Having an artist father can mean a childhood that doesn’t resemble the typical kid next door.

Lisa Burgess remembers only being allowed one hour of TV every week, and that hour was devoted to “60 Minutes.” Instead, she and her brother, Bill Burgess Jr., were encouraged to get creative alongside their dad, Bill Burgess, in his studio.

Bill is the sculptor behind “Continuum,” also known as the Julie Penrose Fountain, that reigns over America the Beautiful Park. It’s one of the largest sculptural fountains in the country. He died in 2017.

“We were taught to build things,” Lisa said from home in Seattle. “We never had coloring books. He said if you have a coloring book you’ll think you have to draw a dog like in the book. For dad, art was a way to solve problems creatively. It wasn’t about being an artist — he taught us everyone is an artist.”

Her brother recalls bringing friends over to the house when he was about 6. They’d look at the art-filled house and say, “Ew, what is that?” He finally worked up the courage to ask his dad about the various pieces and what he could tell his friends.

“Tell them art is whatever they want it to be,” Bill Jr. remembered him saying. “I was as confused as my friends were. They stopped asking.”

But the narrative changed from weirdo art kid to neighborhood hero when his dad taught him how to weld.

“We spent every Saturday welding and putzing around in the studio,” Bill Jr. said.

“We didn’t do ball games and team sports, but I knew how to weld. My dad helped me make a chopper bike, like an ‘Easy Rider’ modification of a Schwinn bike. That got me attention.”

Lisa and Bill Jr., both Palmer High School graduates, will display their works alongside about a dozen of their father’s pieces in “Legacy,” a new exhibit at Auric Gallery. Abigail Kreuser also will display photos she collaborated on with 28 local artists in the new show “Flourish.” Both will open Friday during First Friday downtown and run through May.

The works by the three family members are very different, the siblings say. Bill Jr. calls his sister’s paintings “human, emotional and whimsical.” His paintings are based on photos he stretches out to abstraction and unrecognizability. He has them printed them on aircraft aluminum and then paints and sands them down. He calls himself a bridge between his father’s and sister’s work.

Their paterfamilias made art in the Pikes Peak region for 50 years, though his work also is scattered around Boulder, Grand Junction, Denver and Aurora. The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College owns three of his pieces, and he and potter Maxine Green designed one of the two 7 Minute Spring fonts in Manitou Springs.

“He was so prolific. In every corner we’d see hundreds of drawings,” Lisa said. “And the way he did color. I remember saying to him I’ll never do color as well as you. He was an intense guy and worked hard and was a perfectionist. Someone asked me what it was like to grow up with him and it was hard. He had a high bar. I wish he could be at the show.”

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