Baker Artist Portfolios

One of the oldest forms of art is the portrait.

One of the oldest ways to alleviate pain is music.

Both bring Joy.

Filling the walls with color and history.  A reminder that Rock-n-Roll and Art never dies... it's just reinvented!

How are these compositions different from other modern classical music? Burt lives in many musical worlds. He grew up on the traditions of classical music and jazz and became involved in experimental improvised music as a teenager. He blends together the rigor and ornate craftsmanship of classical music with the rhythmically-free, spontaneous, and untuned harmonies of improvised music. His work as an educator affords him opportunities to oversee student works that range through all different styles of contemporary popular music.

Every painting in this grouping is constructed entirely of latex paint. The structures and forms are created solely by the paint, without use of substrates.

I work to push the physicality of the paint in an attempt to start a conversation with the viewer about their own sense of being. My goal is to create hyperphysical objects that encourage the viewer's awareness of their own physical presence and a feeling of being grounded/rooted in the moment.

Traveling and exploring in Brittany, France during a month-long artist residency was the impetus for my body of found object townscapes. Using abandoned paint boxes left by previous artists at the chateau in Rochefort-en-Terre, I began to create my townscapes vision. In my home studio I have continued the evolving, travel-based series using found objects discovered on my daily walks in the woods with my dog. I create my work primarily with old furniture parts, aged metals and cast-off hardware.

Sketchbook practice is integral to my teaching. A four-session workshop in watercolor painting for beginners, based in a 7x10" sketchbook which becomes a reference for independent painting. The sessions teach brush handling, color mixing, water management, still life and landscape painting. The fourth session takes place outdoors, weather permitting. The materials kit (required) is artist-quality paint, paper, and accessories, so that students are not fighting poor-quality supplies as they learn. Learning step-by-step, students find that they can't do it wrong.

Communication and awareness are of the utmost importance to the artist today. Advances in technology have placed the entire world in our homes and studios and, in my case, spur an empathetic reaction to the world?s tragedies and human foibles, and, specifically, to our inhumanity towards one another.

Book of collages in sequence. 7"h x 9"w x 1"d. Handmade book, collage, stamped letters, objects.  This book was a gift for my wife. 

Assemblage: Oil on wood, acrylic, photographs, objects. 20"h x 16"w x 2"d.
This assemblage a narrative, but it is open, so you can have your own story or questions.

Assemblage: oil on wood, gold leaf, thread, objects. 13"h x 10"w x 4"d. This started off as a composition based on the old cigar press. By the time I was finished, the spheres, gears, and incised blue lines and circles seemed to refer to something cosmological, maybe from time before modern cosmology.