(playful music) - I really like the super round, shorter structure.

It's so colorful and shiny.

What do you see?

Art takes me on adventures all of the time, and today will be no different.

- What we're looking at here, this is where we keep Charles Burchfield's archive.

- Do you hear insects buzzing?

- I do.

I really feel like I can almost hear a lazy summer breeze rustling those tree branches a little bit.

Hi, my name's Chrisena, and we're just outside of the Burchfield Penney Art Center, here in Buffalo, New York.

Today, we're getting a special behind-the-scenes tour into the world of Charles Burchfield.

Woo!

Let's go.

♪ Let's go, let's go, let's go ♪ ♪ Let's go ♪ The Burchfield Penney Art Center's collection spans the 19th century through today, and includes more than 800 other artists, who, like Burchfield, have a meaningful connection to the landscapes and communities of Western New York.

Hi, Nancy.

Nice to meet you.

- Welcome.

This is called "Road in Sunlight and Shadow," and Burchfield actually wrote on the back of the painting that it's a country road southeast of East Aurora, which is near Buffalo.

It's one of his more realistic paintings.

It's also about light and shadow.

You hear insects buzzing?

- I do.

I really feel like I can almost hear a lazy summer breeze rustling those tree branches a little bit.

- [Nancy] Perfect.

That's just what Burchfield would want you to see.

- [Chrisena] Burchfield really viewed nature in almost a magical sort of way.

What was his process like?

- Well, he started with a lot of drawing, and he did journaling, but he also wrote comments to himself.

Sometimes challenging, sometimes critical, but the whole idea was to encourage himself to finish the job.

Here's one where he is being really playful.

"Oh, gee, oh gosh, oh my, oh my, oh my," he is probably having a really good day that day out in nature.

Here he says, "It's up to you now to carry on.

"Are you equal to the task?"

So Burchfield created symbols for sounds that I call audio cryptograms.

- Oh, like messages for music?

Was he influenced by music?

- Absolutely.

He loved all kinds of music.

And Sibelius and Beethoven were two of his favorite composers.

This is a study for "The Horn Call from the Sibelius Fifth," but that sharp, crisp horn call is represented by this double-pointed shape in the drawing.

So this painting is "Rain and Wind Through the Trees," and it's virtually the scene right across the street from where he lived.

- Here, sketching in Valley of Buffalo Creek by Winspire Road, "An afternoon so full of infinite joy and beauty "that it seems a desecration almost "to try and write it out.

"Low-flying loose misty clouds "sweep endlessly out of the northeast, "driven by a cool wind "that was like a rarefied cold-shower.

"I lay on a little bank a while, "reveling in the rich lushness of the countryside."

- Wow, one thing I'm loving about Burchfield's works is that he really was finding beauty in his backyard and in his hometown, which really makes me feel like I could do the same thing.

I could ask myself, "Does it inspire me?"

And you know, I could create my own artwork that way.

- You could.

It's a good idea.

(bright music) So this is our special archives.

- An archive is a place where we store historic documentation that was created by people during their lives, and they've passed on, for the most part, but this helps us understand what the world was like when they were alive.

So what we're looking at here, this is where we keep Charles Burchfield's archive.

- Could we see some of them?

- Yeah.

Here, we have Burchfield's journals.

Do you keep a diary?

- I do, but maybe not as thorough as Burchfield did.

- You know, you'd be surprised, after a lifetime, you might have just as much as he did.

So Charlie started journaling at 17, and he journaled daily throughout his entire life.

"I'm determined to formulate a set of conventions "based on nature, as other great artists had done, "except that mine were to be completely my own."

The conventions for abstract thought were the ones he came up with when he was a young man, like we referenced in the quote.

Once you start looking at these symbols, you will see them in his paintings all throughout his life.

I think there's a really good example right here.

And so this piece is called "Swamp Music," and you can tell this is a sketch, right?

It's not a finished painting.

Charlie was probably sitting right in that swamp when he depicted it.

- [Chrisena] Wow.

- [Heather] So you can see some of the visual notation.

- Yeah, I feel like I can almost see these little frogs in the pond, with their kind of croaking noises here, maybe some crickets happening in the trees just outside of the swamp.

Do you have to do anything to store those documents differently if they're using different art types or mediums?

- That's a good question.

So all of his works are on paper.

They're all stored in the conditions that are best for paper.

His watercolor paintings are very susceptible to light degradation.

Too much light, and his colors will dull and fade, and his artwork, too, could be lost, if we're not careful.

So we're very careful here at the museum to make sure his works are only only exhibited for like, four months at a time, and then they have to rest in darkness for almost 18 months.

- Wow.

A lot of what you do is you do research and you find clues and you solve mysteries.

- That is such a cool way to put it.

Working here is amazing, because our curators are displaying Burchfield's work, but here in the archives, we're caring for all the materials that allow us to curate those exhibitions.

It's really because of Burchfield's journals that we are able to understand and appreciate him with such depth today.

You know, there's many artists who leave us paintings and their depictions of the world when they lived it, but to have the paintings and his journals, his own words, and all these sketches that show us in the moment who he was, it's really an unparalleled gift.

It's really cool.

- It was great getting to talk with experts who know so much about Burchfield and his art.

I'm so grateful you were able to come along with us today.

But I've got to leave.

I've got a lot of journaling to catch up on.

See you next time!

- We commissioned P22 Type Foundry, which is a local font maker, to make a font based on his handwriting.

And so we now have a digital font that we can use to write in his style.

So this one here says, "The fear of loneliness," this one says, "Aimless abstraction or hypnotic intensity."

And I think we've all been there at some point.

- Friday at a three o'clock.

- Yeah.

(gentle upbeat music) ♪ Doo, doo, doo ♪ ♪ Doo, doo, doo, doo ♪ (gentle upbeat music) (singer vocalizing)