Pathfinder

Bravo! Peter Buffett: Finishing the Song

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The death in 2005 of American Realism master Kent Bellows reverberated throughout the art world. Among those affected by his passing was musician Peter Buffett, an Omaha native and youngest son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Decades earlier Peter was befriended by Bellows, eight years his senior, when his parents became the artist's patrons. Bellows, who had an affinity for young people, mentored Peter. Over time, the two remained close, a relationship that lasted until the artist's death at age 56 from natural causes at his mid-town studio.

In the back of that studio, whose loft contained Bellows' living quarters, the artist held court with a coterie of friends, creatives all. Buffett was a frequent visitor.

"I just really found his intellectual curiosity, coupled with his creativity, infectious," Buffett said by phone from his New York City home. "He was just a very warm, open, likable person. He also played piano. I loved to hear him play. He had a very unique style."

The widely collected and exhibited Bellows lived and worked in a century old structure overbrimming with the toils of his discipline. The building's now home to the Kent Bellows Studio and Center for Visual Arts, 3303 Leavenworth St., where his tools, ephemera and backdrops are preserved the way he left them. The result is a tableaux-like, three-dimensional still life of the creative process.

-Peter Buffett

The center, whose mission is to "ignite the create spark" in individuals and encourage their "potential through self-expression in the visual arts," conducts a  mentoring program pairing professional artists with area high school students.

Fulfilling potential is a theme of Buffett's new book, Life is What You Make It (Harmony Books), a part memoir, part inspirational primer.

On April 30 he presented Life is What You Make It, A Concert and Conversation benefit for the nonprofit center. Performing before a packed house at Joslyn Art Museum's Witherspoon Concert Hall, he sang and spoke about finding one's bliss.

"I think self-reflection and responsibility is sometimes the missing piece for people. They're not really willing to take a hard look at their own actions," he said. "It's much easier to blame something or someone else."

He believes "a lot of people short change themselves. Our own minds can wreak havoc on our dreams for sure. It is too bad we get trapped by our own thinking that we're not good enough." He said he held himself back musically for years because of self-doubt. In his book he discusses some of his failures or missed opportunities. Recognizing those moments can help us seize the next day, he says.

He credits encouragement from his parents and from mentor figures like Bellows for preparing him to fulfill his own potential.

Event proceeds also supported a Bellows exhibition opening September 25 at Joslyn, the first major retrospective of the artist's work since his death. A young Bellows studied masterworks in Joslyn's galleries and some of his own early work showed there.

The Bellows center and exhibition are close to Buffett's heart because they perpetuate the spirt of a man whose loss is still fresh for him and they complete the circle of life.

"Kent's somebody I think about very often," said Buffett. "When you know anybody well there's certain things about them you remember. He had a great laugh, he had a great quality to his voice. So, viscerally you can feel and hear his presence. He's definitely still around."

Buffett's built a life embodying the Bellows mantra of following one's passion.  Buffett's parents modeled a similar philosophy: his father Warren as entrepreneur and philanthropist; his late mother Susie as community activist and singer. Peter suspects Susie saw Bellows as a kindred spirit who would nurture and guide him.