Peter Bruun - Art can be a powerful tool for connection and healing

In this conversation, Robert Ginyard speaks with Peter Bruun, an artist who uses art as a tool for connection and healing. They discuss Peter's journey from a conventional background to embracing his identity as an artist, the impact of family and heritage on his work, and the importance of community engagement through art. Peter shares his experiences with the Art on Purpose initiative and the New Day Campaign, which emerged from personal tragedy and aimed to foster healing and connection among individuals facing similar struggles. The conversation highlights the transformative power of art in navigating grief, building community, and finding purpose.

00:00
Introduction to Peter Bruun and His Work

03:01
The Journey into Art: Early Influences

06:02
Finding Identity Through Art

08:55
Cultural Heritage and Personal Connection

11:59
The Role of New York in Artistic Development

14:46
Art on Purpose: Community Engagement Through Art

18:03
Navigating Rejection and Artistic Persistence

20:56
The Business of Art: Balancing Creativity and Organization

28:40
Reflections on Aging and Milestones

30:07
Balancing Art and Project Management

33:20
From Self-Portraits to Collective Narratives

38:47
The Impact of Loss and the New Day Campaign

46:02
Finding Closure Through Community Engagement

48:47
The Journey of Self-Discovery in Maine

54:14
Living with Grief and Finding Purpose

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Hi, this is Robert Ginyard, and you're listening to Intentionally Overheard, a podcast featuring guests whose life's journey has helped them answer three important questions about themselves. Who am I really? Why am I here? And what am I supposed to do with my life? Today, I'm going to have a conversation with Peter Broome. Peter has spent his career using art as a tool for connection, sparking conversations, building bridges, and creating spaces for healing. In Maryland, he launched Art on Purpose and the New Day campaign to bring people together through community-rooted exhibitions and events. Since relocating to Maine in 2019, he's continued that work through Studio B, leading projects like Together, 19 Towns, 20 Stories, and the Puddle Dock Village Festival, each centered on shared stories and the power of creative expression. And now my conversation with Peter Broome. Peter, good to see you. Hey Robert, how you doing? I'm doing very well. So the question for you is how are you treating the world and how's the world treating you back? I try to treat the world kindly. You never know what people are going through and you know, you get what you, you get what you give. So, For the most part, I feel as though the world is treating me pretty well, despite a lot going on in the world. Not so great. Well, I will tell you this, you, even as I'm watching you on the screen virtually, you bring light to the world, Peter, and you found that up in Maine and you did it here in Maryland. And we're going to talk about some of those things, but I just tell you this, from the looks of things and the smile on your face, you're doing very well and you're making the world a better place. I hope so. Well, for our listeners and viewers, Peter, I just want to give them a little bit of history of how the two of us met many years ago. You can correct me, but I want to say that was about 2014, 2015, around that time frame. You were a local artist here in Baltimore, and you were doing amazing things, and you put together a program called Autumn Leaves. That's how I first met up with you. And so Peter asked me to share my story. At that point, I was a a couple of years removed from my prostate cancer journey. And you brought all of these people together, not only to celebrate and recognize art, but to share their stories. And I thought that was so amazing that you went beyond the canvas but to really dive into what was going on in people's lives. So that's how Peter and I met. And so, Peter, let's start a little bit about your love for art. I've read something very interesting about, you know, when you started out in art and you got a very special gift from your grandmother. Talk about that in your introduction to art. Sure. Yeah. I was a kid and my grandmother gave me an oil paint kit. And that was, you know, I was just actually thinking about that this morning in anticipation of this conversation, that although when I was a child, I had no expectation of becoming an artist because I come from a family with more conventional professional backgrounds, finance, medicine, publishing, And being an artist was something that other people did. I love making art. And my grandmother affirmed that love of making art when I was really young and I got an oil paint kit. And so I can't say that that woke me up to wanting to be an artist, but it certainly affirmed what then was something I really enjoyed. And I allowed myself to keep pursuing it, but never as more than a hobby. It took another turn before I opened up my blinders and began thinking of other paths than the one that I thought had been preordained, which again, I will say was a And so that was certainly a motivator, but I was still not giving myself permission to be an artist. With that, did you find yourself... Your grandmother had bought you the old painter's kit, but did you find yourself... maybe because of the history of the family and the professions that everybody else were in. Did you find yourself like, I want to do this, but I can't let anybody see me? You know, we've got to make sure that this is held as a hobby. And I don't want to give my parents any inclination that I'm thinking about taking this seriously. Yeah, so I have a story about that. So when I was in college, I went to a liberal arts school in the Northeast. And they had a very strong art history program and a very popular art history course for freshmen. And I took that class and really found I enjoyed sitting in the dark, looking at slides, and I was good at looking at art. And so I decided to become an art history major really randomly with no notion that I would become an art historian, much less an artist. But, you know, when you go to liberal arts school, you can be almost any major you want and then spin on a dime and apply for whatever you want with that degree, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 5:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 5:51

So it wasn't a choice to pursue an art history career. It was just a random, you know, what do I know as an 18-year-old? I like art history. I'll be an art history major. So... As an art history major, I had to take a drawing class spring of sophomore year. Keep in mind, I had been taking art classes all through elementary school, middle school, and high school. Again, that was my elective. That wasn't a primary focus. I never took music. I never took theater. I took art. When I got to college, I stopped taking art because it was time to take quote-unquote real classes. So nevertheless, part of the requirement as an art history major was to take a basic drawing class. And I did, and I loved it. I was like a duck in water. And at the end of the semester, I'll never forget this moment, I went up to the studio to collect my drawing portfolio. And my professor was there and I adore, I idolized my professor. He was so mesmerizing and good and smart and charismatic. I just, I idolized him. And I came up there and I was alone with him in the classroom, which was, you know, that never happened. It was like, oh, this is so, you know, nervous almost, even though I did it all semester. And I collected my portfolio and I said, by any chance, do you know what what grade I got. And he went through what I am positive is a charade. He said, let me check. And he opened his book. He flipped it. He looked down, he looked up, he looked at me. He said, a plus. Wow. I had never gotten an a plus never before and never after. And then he said, then he said, are you a studio major? And I said, no, No, I'm not. I'm an art history major. And he winced. He was like, oof. That was a disappointment to him. This was an adult who I absolutely idolized, who was basically tacitly saying, you could be an artist. And at that moment... I decided to give myself secret permission to think about being an artist. And I would hold on to that idea until there was a reason came along that I wouldn't be an artist. And so for the next maybe two years, it was my own little secret thought. Now I'm going to tell a second story. Okay. The following year, I was lucky enough to spend a semester in Italy, which was fantastic. And again, I had originally signed up to go to Italy for, you know, the art history. And sure enough, the art history was phenomenal. I took a studio course there. But here's the thing that was the big deal about this trip to Italy. I lived with an Italian family and on any given weekend, I had no obligation to anybody. And I could travel to Venice. I could travel to Rome. I could do whatever I wanted. That was new in my life. you know, my parents were divorced and I was very loyal to be in either one household or another. So I never felt I had my own agency in terms of how I'd spend my time. College was in a small rural community with no transportation. So there was no going anywhere. For the first time in my life, I was a free agent to do and go where I wanted. And I took that experience that sense of liberty and agency and transferred my thinking to my future. Well, if I could go to Venice or Bologna or Rome or Siena, that's sort of like I could do what I want in my life. So that was a further affirmation to pursue becoming an artist. And my family wasn't, I wasn't scared to tell them. They weren't going to- I was just going to ask you that, Peter. No, they were not going to judge it harshly. Okay. They would, I would say, be benign about whatever I was choosing, maybe scratch their heads a little bit or worry about me, you know, economically or whatever. But it wasn't something they were against. The obstacles were more internal. They were more in my own head. Okay. And it had to do with who am I and how do I think of myself in this world? And I had never considered the possibility of thinking of myself that way. And that was one of several metamorphoses in my life where I had to sit with who I thought I was and then reckon with being someone else. Yes. Peter, did you have siblings? Now, if I may ask, what's the order? What's the birth order? Sure. So I have a bunch of steps and halves. Okay. So it gets complicated to pin down my birth order in the totality of half brothers, step siblings, full brother. I'm right there in the middle. But I was I have one older brother. who has the same mother and father as me. Okay. The reason why I asked that question is when you're talking about finding yourself and like, where do you fit in? I find that many people that I know personally, it's that kind of middle range where like, okay, there's somebody before me, there's somebody after me, where do I fit in? And so when you were talking about where you fit in life and, you know, with this art and everything, that's why I was curious as to what your birth order was. Yeah. And I think that very much very quickly, I became the odd duck in the family in terms of the direction I was going. And again, nobody judged it harshly, but I think they were scratching their head a little bit. What's Peter doing? For a number of years, that was a question that nagged at me. Where did I come from? Yes, my grandmother had given me oil paints, but it wasn't as if Her pursuit of, she pursued art as a hobby, but it was never more than a hobby. And her work was very different from mine. My work was excavating highly personal stuff and highly expressive art. And I was befuddled by myself. Where did I come from? What is this? And so I was born in Denmark. My father was Danish, my mother was American. I left Denmark, our family left Denmark when I was three years old. So I really didn't know, I didn't have memories, I didn't know anyone from my Danish heritage. My father kept in touch with a half-brother of his in Denmark. Honestly, when he spoke of his Danish family and his Danish heritage, he mainly spoke of it negatively, you know? And so other than Christmas, where he was very proud of our Danish traditions, And speaking of family, it generally was harshly that he spoke of family. And so I had an uncle named Mones. And the only thing I knew about him was that he had died in an insane asylum. That was the only thing I knew about my uncle Mones. Okay. So my father had this other brother, this half brother he kept in touch with. And that brother got stomach cancer and was dying of cancer. was going to visit him to say goodbye. And I thought I had cousins in Denmark. I thought if I don't go with him, I'm going to lose touch with all of my Danish connection. And I'm in my mid to late twenties at this point, I'm 26 or 27. And we go there and we go to this brother's house and it's a perfectly conventional house, suburbs, wall-to-wall carpets, The equivalent of Ikea furniture. And on the walls were the most extraordinary paintings. So I turned to my uncle and I said, who did the art? And he looked at me and he said, you don't know? That's your Uncle Mones. Wow. And then I felt like I had come from somewhere. And I never had before. Yeah. Yeah. So going back there gave you this sense of, I guess, finding out what your core is and where this comes from. Yeah. I think it's so easy, especially in America. I mentioned my father coming here and turning his back on, you know, there's a lot of immigration stories of folks who are making a new world for themselves. You know, people change their names. They come here under traumatic circumstances. You know, fresh start, don't look back. We come from somewhere. And that somewhere shapes who we are today.

SPEAKER_00: 15:28

Yes.

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We can uncover that connection. It can be so empowering. And it was for me at that moment.

SPEAKER_00: 15:38

So

SPEAKER_02: 15:38

at that point, life began to make sense? Well, why I was an artist began to make sense. Now, I understand that once you came from Denmark, you were in New York for a while, right? Correct. I grew up in New York. I went to college in New England and then went to Baltimore to go to graduate school. Once I made it to Baltimore, I stayed put. And when I came out of graduate school, you know, I had the ambition. I wasn't doing social engagement art right away. I had the ambition of being identified by the blue chip galleries in New York and all of that stuff that young artists are supposed to think, you know. this kind of push-pull, like, there's something inside of me. I want to be an artist, but maybe not. Did New York help that? New York played a different role for me. When I was living in Baltimore after graduate school, I considered New York to be Mecca. When I was a young man enjoying making art as a hobby, remember, I had no aspirations of being an artist, so I you know, didn't matter to me that I was in this cultural center. And so when I was in Baltimore though, by the time I finished graduate school, New York was Mecca, you know? And so what I used to do was I would visit New York. I would go to the galleries and museums once a month And I'd get up early in the morning. I'd drive to the city. Back then, a lot of the galleries were in Soho. Then later, they were in Chelsea. And then uptown had the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum. At the time, the Whitney Museum was uptown, the Guggenheim. So around lunchtime, I'd get on the subway, head up uptown to spend the afternoon with museums. And when I would visit galleries, I'd have all kinds of spiritual epiphanies. If I have a religion, that religion is art. And when I'm in standing before art, I have powerful experiences that could only be called spiritual. And my brain is popping left and right and epiphany, epiphany, epiphany. Then I get on the subway to head uptown. And I'm sitting on the subway and I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance. Way back in the 90s, I was already thinking, what does this world have to do with that world? How do I reconcile this? And so another thing was happening at the same time. I was occasionally getting my art into shows, mostly not. Mostly, my early work was rejected by galleries. And that was probably the best thing for me because it tested my reason for being an artist. And the reason had to do with self-actualization. That was the actual reason I was an artist. And so I'd be in my studio having my own epiphanies and learning about myself and not showing in galleries. And when I did start showing in galleries, it was inevitably a disappointment because a gallery show, to be crass, is very often a wine and cheese event. And all of the spiritual content, which is so meaningful for me, gets eclipsed in the gallery world social aspect of that context. And so... two things were happening. One was a dissatisfaction with the world I thought I wanted to belong to. And the other was this question about, well, where does this fit in this other world? Yes. You know, a world of grime and hustle and challenge and daily setbacks, you know, where does it fit in? And ultimately I figured out how to reconcile that. You talk about some of your rejections. Was there ever a point where, Where you thought about abandoning art? No. What kept you on track? I had to do it. Making artists like breathing for me. I was fortunate too. Let's be really clear. I was super fortunate in that I had to work to have an income, but I also was padded with family money. So that allowed me to take more risks and have more time. So, for example, I could get by on teaching two or three courses as an adjunct in the colleges around Baltimore, and that would be enough of a supplement to the family money that was available to me. Yes. So I recognize my privilege, and I recognize how lucky I am to not have Do you think if you didn't have the padding, when you think about the rejection and the way you were living, do you think that, my gosh, if I didn't have this padding, maybe I would let this go? Yeah, I like to believe it's a test I've never been confronted with, quite honestly, I certainly have made decisions that are not in my economic interest, and have had to make lifestyle choices accordingly. Okay, but I've never really been tested with that question. And of course, I like to believe I do believe and I like to believe. And I'm honest enough with myself to say I do not know the answer. But I like to believe that I would continue making art just because it was so critical to my selfhood. Let's talk about Baltimore a little bit because that's, of course, where we met. But that seems to be the place where so many things started to take off. You were founding director of Art on Purpose and your name was being recognized. Let's talk about Baltimore. And I'd really like to start off with Art on Purpose project because that was the big thing. Talk a little bit about that project. Yeah, I'll lead up to it very quickly because a couple of pivotal things happened. One was, I mentioned being an adjunct art teacher at various Baltimore area colleges. One college at the time was called Villa Julie College, now called Stevenson University. And they expanded and had a gallery built with no plan for an exhibitions program. So I raised my hand and said, I would like to run an exhibitions program. Never having done that before, but having been to New York, seeing multiple shows for years, I felt like I had a vision. So that was my first taste of getting outside my own studio and organizing work by other people. And what I discovered very quickly was the extent to which a gallery space could become a community center and a community building center

SPEAKER_00: 23:05

and

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how you could do works around topics of human interest. That began to affect my own studio work, by the way, where I went from making what I would consider to be individual paintings. But think about paintings in a setting and that setting being a space for an experience. So after that, I worked at the Park School in Baltimore as the exhibition's educator. And there, I developed a skill set of engaging professional artists and their work with the Park School community by having exhibitions which combined art by practicing artists with works by students from different classrooms. Sometimes the work was art, sometimes it was a classroom project, but it was all getting displayed because it all related to a community theme. So I developed a, not a formula, but a methodology for animating the content of art by engaging it with real life things. And so that was really my training ground in many ways. And I had a larger vision than that, so founded Art on Purpose in 2005. And the vision behind Art on Purpose was very basic. It was using art to bring people together around issues and ideas. And that's when I really started to engage in social justice topics, using art as a magnet for bringing people together. And I began to engage in humanistic concerns and in community building. So I did that for seven years and it was very successful. And I defined success by the range, the depth and breadth of people who were involved. the depth and breadth of organizations and demographics that were involved. Everything from the Harlem Park Rec Center to the Walters Art Museum and anything in between were not only partners in projects, but often partners in the same project. So it was really a rich opportunity to use art to celebrate our humanity and draw attention to folks who often live in the margins unseen and unheard. Thank you so much for having me. You have the artistic piece. Where did you get that business piece? Let's start thinking about the art for a second. Let's think about the business side of this. The way you can turn on a dime like that, Peter, amazes me. Yeah. Well, thank you. That's very kind of you. Yeah. I think that I'm very lucky in maybe I have two sides to my brain. The creative side and then there's the organized side. Yes. And so... And there's always phases to a project like Autumn Leaves. Quite honestly, Autumn Leaves started in my own studio with me making drawings, not knowing where they were going or what they were about. At a certain point, I realized I was doing 49 self-portraits when I was 49 years old, and that that number was significant to me. And I realized that the inflection point of turning 50 was a significant milestone. That was the internal... Thank you very much. If I'm going through this, then I know others go through this. This is a rite of passage moment, and there are not social occasions or cultural rites of passage around this particular passage. Maybe some folks have a 50th birthday, and that's a big deal, but it's not written to the culture. Well, what if we do a project where we kind of write that into the culture, where we celebrate the transition of being 50 or older. And that was the seed. And then my brain flipped. My brain flipped from internal, in the studio, thinking of my own path to what does that look like and how do I organize it? And then it's project management. Yes, that's it. The project management. How do you balance that, particularly as a creative? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there are times when I'm doing one or the other, and I wish I were doing the other. And certainly once I've launched a project, I'm in and I have to see it to the end. I have a very wise instructor from when I was in graduate school who... When my wife was pregnant at the time, and I was fearful of never having time to be an artist, how could I balance being a parent and an artist? And she said, I don't believe you can do everything at the same time, but you can do everything at different times. And that has really given me the ability to have some patience. So when I am working on a project right now, I'm ear deep. in doing the project organizing with something I've got going on in Maine. And I haven't been in my studio in months. Okay. And this is after intensely needing to be in my studio every day. So the reason I'm able to do that is I know that's coming. Okay. Yes. And soon enough to not some undefined future this fall, I'll be in the studio. The other thing is when I'm in my studio a long time and I see something I want to bring to the world, I want to turn my energy externally. I want to do the project management because that brings relevance to the work and puts the work to work and it has a purpose. The art for me is not complete. until the project is complete. So it's really in many ways a second phase using a different part of my brain of being an artist. I love it. You mentioned your art needed to go to another level. I know your studio was filled with self-portraiture, but then you became interested in How does this connect? So you got away from the self-portraiture to really saying, how does one relate to another? You had mentioned being around musicians and how they play off each other. Talk a little bit about that point where art is not about me anymore. It's more about connectivity. Correct. And I think that I will stick with Autumn Leaves for a second as the example. Okay. So I was doing these 49 self-portraits and each drawing was in many ways an incomplete drawing. It was a start of a phase. with lots of distinct marks, you know, dash, dash, dash, dash, dash, lots, lots, lots of marks. And I began to recognize that each mark was like the record of a moment, a moment lived. And each drawing became a symbol for the moments lived over the course of a year. So these self-portraits didn't look anything like me. They were just heads with lots of marks. And so I thought, okay, this is a metaphor. These drawings are a metaphor of someone who has traveled on this earth through 49 years worth of moments. You know, that's the metaphor. So you may recall in the Autumn Leaves exhibition, when you walked into the gallery, this was held at Area 405. That was an active gallery in Baltimore. There was a text panel on the wall explaining the project and right next to it a grid of my drawings seven by seven drawings which i think the text probably had a throwaway line about these drawings symbolize you know blah blah blah but it was really an invocation of the theme so my art wasn't the point of the exhibition nor the events the and when i say my art i mean my drawings right the the gallery was filled with art by other people, specifically seven artists who each were given the assignment of doing seven portraits in their group, each group made up of seven people. So you had seven groups, each with seven people. Those people in those groups were all 50 years old or older. That's where you fit in. I'm giving away your age. And, and The project was all about both honoring the elders and giving the elders a platform for sharing. So the real delivery... in the Autumn Leaves Project wasn't even the exhibition, which not only had the art, it also had writing on the wall, 49 word pieces by different writers. Writers and artists were all under 49 years old. That was really important. The younger people were honoring the elders, right? We had seven events. Each event was hosted by a pair of people who were younger than 49, right? They were honoring the elders. Each event opened with a youth program performance. So that was the homage aspect to this, the recognition of the significance of being an elder, elder in this case defined as 50 years old or older. But the real kicker was the sharing that you did with your 48 peers, seven events, each with seven elders or leaves, Sharing reflection to three really important questions. What gives your life meaning? How do you think about your passing? What would you like to say to your 21-year-old self? And so all of that became, and people turned out, you know that. Oh yeah, it was packed. Yep, yep. And all ages, all colors, all traditions, you name it. It was beautiful. And I was very intentional in identifying the 49 folks and how I broke out the seven groups to increase the odds of that diversity because the whole idea was this was a human experience. And so it became a celebration of life. And see, that's what was so amazing about it is, yeah, you're an artist, right? But the mastery and the skill set that went into planning, it was so methodically planned out that, you know, you just, I'm like, what mad scientist put this together? And you did it brilliantly. And you could just tell by the people who were there, Peter, they didn't want to leave. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, very beautiful. And so that Autumn Leaves was one of those projects that I know that many people in the community really attached themselves to. And you did that very successfully. And then you, if I recall, maybe you paused for just a moment, but then you went into the New Day campaign. Talk a little bit about that. So... I started Autumn Leaves with the notion that I might learn something from my elder peers about how to think about the rest of my life. And while the planning was going on, my daughter died of an overdose. And that turned everything upside down and inside out for me. And very quickly, I almost abandoned Autumn Leaves, actually, at that point. And I didn't only because of what I realized the project was about. It wasn't about, okay, so what do some older folks know that they could teach me about my next years? It went from that to a more existential question of what is the meaning of life with my daughter dead? That became the question. And so you all carried me, your openness, your engagement with life, the hardships that different leaves had faced themselves, your compassion. You all carried me in those first months after my daughter died. And other people were reaching out to me saying, what can we do? What can we do? What can we do? And I'll tell you something else. I've been doing this social engagement art at this point for 15, almost 20 years. I felt I knew why I had to develop the skill set that I had. I knew why I had that skill set. And that was because when my daughter died, I knew that I needed to do something that took on what killed her. And you can say that it was addiction that killed her. Indeed, that's true. And I would say underneath that, stigmatized attitudes towards addiction is what killed her. And she needed to live in isolation and shame and judgment because of the culture we were in back in the early teens. And I was going to have none of that. So the New Day campaign, it involved a little bit of my art. When she died, I mean, speaking to how art is so important to me, The day she died, I had drawings in my head that I knew I needed to make. And that was my immediate call in terms of my own healing, my own need to survive. And so ultimately I made those drawings. There was actually a bunch of audio I collected with those drawings. That became one of the exhibitions during the New Day campaign. Primarily the New Day campaign was a movement involving literally hundreds of others. And it was... a healing ride for me because I found a new community of people in pain who were looking to connect with others and feel safe sharing that pain, be it mental illness, be it loved ones suffering, be it recovering or not recovering from addiction yourselves, be it in the field as a healthcare provider and facing this every day and the uphill road of a society that was harshly judging what you were trying to do something about. All of these overlapping folks came together and we ended up, by the end of 2015, it was extraordinary. We had 16 art exhibitions, mainly art by other people. I only had art of my own in one. And 63 events of all kinds. There was a film series. There was a symposium on this or that. There was a healing experience. There was, you know, it was one... Everything had a communal conversation aspect as well. Everything had resources available. Yes. So two things happened at every single event. One, somebody raised their hand during the community conversation and said, I've never shared this in public before, but I once was addicted to heroin. I have a mother who had schizophrenia. My sibling died of an overdose. Every single event. because we created a safe public space. And to me, what could be more meaningful, a role for art in our culture, but to provide that. And that program and initiative was recognized by Bloomberg, and you received an award for that at the Health Summit in DC. I've known you for so long. I know it's not about the awards and recognition, but did you feel like you were operating purpose and on purpose and that you were helping your daughter in another place. Yeah. So at some point while I was early on in organizing the New Day campaign, I was still married to my wife at the time, which by the way was another casual of losing my daughter was part of the reinvention of the new person I'd become was reckoning with the fact that a 30-year marriage, we weren't feeding each other once in But we were still married at the time. And she said, she asked me very wisely. She said, do you think Elisif is your muse? And I thought about it for a second. And I said, yeah, absolutely she is. And so she filled me. She filled me. She was the spirit of the New Day campaign. And, you know, it's not every single person that's hurting was a surrogate for her. And I wanted to do something and I knew she would want me to do something. As far as the awards go, and there were several of them and Bloomberg was one of them, that was frankly uncomfortable for me because at one, it wasn't that occasion, but another occasion I was being given an award for the New Day campaign of some sort. And I spoke very bluntly about There's something that doesn't feel right about being celebrated because my daughter died. That's sort of how it felt to me. And that's not all of it. I do recognize the value of the work and I appreciate the embrace of the value of the work. But I would have done it whether or not I ever got recognized. Well, that's you though, Peter. I know it comes from the heart with you. After the New Day campaign ended, did you feel like... It provided the closure you needed. I know you did it for a couple of years. Yep, so timeline. My daughter died February 11th, 2014. I announced the New Day campaign in November 2nd, 2014, the last event of Autumn Leaves. 10 months later, 11 months later, we had this three-month run of 16 exhibitions and 63 events. And that was what I needed in terms of that outward facing work. However, two things were true. One, it was so incredibly impactful that there was tremendous pressure to find a way to carry on. And I needed to make some money. So putting those two things together, I did carry on with New Day campaign activities for the next two or three years. Well, till 2017, 2018 maybe. And that wasn't feeding me to that point of sometimes I'm in it and I really need to be in the studio. I was really needing to be in the studio. And it was around that time that my marriage was falling apart. So as usual, I turned to art to help me make sense of my life. Love had become very complicated for me. And so I did the 1000 Love Letter Project, which was making drawings based on love letters, did a big event in Baltimore in 2019. But what I really needed in terms of the closure, if you wanna call it that, I had done a lot of public healing, a lot of engagement with finding community, I needed to sit still with myself.

SPEAKER_00: 44:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 44:06

So that's what drove me to Maine. I remember when you left to go to Maine, it seemed like there was work to be done there, Peter, like self-work. So talk a little bit about that. So first of all, I was leaving Baltimore where I had become incredibly ensconced in the community. You know, my people were in Baltimore.

SPEAKER_01: 44:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 44:29

And I was leaving all of that to a state where I knew nobody, except my wife, who was actually I wasn't going up to be with her. She happened to be up in Maine at that point, which is why Maine was the state. You know, it's a long, long story there we won't go into. But I basically came up here virtually by myself and rented a place. And, you know, my daughter was dead. Another daughter. was traveling in India. Another daughter had launched her career in DC. So our whole family had sort of like gone in different directions. And we were all grieving and carrying on in our own way, with love underneath it all, but all of us separate. So the previous life was no longer there. And so I, of course, turned to the studio and sold my house in Baltimore. had made enough money that I didn't have to worry about income for a year or two. And I went deep dove into my grief through the drawings I was making. And just this past fall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I had an exhibition called Each Has Their Grief. And it was made up of five years worth of art that I had made since coming to Maine. There were seven sections and it was an entire arc of collapse, grief, pain, loss to acceptance, serenity, communion with my daughter and joy. And I don't know what came first. I don't know if it was the art that healed me in those several years that I was here, or if it was the art was recording the fact that I was healing. I was up here. I didn't feel lonely. I was with my art. And with my art, I was with my daughter, and I was with all the people I love. When I'm in the studio, I feel closer to people than when I'm with people. It's an interesting thing, which isn't to say I don't feel close to people when I'm with them, but there's an intensity of that meditating on it. You know, that happens in the studio. Anyway, I had this exhibition and that, if anything feels like, I mean, there's never closure. I'm always carrying this grief. If anything felt like a completion of traveling through the tunnel after the death of my daughter, it was great. the culmination with that exhibition just last year. I was going through some similar thing with my brother who had passed away about four years ago now. And I was trying to move on. I recognized that he passed away, but it came to me maybe, and this happened maybe about nine months ago, but I was trying to move on rather than move through it. And by going through it, then I had to recall the love and the time that we shared and all of that stuff that I really didn't process because I was trying to move on and sort of over it. And to me, it just sounds like that your art provided you that opportunity to move through. And it still does. You know, I'm thinking of, I'm forgetting who it was, some famous actor, I think, or writer who spoke of their depression and looked at at their depression, related to their depression, like a passenger in the car. And I think grief is that way. Grief is a passenger in my car. It's always there. So it's not a moving on. It's not a moving through. It's a moving with, I think of it. And I think it's the human condition. Back to your earlier point, I have my grief and I had my exhibition last year. Well, guess what we had last year at this gallery in Portsmouth? Events with other people. and other stories, right? Because it's the human condition. And so it brings me such joy to connect to others around our shared human condition, you know? In many ways, the other thing, and here's one for you, Robert. One of the things that somebody said during Autumn Leaves, it's a cliche, but it was the first time I'd heard it, was when things happen Don't ask, why is this happening to me? Why is this happening for me? You know, first time in autumn leaves. And I carry that today. You know, the worst stuff can happen and it's terrible. It's painful. And what are you going to do with it? That is powerful. And again, there were so many stories that were shared at autumn leave. You could not leave that place without taking something away. At this point, you seem to me that you found your life's purpose and it's on mega power now. You seem to be operating in your gifts and your talents. How does it feel at this point in life? Yeah. You know, I have a new partner. I mean, not even new at this point. I have a partner who has been very... in restoring my sense of joy and life. And when we first started connecting with each other, we shared that question with each other. And she said, the more I think about it, the more I keep landing on, I'm here to help. And that matches perfectly how I feel. And we put our energy every day into being helpers. We need to take care of ourselves along the way. We're on this earth too, you know. Yes, indeed. Our purpose, there's enough pain to go around. There's enough isolation to go around. There's enough that can be done to make life just a little bit better for people. And what are our gifts? What are our strengths? What are our capacities? How can we help? Amen. Well, now here's a question for you. We talked about this in Autumn Leaves. We were talking about the 21-year-old self. I, in this podcast, asking the question, if you had to go back and whisper in the ear of the 24-year-old Peter, what advice would you give him? I think that, so when I was 24, I became a dad, actually. And I felt like everything was possible in the world and that it would go a certain way, okay? And what I guess I would say, I know, you know, I knew you were going to ask me this, but I didn't come up with a good answer before then. So on my feet thinking about it, I'd say trust the process. Give yourself over. Stay awake. Stay awake to what you want and how you feel and don't be driven by should. Should is a recipe for insecurity and a sense of inadequacy. If you stay awake to who you are and follow that, then you'll know that you're enough. And I was awfully insecure as a 24 year old. And now I'm not. I have a confidence and it's because I am open to what calls. I love it. Peter, you and I could talk forever. You always drop off gems that are useful in life and everyday living. For our listeners out there and our viewers who want to learn more about your work, your art, your upcoming exhibitions, how can folks get in contact with you, Peter? Yeah, so there's a couple of websites and there's my personal studio website, which is really an archive of all these past projects. People could look up Autumn Leaves, for example. And that's brunestudios.com, B-R-U-U-N studios, plural, dot com, you know, W-W-W. And then there's also Studio B, which is the nonprofit we're now working under and doing this community work. And that's Studio... B-M-E, studiobme.org. And if you search that, and honestly, if you Google my name, I have an unusual last name, things will pop up. People can find me. If they, for whatever reason, want to email me, that contact information is on the Brune Studios website. Wonderful, Peter. Well, thank you again for joining us and looking forward to more of your work and keep continuing to brighten the world with your smile but more with your art and your heart thank you peter for joining us today it's been so much fun thank you robert you're doing great work thank you Well, that's going to do it for this episode of Intentionally Overheard. If you like what you listen to, please share this episode with a friend and subscribe to the podcast if you have not already done so. Part of my life's mission is to inspire people to live their best lives by intentionally living a life of purpose on purpose. You would like to continue to hear these stories and support the show, you can do so through Buy Me A Coffee. Buy Me A Coffee is a safe, secure service that allows you to choose a dollar amount you would like to contribute We have included a link to buy me a coffee in this episode. And as always, we thank you and appreciate your support. Till we meet again, put your mind, heart, soul, and your best foot forward and dream it, believe it, do it, be it. Dibby dibby.