Slingshot Canyon. Medium: ground earth, water color and acrylic medium on 300 pound Fabriano watercolor paper. Date: 2008

Interview conducted on March 5, 2010 at Coyopa Films office in Philadelphia

OPAAT: Peter, could you tell us about the circumstances of painting this image?

PK: The first inspiration was Utah and Nevada, where I travelled the late summer of 2008. I gathered these materials then, the sand, including this pale one in the background. The red sands, the purple sands, the green—there’s all different colors out there, and when I travel I try to pick up as many different earths as I can.

OPAAT: Were all of the pigments from there?

PK: All, with the exception of one. The coal–the darkest–is from the Schuylkill River valley, because I couldn’t find anything that was really dark.  I did find the dark grey and the purple, but for that dark note I needed the coal.

OPAAT: So, how deep did you have to dig to get the coal?

PK: The coal comes from mines. The machines have already dug it up, and they are crushing it in crushers. The powder that is left behind from the crushers is what I find. I go into mines that are abandoned or not working that day and I pick up what’s lying around. Sometimes it’s in runoff, in stream beds mixed with sand. Sometimes it’s pure.  Every time I gather it, it is different, a different granularity. Sometimes it’s pretty thick, or it sparkles.

What I liked about the coal when I found it—above Pottstown, New Philadelphia, that area—is that glitter. It has a facet. And even when it’s very crumbled into powder it has a glitter about it. I like that it came from the earth, and has such a potent history in many ways.  I did a whole series of works in 2000, what I called Mother Night, using coal and medium only. Large work and small work—you’ve probably seen some of those.

OPAAT: Absolutely. And I’ve always wondered in looking at those works, and in looking at this work, as to how temperamental that pigment might be, how easy is it to control this medium.

PK: Not easy. Each batch, I mix in a bowl, a plastic bowl with some medium and some water. And it’s tough to figure out—there’s no formula, you have to guesstimate the amount of medium. You don’t want too much or it will look too soupy or gooey, you don’t want too little or it will flake off or powder. So, somewhere in between. With each batch there’s that element of risk.

“I love that moment just before the sun peeks over a ridge. You can look at the distance and not be blinded by the sun. You see the whole light change, and see a mountain range that shields the sun change as well.”

OPAAT: And here you are working on paper, so you don’t really get to scrub it down and start over again.

PK: Yeah.

OPAAT: You’re working with at least seven or eight pigments, layered in a cross pattern. So, how long did you take to create this, and was it a performance or was it composition?

PK: It was composition over time. It was probably a month that it took to do.

OPAAT: You had to let each layer dry?

PK: Yeah. Each layer has to dry thoroughly. So that when I drag layers over, I don’t want them to mix. I found that it muddies them up.

OPAAT: In a way that’s almost disappointing, because when I look at this, I just see a dance. I see the different layers thrown on top of one another and I think of a spell or an episode. But this was actually more built over time.

PK: Yeah, good point. You know if they were human dancers, or if they dissolved or they could mix. But I’ve tried that and the work hasn’t been very successful. I don’t get the depth. I don’t get the layers. I don’t get the integrity of each color next to another color and through it—which I like in this particular series of works.

And then the lightness in the background comes from staring at sunrises and sunsets, at mountain ridges out west. I love that moment just before the sun peeks over a ridge. You can look at the distance and not be blinded by the sun. You see the whole light change, and see a mountain range that shields the sun change as well. It almost that when the sun gets near the top, it actually spills over and dissolves the ridge into transparency. That’s one of the things that draws my attention, and that I tried to capture in this particular series.

OPAAT: An unveiling of the sky?

PK: Absolutely, with the sky charged and constantly changing ever so subtly, in the early moments of the morning and the late moments of the afternoon.  But I spend the hotter part of the day more for gathering.

OPAAT: Hunter-gatherer by day, painter at dawn–

PK (laughing) Yeah. And twilight –and maybe moonlight too.

(full interview here)

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