Events Calendar

Ready to color your way through winter with a rainbow of art projects? Join us for Warm Creativity on Cold Afternoons with Bernie & Zuzu! Returning for a mini-winter season, Bernie is back in the Pinney Library Studio from 3:30-5:30 every Thursday in Feb. and every Tuesday in March with drop-in art making projects for grown-ups, teens, and kiddos. Different surprise projects and medium(s) will be featured each week to help you add some color play to your winter day.

No registration necessary, drop-in and get creative with your friends and neighbors of all ages.

About Bernie & Zuzu:

At bernie & zuzu, we design unique, one-of-a-kind goods with bold, bright color and exuberant patterns that inspire playfulness, creativity and joy. bernie & zuzu is named for Bernie Witzack, founder and artist, and her brilliant and extraordinary cat zuzu (bios below). bernie & zuzu is run out of a studio in the Madison Enterprise Center at 100 S. Baldwin Street in Madison, Wisconsin. We screen print at Polka Press, Madison’s local printmaking collective.

Bios:

Zuzu was adopted by Bernie when she was a wee little kitten. Her favorite napping place as a kitten was a hiking boot. She has an MBA from Harvard and is a social media expert. When she’s not working as the CEO, CFO and COO of bernie & zuzu, you can find her napping in her bed in Bernie’s closet, or at the top of her cat tree. Zuzu is nineteen years young. She really, really loves watermelon.

I [Bernie] grew up in a small town south of Madison, in a home where my dad’s paintings lined the walls and my mom’s quilts covered the beds. I staged my first art show at age 9, lining my wood-paneled dining room with drawings and charging my parents’ friends a dollar a drawing. I took all the art classes I could in high school, studied Studio Art at Beloit College and earned an MFA in Fine Art from the University of Michigan. In grad school, I focused on drawing and painting, working in an improvisational and materials-based process. I never feel more connected and alive than when I am creating art. My hope is that the joy I feel when creating comes through in bernie & zuzu’s goods and inspires tiny moments of happiness, joy and wonder in our fans.

Join the curator, Sharon Bjyrd and exhibiting artists of I Am A Man: The Re-humanization of Black Men, Goodman South Madison Library's current art exhibition. There will be community conversations, comments from the artists, performances from Da Classroom Ain't Enuf and participatory art opportunities.

You can learn more about the exhibition here: https://www.madisonbubbler.org/exhibitions/current/goodman-south

Bernie of bernie & zuzu is back in the Pinney Studio with encouraging prompts to enhance your art flow.

We are all inherently creative! If you’ve ever worried that you aren’t creative enough, or if you love to make art but struggle to carve out the time to do it on your own, this workshop is for you. In this process-based workshop, you will be led through a series of creative prompts that encourage intuitive and improvisational art making through drawing, painting and collage. Joy, flow and tapping into your own creative energy will be our focus!

This 2-hour workshop is ideal for adults and older teens 16+.  Space is limited and registration is required. Registration opens two weeks prior; please only register if you can confirm you will attend. If full, call Pinney Library information desk at 608-224-7100 to be placed on a short waiting list in case of cancellations. 

This workshop is being offered on two dates: 2/20/25 & 3/18/25 - please select just one, allowing space for other community members to try out.

About Bernie & Zuzu:

At bernie & zuzu, we design unique, one-of-a-kind goods with bold, bright color and exuberant patterns that inspire playfulness, creativity and joy. bernie & zuzu is named for Bernie Witzack, founder and artist, and her brilliant and extraordinary cat zuzu (bios below). bernie & zuzu is run out of a studio in the Madison Enterprise Center at 100 S. Baldwin Street in Madison, Wisconsin. We screen print at Polka Press, Madison’s local printmaking collective.

Bios:

Zuzu was adopted by Bernie when she was a wee little kitten. Her favorite napping place as a kitten was a hiking boot. She has an MBA from Harvard and is a social media expert. When she’s not working as the CEO, CFO and COO of bernie & zuzu, you can find her napping in her bed in Bernie’s closet, or at the top of her cat tree. Zuzu is nineteen years young. She really, really loves watermelon.

I [Bernie] grew up in a small town south of Madison, in a home where my dad’s paintings lined the walls and my mom’s quilts covered the beds. I staged my first art show at age 9, lining my wood-paneled dining room with drawings and charging my parents’ friends a dollar a drawing. I took all the art classes I could in high school, studied Studio Art at Beloit College and earned an MFA in Fine Art from the University of Michigan. In grad school, I focused on drawing and painting, working in an improvisational and materials-based process. I never feel more connected and alive than when I am creating art. My hope is that the joy I feel when creating comes through in bernie & zuzu’s goods and inspires tiny moments of happiness, joy and wonder in our fans.