Opie O'Brien distinguished himself at an early age when his Bumble Bees were voted the best in third grade and hung on the bulletin board outside the Principals office at PS 33 for a month. Linda O'Brien doesn't remember third grade.

Encouraged by his early success, Opie took music lessons, studied art for three years at SVA and honed his craft. He joined the Raspberries after their third album and played Carnegie Hall at age 23 and Madison Square Garden at 29. He's played with major bands and music legends. Discipline was his middle name. Linda, being adopted, never knew her middle name, assumed Peter Pan was her biological father and became a free-spirited self taught artist, workshop teacher and writer. When their paths crossed (collided) in "84, Linda and Opie discovered they were opposite sides of the same coin... Soulmates!

While their individual styles complimented each other, as a team they truly excelled and Burnt Offerings Studio is the result of their combined efforts. Originally from N.Y.C., Linda and Opie O'Brien are full-time artists now living on Lake Erie in Ohio with their cat Angelus and his cat Angel. Their art and recording studios occupy most of their 2700 sq.ft. home. Linda and Opie teach workshops nationally and in 2005, will teach a workshop in Mexico during the week of the Day of the Dead. They are currently writing a book on Metal and Mixed-Media for North Light.

Linda and Opie O'Brien appreciate the unusual and collect everything from space toys to burial dolls. These themes influence their vast body of work which includes: assemblage, jewelry, books, dolls, sculpture, masks, instruments and more and has been featured in several books including: Crafting Personal Shrines by Carol Owen, Artists Sketchbooks & Journals by Lynne Perrella, Stamp Artistry by Rice Freeman-Zachery, Creating Musical Instruments by Ginger Summitt and Jim Widdess and many more as well as magazines including: Belle Armoire, Art Doll Quarterly, Legacy, Somerset Studio and the Crafts Report. Their work has also been in galleries, museums, CD, TV and is part of several private collections.

Our artist statement: "We are caretakers of the mundane and the ordinary. We work with organic, recycled and found materials, because they seem to have a voice that must be heard... a story that must be told... and a life that would otherwise be too soon forgotten".