Local artist combines movement, meditation and sustainable art

There’s a difference between functional graphic design and art, according to Macon’s Mary‑Frances Burt, who creates both.

Design, she maintains, is about answers. Art is about questions.

As a trained graphic designer who has created more than 1,000 book covers and a range of other items across her more than 30-year career, she would know. And as a self‑taught fine artist whose work has been featured in galleries and hangs in private collections across the country, Burt knows something about that as well.

It’s the artist side of Burt that will be on display Friday through Feb. 27 in a solo exhibit called “Poured Out” at the Macon Arts Alliance Gallery. There will be an artist talk Thursday at 6 p.m., prior to the opening. 

But for a moment, back to Burt’s take on design versus art.

“In design, you’re finding answers to meet purposes and objectives,” Burt said. “You’re solving problems, meeting clients’ needs and goals. That may make you answerable to 20 different people with 20 different opinions. In the end, good design is measurable. Does it do the job? In art, you’re exploring and asking questions. You’re only answerable to yourself as its creator. Good art is self‑expression that pours out of you; though sometimes it’s like, ‘Where did this come from?’”

Along with the differences she sees between design and art, Burt acknowledges there’s crossover.

“You can have designers who are artists and have artists who are designers, but it’s not always the case,” she said. “People are complicated with different combinations of gifts and talents. I’ve found that people can be confused by the fact that I do design as my day job and I’m also an artistic person creating art on my own. I can get confused. But I decided years ago I was going to be okay with that. I work as a designer, but I believe that I’m an artist.”

Having grown up in a family of artist creators, art is in her DNA, Burt said. Though she was always drawing and despite pursuing a career in graphic design, Burt didn’t take the artist in her seriously until she was in her 30s. Now, her website galleries at maryfrancesburt.com are filled with colorful, lively, natural and symbolic works in traditional media.

“Poured Out,” however, represents a departure — a shift in her approach and materials toward new ideas and methods.

“This is very different from what I’ve done in the past,” she said. “It’s more experimental, more abstract and on a much larger scale than anything I’ve done before.”

And uniquely, it involves creating art through paper-making.

“I take old paper and run it through a regular office shredder,” Burt said. “Then I soak it in water before turning it into pulp in a secondhand blender I bought. After that, I’ll likely add old, leftover paint I have. Then I pour the pulp into the large frames and screens I use to form the new paper, called moulds and deckles.”

The process then involves drying, among other steps, to create the new, colorful 64‑inch‑by‑40‑inch sheets of paper that make up the work. They are then sealed and framed. Sealing the works makes them touchable, which Burt encourages.

“The process got so big I had to start working outside,” she said. “I have to admit, at the beginning, there were some real disasters.”

Before talking to Burt, I was a bit baffled by the exhibit statement which said, “This body of work is the result of the artist’s inquiry into a sustainable practice that encourages meditation, physical movement and painting while working with recycled material.”

But the truth of it became clear.

The sustainable practice refers to a repeatable artistic process and to the repurposing of used paper and leftover paints. Creating the large paper artworks is a meditative, in‑the‑zone experience, one that requires motion and physical engagement, Burt said. 

Hands‑on creative work is something Burt values and something she realized she missed, even at the University of Georgia while studying design in the 1990s.

“When I started the graphic design program, we did everything by hand,” she said. “We developed negatives, made prints, cut and pasted, did our layouts and everything else by hand — and I loved it. Then, when we came back from a particular summer break, the photo lab had been replaced by a computer lab and everything was digital. 

“There was a general depression that set in, not just among the students, but also the professors because the handwork was gone. I need to be doing something physical, something with my hands or in motion. And I have to be creating something. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Burt extends that value to viewers of “Poured Out.”

“I love the texture and form of the paper,” she said. “I love that it’s sealed and you can touch it. I want to touch art and I love the idea that kids can touch it and experience it in a way other than just looking at it.”

Burt said she’s happy with where her artistic expression is taking her and her willingness to explore new forms.

“I’m working cooperatively with the material rather than telling it what to do,” she said. “I pour something into the frame and it responds apart from anything I force it to do. There’s a back‑and‑forth until I finally step away and it’s done.”

Contact writer Michael W. Pannell at [email protected]. Find him on Instagram at @michael_w_pannell.