bernie & zuzu
Adventures in Color Play
November 2023 - February 2024 at Pinney Library
From February to November 2023, Bernie Witzack of bernie & zuzu was the Pinney Library Artist in Residence. Her residency, entitled Color Play – Making the World a Little More Rainbow, was an exploration of color, shape, and abstraction through an improvisational process with an emphasis on creativity and flow. During the residency, Bernie focused on the mediums of drawing, mixed media, printmaking, and installation art.
Over the ten months, Bernie held weekly art making sessions, taught evening workshops in drawing and printmaking, and led participants on an art installation journey, transforming the Pinney studio into a room of color—a Rainbow Room!
Adventures in Color Play is several things at once: a documentation of Bernie’s residency, a continuation of the themes of the residency, and a distillation of moments and memories from the residency into a small, intimate scale in the form of drawings. The drawings are both an expression of Bernie’s experience and were inspired by Rainbow Room artwork made by community members like you. The photographs were taken by local photographer Beth Skogen.
Thank you to Jaime Vache, Carlee Latimer, and Jamie Stanaway for believing in me and all of your amazing help and support along the way. Thank you also to all Pinney Library staff and volunteers for welcoming me and contributing to the installation, and to the Bubbler volunteers for your help. Finally, I would like to thank all the community member artists who spent time with me in the Pinney Art Studio, made art with me, and gave their art to the Rainbow Room installation. I had such a great time making art with you!
—bernie & zuzu
About bernie & zuzu
At bernie & zuzu, we create handmade, hand-painted, and screen-printed goods in small batches. We specialize in unique apparel, home goods, accessories and prints with an emphasis on bold color and playful shapes. We hope our artwork and goods inspire tiny moments of beauty, wonder and joy. We work out of our east side Madison studio and at the Printmaking Collective, Polka Press. Bernie is a human, and Zuzu is a cat.
Find more at bernieandzuzu.com.
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