories and inspirations with the communities that she embraces.

"My art career started early with Jim Sardonis and Rebbie Carleton, the latter who, now, 20 years later, recently hosted me as an artist-in-residence at the elementary school," Burgee says. "My career and life have been very serendipitous, somehow things just unfold in the most unexpectedly delightful way."

After studying at four different colleges, she graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and says, "My professional resume also reads like a travel-log—each stop has a story. From politics, map editor, artist, corporate event planner, to fast-tracking a self-started concierge business due to media blurbs in the N.Y. Times and on NBC Nightly News. I haven’t found the ride dull and also can’t predict what lies ahead, because my ‘career track’ could take me anywhere."

What Burgee likes about her Community Collection is that "It gets people talking, involved, interested, laughing... I’m not an artist who goes to the studio and shuts the world out. I prefer and want my studio to have an open door and to always be filled with people. I find it to be quiet and lonely when I work by myself... it’s people that inspire me to do my work, and through paintings, photographs and my writings I’m a storyteller."

Burgee says her career is "an adventure. I have four shows lined up already, a website soon to come, and all the hope in the world!"

Chandler Gallery Imagines the Future

The Herald...click to link to article
Randolph, Vermont
May 15, 2008

The Chandler Gallery in Randolph will celebrate the works of three local artists, all

with great vision, for a joint exhibit entitled "Imagining the Future."

Featured artists include George Lawrence of Tunbridge, Randolph Center’s Paul Calter, and Brooke Burgee, who was raised in Randolph and recently relocated to Burlington from Colorado, where she has been for the past four years. The show will run from May 17-June 22. A reception with the artists will be held Sunday, May 18 from 6-8 p.m. and the public is encouraged to attend.

Lawrence is perhaps best known in the Upper Valley for his landscape paintings, although his skills abound with many art forms. For this show, he will share his versatility as he unveils new works bold in both color and vision. He has taught art at the Mountain School in Vershire and at the Fletcher Farm School in Ludlow, as well as instructing watercolor workshops in Vermont and France.

"For several years now I have been lining my studio walls with paintings which have incorporated a range of various techniques from abstract expressions of my inner voices, to super realistic landscapes of the world around me," Lawrence notes. "It eventually reached the point where visitors could not believe that one person had indeed painted all of these works, from almost photo-realism to pieces incorporating simple geometric shapes with a spatially ambiguous matrix of color."

"I suddenly realized that it was possible to utilize these various techniques much the same as one might use various colors in one painting," Lawrence adds. "This led me to where I am at this particular point in time, combining varying techniques in a single painting. This, of course, becomes a technique of its own."

Calter holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering, as well as an MFA in Sculpture from Norwich University. He is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Vermont Technical College, where many of his sculptural works adorn the campus, and has also acted as Visiting Professor at Dartmouth.

Calter has had numerous solo shows in the area, and has authored many books and articles, including his most recent book, "Squaring the Circle." He has created scores of commissioned sculptures and paintings over a 37-year period. For more information about the artist and his work, please visit his website at www.sover.net/~pcalter/.

Calter will show a variety of his works having geometric or astronomical themes, including two large sculptures, geometric paintings and works in wood.

The three-dimensional quality of Burgee’s paintings is accomplished not with the use of brushes, but with palette knives. She uses acrylic paint in her works; sculpting paint with her palette knife as she works across the canvas.

"My philosophy on my art mirrors my own life," Burgee wrote. "I’m not a realist and I don’t let fear of the unknown hold me back. I live in the texture, emotion and color of my work. The paintings partly reflect what I see with my eyes, but is more of a reflection of what I feel with my heart."

Burgee is currently working on a project called The Community Collection, where the colors in each of her paintings are inspired and chosen by other people. This process allows Burgee to engage people of all ages and backgrounds in her craft. It allows them to become involved with her artwork on a very personal level.

"When people reveal their colors and what moves them, they are telling their story," she says.

From Vermont, to Chicago, Columbia and locations in Colorado, Burgee has invited the general public to participate in her process during live demonstrations, at art showings, and in her studios. Three 11-year-old girls were so excited about Burgee and their experience participating, that they started a blog about it - www.iamoz.blogspot.com and people across the country have contributed their own comments and reflections.

Burgee will hold a public demonstration of her work Saturday, May 31 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. at Chandler. Come by and participate in The Community Collection by choosing your colors. Burgee is excited to reconnect with her hometown of Randolph for this project and admission is free. You can visit Burgee’s website at www.iamoz.com for images of her work.

The Chandler Gallery is open Thursday from 4-6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 1-3 p.m. Chandler is physically accessible.

Artist finds Color in Community

Photo: Dominique Taylor/ Vail Daily

Local Brooke Burgee involves friends, neighbors and total strangers in her paintings

Caramie Schnell
Vail Daily...click to link to article
Vail, CO, Colorado
August 17, 2007

Four frosting-like globs of brightly colored paint lie on a plastic sheet on the floor in front of artist Brooke Burgee. There’s sunshine yellow, pale purple, midnight blue and a brilliant blue green, but she didn’t chose the colors — I did. The Stones softly croon about wild horses as Burgee wipes the first thick streak of yellow on the clean, black canvas with a paint-speckled palette knife. The barefoot, blonde-haired Burgee is a painter — though the term sculptor might be more accurate. She gently dabs, smears and cuts the acrylic paint with the knife — there’s not a paintbrush in sight. She hasn’t picked up a brush in 14 years, she said. Instead, she uses spatulas and even kitchen utensils to create a markedly three-dimensional look with paint. Striations of color and sharp peaks emerge on the canvas as she works.

“My philosophy on my art mirrors my own life,” Burgee wrote in an e-mail. “I’m not a realist and I don’t let fear of the unknown hold me back. I live in the texture, emotion and color of my work. The paintings partly reflect what I see with my eyes, but are more of a reflection of what I feel with my heart.”

The reason Burgee asks people to chose their colors is twofold, she said. First, it allows people a chance to be involved on a very personal level with her artwork, often times spurring conversation about color and what it means to them. Second, people chose colors based on their own personal experiences — “I might never have put those exact colors together on my own,” she said. Burgee creates the painting using the chosen colors while listening to whatever artist or album the person requests. When the painting is finished, she gives them first right of refusal before it goes to a gallery or a show, Burgee said.

“My role as an artist is much greater than the finished works, it is to be a story teller. When people reveal their colors and what moves them, they are telling their story. People have continued to share with me the deeper meanings behind their choices and many have touched me profoundly,” Burgee wrote.

Creativity sparked
Burgee has been asking her friends and family to pick their colors for years, she said, working to engage and involve those closest to her in her craft. Last month, when Burgee was in Vermont (where she lives and works part of the year), kids started stopping by her studio, asking if they could pick out their colors like they’d done the summer before. She agreed and told them to bring their friends, too. The kids got on their bikes and rallied the neighborhood, she said.

“Next thing I knew, I had 10 to 15 kids in my studio at a time. And they came back day after day,” she said.

Parents started showing up along with their children, bringing donated paint, brushes and T-shirts along with them so the children could hang out alongside Burgee and paint. In the week before she left for Chicago (Burgee participated in the Chicago Tribune Magnificent Mile Art Festival in July), nearly 100 people tromped through her studio and every one of them chose colors. Three 11-year-old girls were so excited about Burgee and their studio experience, they started a blog about it — www.iamoz.blogspot.com.

“I love the experience of watching their faces, the connection they have with being involved,” she said. “If someone can come into the studio and feel inspired or feel their creativity sparked, if they just leave with a feeling of wonderment, I did my job as an artist.”

Before Burgee left Vermont, she decided to compile the studio visitor’s colors into a collection she’s calling the “Neighborhood Collection.” The next week, while she was in Chicago, she continued reaching out to passers-by, inviting them into her creative process. Her booth was packed with people interested in her art, as well as the project, and nearly 60 people wrote down their colors.

“It became obvious that I was on to something,” she said. “I took it to Columbia, Missouri and to Denver for the Park Meadows Art Festival. I’ve had everyone from 2 years old to 90 years old, from the homeless to the professional, and kids with Down syndrome and adults with cerebral palsy participate. It’s allowed me to have a much broader palette.”

‘Hey, nice chair’
While in Missouri, a man in a wheelchair rolled up to Burgee’s booth. As Burgee started talking with him and his girlfriend, they told her they both had cerebral palsy. She asked them to pick out their colors; the man chose just two — silver and black.

“He said he was really proud of them because they’re the same colors as his wheelchair, which is carbon fiber, and that he was proud that the chair doesn’t look like a medical wheelchair. When he rolls down the street, people compliment him and say ‘hey, nice chair,’ and he’s proud that it takes the attention off of his disability.”

Avon resident Amy Phillips and her husband Bill met Burgee three years ago. Bill had admired Burgee’s work when it was on display at Loaded Joe’s in Avon and though he fell in love with a series of three, “codependent” pieces, he didn’t have the money to purchase it. A few months later, the couple randomly found themselves at a party at Burgee’s home, where Bill recognized the art on the walls.

“He asked her, ‘do you know Oz?’” and she said, ‘I am Oz,” Amy said.

The triptych Bill had adored was hanging in her living room. He pulled $500 out of his wallet, handed it to Burgee, took the piece off the wall and drove a few blocks home to hang it, Amy said.

“He did that all before he had a beer, which, if you know him, it’s quite shocking,” Amy said, chuckling.

“For us it’s an ongoing struggle that we’ve seen art that we didn’t buy and then we regret it later. This was another one he had been talking about and the next thing you know it’s five months later and there’s that piece. This time he had to have it.”
With three pieces of Burgee’s art now hanging in her home, Amy isn’t shy about discussing what attracts her to the paintings.

“Certainly some people are more attracted to abstract art than others but I really like the colorful nature of it as well as all the textures. It’s very interesting to look at, especially like two inches away when you get up close and can see the different swirls (of color). To me it’s very much sculpture on canvas and a lot of times it reminds me of really interesting cake frosting.”

Pick a Color, Any Color

Daily Staff Report
Vail Daily.....click to view online article
Vail, CO, Colorado
July 21, 2007

Join Brooke “Oz” Burgee for a demonstration of her acrylic on canvas paint sculptures this Sunday on the patio of LaTour, on Meadow Drive in Vail Village, from 4-6 p.m.

Oz has been an artist all of her life. Oz was born and raised in Vermont and graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. After several years of travel and adventure she moved to the Vail area in 2004, and in 2006 made the leap to full time artist.

Since then, in just 13 months, her work is now represented by five galleries and in 2007 she will participate in over 16 shows ranging from juried events, to grand openings featuring her work, and the list continues to grow.

Oz has been a member of the Red Cliff art community since December 2006 when she took studio No. 4 in the Elementary School in Red Cliff.

Virtually sculpture on canvas, Oz’s work is inspired by her creativity and imagination, not emulation of others. Its three-dimensional quality is accomplished using palette knives in place of brushes with a flare for color that adds brilliance to its dimensionality. Color dominates her work, and for as long as she can remember she has always asked her friends and studio visitors to choose their own colors she then transfers to the canvas.

The Neighborhood Collection
Her latest collection of paintings were inspired at her Vergennes, Vermont, studio, where more than 100 neighbors stopped in to say hello and more than 50 neighbors selected their colors in just one week before Oz headed off to her studio in Colorado.
From one visitor to 20 at a time, they would drop by from a few minutes to hours on end and became engaged in activities inside the studio. Oz allowed her digital camera and video equipment to be used by anyone that wanted to document the studio activities. Kids and adults alike were instantly engaged, and Oz said she never found herself alone in the studio her last week in Vermont. This is where the “Neighborhood Collection” started.

Adults and kids found there own ways to participate in Oz’s work. Parents started donating art supplies so that kids could paint side-by-side with Oz, including oversized T-shirts to paints and canvas. Three 12-year-old girls even created their own blog (artwithoz.blogspot.com) to share with their experiences inside the studio.
Oz then took their blog on the road to Chicago and Columbia, where she recently exhibited. More than 60 more people have posted their entries about their experience with the artist, spanning all ages and backgrounds from the homeless to working professionals, from 2 years old to 90 years old.

While on the road for her exhibits, Oz will continue to collect individual color palettes during her travels. However, these new chosen color palettes will build upon the “Neighborhood Collection” and will be known as the “Community Collection.”

“It is snapshots of different people and places around the country,” Oz said. “When both series are complete the project will include a video essay of all of the pieces and their inspirations.”

From her neighborhood to her current national tour, Oz is taking time in her Red Cliff Studio to prepare for three upcoming Colorado shows: Park Meadows Art Festival, Beaver Creek Arts Festival and the 10th Annual Red Cliff Studio Tour.

“I am excited to have an opportunity to engage and share the creation of this new collection with people in the community in which I live,” Oz said. “Yes I am an artist, but more than that, I would consider myself a story teller. Right now, I’m telling the story of many people through their colors, including my own about pursuing my passion as an artist. Through my daily blog and real-time Web site, I’m documenting this journey from start to finish, leaving no detail out.”

Today, Oz’s painting demonstration will include completed works from the “Neighborhood Collection” and her traveling “color wall.” Passers by can opt to either chose their colors or just watch as colors are sculpted in front of La Tour.

Creation via Collaboration

Photos: ANDREA RANE/Missourian

Passers-by bring artist a broader palette for her work
By JAIMIE OH
Columbia Missourian....click for article

July 17, 2007

Working under an awning at Tenth Street and Broadway, Brooke Oz Burgee scooped out frosting-like globs of white, gold, copper, orange and yellow acrylic paint to begin her first piece on an intensely hot Monday afternoon.

Burgee took a palette knife, cut into the pearly white paint and eyed the black canvas before applying a thick layer over a smeared streak of yellow and orange.
The colors she used had been requested by an 11-year-old girl in Vermont. Whenever Burgee works in public, she reaches out to passers-by and invites them to participate in her creative process.

“Letting others pick a color gives me a much broader palette, if you will,” said Burgee, 28. “Each color is associated with a different experience for each person, and everyone comes from such different backgrounds. I may never pick a color someone else picks.”

The texture of the acrylic paint comes across as three-dimensional as Burgee gently works her palette knife: dabbing, smearing, streaking and cutting across the canvas. This creates the illusion of movement or makes patterns in the paint to convey objects.

Burgee stopped in Columbia, where she shows her work at Poppy, on her way from her summer studio in Vermont to her winter studio and home in Colorado. By 5 p.m., about 30 people had written down their choice of colors, why they picked them and what song their selection is associated with. Later, Burgee will translate several onto the canvas, being faithful to the person’s choice of colors and playing the related music in the background as she works. Before the work goes to a gallery or show, Burgee gives the person who picked the colors the right of first refusal.

Drawing from a work of hers inside the store, Burgee recalled the woman who chose a variety of blues, grays and yellows because it reminded her of classic Fred Astaire movies and Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.”

“The yellow across the top is the moon,” she said, pointing to a bold streak of gold. “And down here is the water with the reflection of the moon in it.” She motioned to waves of cobalt, turquoise and light violet speckled with golden yellow, a reflection of the slip of moon above.

Burgee has always been an artist, but before she followed her dream, she ran a private concierge service — even bringing live reindeer to someone’s front yard one Christmas Eve. Now, she is putting together a documentary to show during a national speaking tour in 2008. Her intent is to speak to students in elementary schools, high schools, colleges and businesses.

“I want to speak to them about how to break down goals and get to where you want to be,” Burgee said. “I want to help people find ways to connect, whether it’s from one individual to another or from one community to another.”

Burlington Free Press Weekend Section

Here's a quick peak at my inclusion in the Arts rundown --
weekend section of the Burlington Free Press.

Getting the word out there for this Sunday's Artist Reception:
When: July 1st
Time: 6-9pm
Where: Bar Antidote, Vergennes, VT

What: "Home Again" ~ a solo art show by Oz

Studio Crunch Time...

The day started off with checking emails and making my office time as brief as possible.

Today: studio or bust.
Here's a quick snapshot a few hours into the day and just before a lunch break.

Lots of frames with matching canvas ready to be stretched.




For lunch I picked up sandwiches and rode around in the mower.
I still haven't gotten a chance to drive it. And there really wasn't any time to impress, had I been able to take 'er for a spin. I still had a seemingly endless pile of frames to stretch when I arrived back at the studio.

My goal was to stretch and prime a total of 22 frames.
I was 'on track' until I whacked a finger square on the nail with my hammer.
Instead I stretched 18 and primed 25.
Knuckles are also a little sore....it's crunch time for me!
4 days away until I hang a solo show
13 days until I head to Chicago and from Chicago, my back-to-back art show schedule starts to unfold...

Lakehouse Studio Opens, Summer 2007

I spent today opening up the Lakehouse Studio in Vermont. My summer "session" in Vermont is about to explode!

With a busy summer schedule ahead, I'm full of excitement and creative energy. Look for many new works to be updated, as they are completed on my official website.

And just as luck would have it, when leaving the studio, I caught the last few minutes of this rainbow. I'll take it as a sign of good fortune and happiness...

Show Schedule

Click on graphic to enlarge & read.

A special thanks to Mike Sullivan who designed this promo piece. His design skills are top notch...he's fun to work with...and can be reached at mike@blankslatedesign.com or www.blankslatedesign.com

Brooke Paints in Bristol

Thanks to everyone for coming out for Open Studio! I had a blast talking with folks and painting outdoors.

Two new works were completed as part of The Black Collection. Check out No 4 and No 5 that were done on Saturday.

View of Art On Main, Bristol, Vermont. The red building...their brand new space!

Artexpo: March 1-5, 2007

Exhibited at the Artexpo held in NYC.
The show ran from March 1st thru the 5th at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan/Times Square.

Solo Show Avon Public Library ~ February

Vail Daily Article, Jan 4th 2007

Artist Brooke Burgee showing at Loaded Joe's
Sculpting serendipity
Cassie Pence
Vail CO, Colorado
January 4, 2007

AVON - At 28, local artist Brooke Burgee has experienced more than the average 60-year-old, but with her young face and innocent approach to life, no one would ever know it.

She's worked for a U.S. senator, trampled through the back brush of Peru and subsequently was healed by an Inca Shaman with stones. She's earned certification with the outdoor group NOLS, as well as formally studied environmental science, law and entrepreneurship at the university level. She started her own business Lights On in Vail, which landed her on the front of the New York Times - just to rattle off a few of her accomplishments.

Brooke "Oz" Burgee "My Night," by Brooke "Oz" Burgee. This is one of Burgee's Details prints, where she photographs one of her paintings up close to make a whole new composition.
Special to the Daily
"I like challenges," Burgee said. "I'm a Jack of all trades, master of none. I take on a lot of different things because I need that kind of sustenance. I want to be remembered for what I've created and contributed to the world, not just for my job."

But fortunately for the art-loving public, her experiences and true passion culminate in her paintings: a sculptural and vibrant journey of acrylic and palette knives. Color rules her work. In some paintings, color represents youth, in others, colors represents tough times or home and safety. Her style is rich with color, thick in texture and full of abstract treasures.
"It's a reflection of people's emotion's to color," she said. "I want each person to find their own meaning in my work, I certainly find mine."

Today, Burgee is at Loaded Joe's for an artist reception from 6-8 p.m. Her work will hang for most of January. She is also represented in Columbia, Mo., at the gallery Poppy, which is consistently rated a top 100 contemporary gallery in the country. Burgee had been driving cross country in a Lincoln Town Car, towing a Uhaul, when the transmission died in Columbia. So she decided to try and sell her work. The owner Barbara McCormick was more than receptive.

"Brooke's work is virtually sculpture on canvas, inspired by her creativity and imagination, not emulation of others," McCormick said. "It's jaw-dropping three-dimensional quality is accomplished using palette knives in place of brushes with a flare for color that adds brilliance to its dimensionality."

Most of Burgee's work is signed "Oz" instead of her namesake. She earned the moniker on a solo trip along the Long Trail from Vermont to New Hampshire across the spine of the Green Mountains. It is customary for "through hikers" to bestow trail names on fellow adventurers, and after meeting a Wizard and Munchkins, it was natural Burgee would become Oz.

"That trip was a huge sense of empowerment and self accomplishment," Burgee said. "I never felt so invigorated, and I wanted to express that by signing my artwork 'Oz.' It's such a reflection of experience and possibility as well."

In March, Burgee travels to New York City for the Artexpo New York to exhibit a solo show. The works hanging at Loaded Joe's is a preview of the New York show.

"Artexpo New York is the world's largest fine and popular art fair, attracting more than 500 exhibitors and nearly 40,000 attendees every year," said KC McKenna of the expo. "Over its 29-year history, Artexpo New York has hosted a number of artists that have gone on to become internationally renowned artists, including Andy Warhol, Peter Max, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Indiana, and many others."