June 17, 2024 • 23 mins
Are you ready to master the art of painting and discover the secrets behind a successful art career? Join us for an enlightening conversation with internationally acclaimed artist Peter Roux, who takes us on an inspiring journey from his early interests in architecture to his triumphant focus on painting. Peter candidly shares the pivotal moments and influential mentors that shaped his artistic path, reflecting on his education at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and his initial foray into commercial art. Get a deep dive into his artistic philosophy, as he explores the impact of the overwhelming proliferation of imagery on our perception of the natural world.
In this episode, we delve into the evolution of Peter's artistic style, from monochromatic and value-focused pieces to vibrant and representational works featuring clouds and nature forms. Peter opens up about the ever-present tension between declaring a painting finished and the desire for continuous improvement, offering invaluable insights for fellow artists. We also tackle the unique marketing challenges faced by artists, with Peter sharing effective strategies and potential pitfalls to avoid. Whether you're an aspiring artist or an established creator, this episode is packed with practical advice and inspiration to help you navigate your artistic career with confidence.
Website: https://www.peterrouxart@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterRouxArtist/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-roux-a29a0b25/
Social Media: @peterrouxart
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura (00:07):
Good morning.
I'm your host, lauraWagenknecht, ceo of Mosaic
Business Consulting, and you'relistening to the Mosaic Life
with Laura W.
Mosaic is a bunch of piecesthat, when put together, make up
the whole in a really beautifulway.
This show plans to discuss thevarious pieces of a business
throughout different industriesand how these pieces, when put
(00:28):
together, can help develop abetter, more efficient,
efficient and effective runningof your business.
To reach me, contact bizradious.
And our special guest today isnone other than the
internationally acclaimed PeterRue, who is a full-time artist
and teacher living in andworking in Asheville, north
(00:50):
Carolina.
Originally, he was from Bostonand he earned his BFA and MFA
from the Massachusetts Collegeof Art and Design and has a
studio in the River ArtsDistrict here in Asheville.
His artwork can be seen in manygalleries throughout the US and
internationally, and he has hadnumerous solo exhibitions all
(01:13):
over the world.
Peter works primarily in oils,but also creates drawings and
monotypes.
Using nature as a subject, heexplores not only natural forms,
but also how we experience theworld around us.
We are confronted by more imageson a daily basis than any other
(01:34):
time in history, and this isinvariably affected how we see
and experience the world, andPeter is interested in how the
language of imagery influenceshow we take in the natural world
.
And Peter is interested in howthe language of imagery
influences how we take in thenatural world.
He sees all images as windowswith predetermined edges, sizes
(01:54):
and layers of information, andrecently Peter has focused on
land, clouds, water and trees,often combining representational
approaches alongside elementsof abstraction, areas of marks
and flourishes.
That reminds the viewer thatthe pieces are not the things
(02:15):
they represent, but instead theresult of the experience of
seeing them.
And I can't wait to get intothat a bit more because I'm a
little bit trepidatious, if youwill, about abstraction.
So this is going to beinteresting.
Anyway, peter also tends towork with one-on-one with select
(02:38):
artists to help them strengthentheir work, develop gallery
relationships and navigate thechallenges of working as a
professional artist.
So welcome to the show, peter.
It is absolutely a pleasure tohave you.
Peter (02:51):
Well, thank you, Laura.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Thank you for asking me to dothis.
I'm excited.
Laura (02:55):
Yeah, yeah.
When I found out you're givinga talk on Wednesday, I thought
this is going to be fantastic.
Or Thursday sorry, coming up onthe 20th right.
Yes, thought this is going tobe fantastic.
Or Thursday, sorry, coming upon the 20th Right.
So, yeah, Well, so I'm curiouswhat got you interested in
becoming an artist?
Peter (03:13):
Well, you know it's.
It's one of those stories thatprobably is a little bit boring
to listen to and in the sensethat I I don't really remember
any time where I didn't want tobe an artist, I kind of my
earliest memories were always ofdrawing and of thinking about,
you know, when I got old enoughto sort of think about these
things what being an artistwould be like.
as an adult, I didn't reallyknow what form it would take.
(03:35):
I think for many years, as Iwas a child and as I was, you
know, growing into youngadulthood, I think that I was
kind of vacillating betweendifferent possibilities.
I think at one point I thoughtabout going into architecture,
but I realized that my interestin architecture was really less
about the buildings themselvesand more about the drawings that
one could make.
(03:55):
And so really it was alwayscreating visual imagery that was
really driving me.
And then, as I was in highschool, I was really fortunate
because I went to a school thathad a teacher, an art teacher,
who really took me under hiswing and guided me.
He was a working artist himselfand spent a good portion of my
(04:18):
senior year just doingindependent studies with him.
I had kind of gotten all of mycredits together to graduate
already and so that was really,um, pretty beneficial to me and
I think at that point I I thinkI had it in my head if I'm going
to try and make a living as anartist, I think I need to look
at commercial art of some kind,and so I started getting
interested in illustration.
Um and um, you know we'retalking about the early 80s.
(04:40):
I graduated from high school in1983.
Um, this was reallypre-internet and it was
pre-digital and so you know youcould still see lots of
illustrators work on the coversof magazines and inside them and
in books and things like that,and certainly that world has
changed pretty dramatically.
But I started at school as anundergraduate as an illustration
(05:04):
major and then quickly, throughsome feedback from some of my
instructors, actually saying,look, your work is very
painterly.
I think that you're you knowyou might be interested in
looking at the paintingdepartment.
Instead, I realized that that'sreally kind of where my heart
was, was was lying, and so I didmake the switch and ended up
graduating with a degree inpainting, never regretted it,
(05:26):
always thought it was the rightmove for me.
I think my interest began toreally expand into what it means
to make art, what it means tobe a person in the world who's
making art.
And I heard not too long ago adistinction.
Someone said something like theonly difference between an
artist and someone who is not anartist is that the artist makes
art, and that's really sort ofwhere it starts and stops.
(05:47):
And that's kind of meaningfulto me because I think that I
think that that's that reallykind of defines it.
I, you know, don't think that Icould exist very well and
successfully in the world if Iwasn't making art.
It's just sort of been kind ofbred into or I it, I it's so,
it's so deep into me now that Ican't really imagine not doing
(06:08):
it.
And I feel really lucky becauseI'm never.
I never feel like I'm at a at aloss for ideas.
Um, I, I might have theopposite problem sort of too
many ideas all at the same time.
But, um, but I I've never sortof at a loss for wanting to make
something else and it's thatprocess of making that I really
(06:28):
feel so comfortable in and sofulfilled in.
So that was really kind of myjourney and I never really
looked back.
I did, between undergraduate andgoing back to graduate school,
for about three or four years Iworked in the retail, the retail
coffee industry actually andfound very quickly that that
(06:48):
wasn't for me.
And so, going back to school andand and got a graduate degree
and and you know, I I did itprimarily because at the higher
ed level, um, an MFA in studioart is the terminal degree, so
you need to have that to be ableto be, to be to, to teach, if
that's the route you want toplay red, yeah, I never wanted
(07:11):
to do that full time.
I was always worried that if Idid that I'd kind of get lost
into it and, you know, findmyself not able to do my own
work as much.
But I thought, well, you knowto have it so that if I ever
needed to, if I ever foundmyself not able to make a living
and to support myself, makingwork that I'd have that to fall
back on, which you know, onpaper sounds great.
(07:34):
The reality is is that that'snot the easiest profession to be
able to kind of get into aswell.
So and I did teach.
I taught adjunct faculty at auniversity up in the Boston area
for a few years, admittedlytrying to teach as little as
possible because I really wantedto spend as much time in the
studio as I could.
And after a few years.
(07:55):
My studio practice got busyenough and successful enough
that I dropped the teaching and,as you mentioned in your intro,
I do work with selectedindividual artists.
Usually it's work critique asopposed to instructional
paintings.
Also, we talk a lot about insome cases, depending on what
(08:16):
their needs are, about galleryrepresentation, how to work with
galleries and navigate thatwhole area, as well as a little
bit about marketing and reallykind of ways to be able to kind
of structure a life as an artistprofessional artist, you know
full time, you know, as a goal.
(08:36):
There's a lot of pitfalls.
There's a lot of places thatthat are are sort of maybe less
familiar.
There are a lot of veryparticular, idiosyncratic,
idiosyncratic things about beingan artist, especially from the
from the professional side.
A lot of I learned on my own andI learned through a lot of
trial and error, heavy, heavy onthe air, and and took me.
(08:59):
You know, took me quite a while, but I've been doing this now
for a while.
I sort of stopped at one pointa couple of years ago and went
oh my gosh, I've been workingnow as as an artist
professionally for 20 years,which kind of crept up on me.
So I went into this situationwhere I was suddenly I don't
know, I guess a veteran didn'teven realize it.
Laura (09:20):
But you know, you bring something up, peter, which I
think is really important isthat you know all of us
entrepreneurs struggle withmaking errors, right?
Nobody likes to make mistakes.
And yet you're in an industrythat you know people might see
abstracts, abstracts on a walland and think, ok, my five year
(09:43):
old could do that or somethinglike that.
But in truth, there's method tothe madness, if you will, and
there's conceptually an approachfor specific reasons.
And I'm curious how doessomebody not think, or how does
somebody who's an artistdetermine when something is done
(10:05):
, when you feel like you havereached a final product and
haven't made that mistake, ifyou will or haven't made an
error?
Peter (10:14):
Well, that's a really interesting question and I think
that it's one that I, if youwill or haven't made an error.
Well, that's a reallyinteresting question and I think
that it's one that I, in thepast, have sort of struggled to
kind of figure out myself.
I kind of found that I wasdeveloping a set of criteria for
determining when a painting wasfinished and when I felt like
something was successful.
And I think every artist reallyneeds to come up with that, and
(10:35):
they need to come up with theirown, and some of those can cross
over into what other people youknow tend to utilize and
measure as well.
But at the end of the day, Ithink we all kind of have come
up with our own set of criteriato kind of determine that.
And what's also reallyinteresting, I should add, is
that is that you know, I thinkit's probably a little heavy
handed to say, oh, a painting isnever finished, but there's a
(10:58):
little grain of truth in that,in the sense that I'll encounter
a piece that maybe I did 10years ago I haven't seen in 10
years and I'll look back andstill I'll have this urge to go
back in and fix something orchange something or alter
something, and I have to keepmyself from doing that if I have
the opportunity, because thesepaintings, after a certain point
(11:21):
, they need to have a life oftheir own.
Laura (11:22):
These pieces have to exist in the world and they mark
time in a way is really kind ofunique and interesting.
Peter (11:25):
You know, the work that I did 10, 15 years ago, 20 years
ago, is not like the work I donow and so and there's a and
there are good reasons for thatand that's a good thing.
They still can hold power, butthey're not.
They're not what I'm doing nownecessarily.
Laura (11:40):
And I yeah, sorry to interrupt, I'm just curious.
Can you share one example ofhow your work may have differed
from your earlier work.
Peter (11:49):
Sure, oh gosh, yeah, there's more color in it now
than there used to be.
I always kind of consideredmyself to be not officially a
tonal painter, because that is awhole category of approach to
painting.
As much as I was one.
I really grew into painting outof drawing, and I always saw
color by virtue of value, thedarks and the lights, how light
(12:10):
or dark a particular value was,and I sort of look at the world
with that kind of a measure.
And so my first love really wasdrawing, which is limiting,
really.
It's limiting color to just onemonochromatic statement and
variations of it lights anddarks.
And so my early work didn'tcontain quite as expansive of a
(12:32):
color palette as it does now.
I began to kind of deliberatelypush myself a few years ago to
start to expand my palette alittle bit, was finding that I
wasn't giving myself theopportunity to utilize some of
those tools, namely, you know,more, an expanded you know
series of colors that was thereand available to me, and so I
(12:52):
started taking advantage of thata little bit more.
And that's definitely one way.
Another way is my subjectmatter has changed.
You know, I make a bigdistinction between subject and
content in art of any kind,subject is what I'm focusing on,
what I'm using from the worldto create the work, what I'm
focusing on, the subject thatI'm kind of approaching.
(13:15):
Content is what ends up comingout as a statement about that
subject, and what it does.
And so my subjects.
When I first was in school, Iwas a complete abstract painter.
I was not what we callnon-representational.
It wasn't anything identifiablein my work that you could say,
oh, there's an apple, there's atree, there's a beach, there's a
(13:39):
cloud.
But that started to changeafter I got out of school and I
started working morerepresentationally.
So the subject shifted verymuch in that respect.
A few years ago I had beenworking very much in landscapes
I really look at myself as alandscape artist primarily and
had been working with land andsky breakups, with horizon lines
(13:59):
.
You know what you think aboutwhen you think of land.
And then at one point I kind oflooked up and started painting
clouds and started painting themin these frames and in these
paintings where there was noland, everything had fallen away
.
Laura (14:12):
And if you had?
Peter (14:13):
ever told me, prior to that, that I'd be painting
clouds, I would have told youyou were crazy, because I
thought, they're so romantic,they're so, they're so
emotionally driven.
People have such personalrelationships with them that
what can I possibly add to it?
They're too epic on their own,you know but, I, realized that
there was a lot in there that Icould use as an intro into the
work and that's with the cloudseries, kind of how I see it.
(14:35):
It's a very universally knownsubject.
We all look up into the sky andwe share this universal
experience of seeing clouds.
They're very, very familiar andI decided to use that form as
an entry into the work.
So, whereas the subject isclouds, to me the content is
much different than clouds, butI'm using clouds as kind of that
(14:55):
vehicle um so and, and as youmentioned in your intro, I work
with with trees as a subject, Iwork with water as a subject, um
and uh and other land forms, um, so it's all nature-based um.
But but again that that has haskind of shifted, uh, uh based,
or compared to what it was a fewyears ago.
Laura (15:16):
Yeah, and I'd like to go back to help some of our
entrepreneurs who might belistening on this call and
thinking about.
Two of the things that youmentioned in particular was the
marketing aspect, that the artworld is unique in that industry
and that marketing for artists.
(15:39):
There are so many differentavenues that could be taken and
I'm curious what would be someof the pitfalls that you would
encourage artists to avoid andwhat do you find works the best
for artists in general?
In reference to marketing.
(15:59):
Sorry.
Peter (16:01):
Those are really good questions.
In terms of pitfalls, I thinkyou know, like you mentioned,
there are lots and lots ofdifferent ways to market
yourself and there's certainlymore ways than ever existed when
I first started out.
You know, when I first startedout the internet was still
pretty young.
Not everybody had a website,all of that stuff was still a
little bit out of reach andthere was no social media
(16:22):
whatsoever.
And in you know, 20 short years, that all has has changed
pretty dramatically.
Um and so, you know, the one ofthe first places that I think
about when I think aboutmarketing is uh, particularly
for entrepreneurs, people whoare self-employed is is social
media.
Um, you know, social media arethese platforms which,
(16:42):
theoretically, are free to use.
There, you know, you're notcharged a fee to have an account
.
There are certainly ways thatyou can pay and ways that you
can sponsor posts and all kindsof things.
You can spend a lot of money ifyou want to, but they do exist
out there, and so they are areally good vehicle some more
than others, depending on theirformat and how they're
(17:04):
structured to be able to shareyour work and to be able to get
the word out that you exist.
As we all know, it's a supersaturated situation now.
There are lots and lots andlots of people who are promoting
themselves on social media, onevery platform that exists.
And so then the question becomeshow do you stand out, how do
you get more followers?
(17:24):
How do you get the attention?
And one of the pitfalls that Ithink that can occur with
artists is that they get drawndown into that rabbit hole so
much of trying to pursue as manyfollowers as they can get with
as many as many hits on theirposts as they can that it begins
to change how they are makingthe work that they make.
(17:45):
They start to perhaps changethe work's content, subject,
form, to appeal to what theyconsider larger audiences want,
even if it's not what they wantto do, and that can start to
make big changes in the workitself as well.
As you know, social media canbe great.
It can also be an incredibletime suck, and you know you can
(18:08):
spend all day posting and allday trying to figure out slick
Instagram reels to do and that's, you know, there's only so many
hours in the day that will takehours out of out of working,
and so I think that pursuit canget out of control for some
people really easily.
I try and limit how much I'mdoing on social media and I try
not to worry too much about theamount of followers that I have
(18:32):
or even the amount of likes orhits that I'm getting on any
given post.
I kind of think of it as a longgame that these are tools.
They are not the only toolsthat are out there, but they're
certainly tools and they'reavailable for me to use.
I limit my expectations as towhat they can do and I let the
(18:54):
thing grow as organically as Ican, and that takes time, but I
think that's a smarter way forme to be able to do it.
So I don't fall into that rabbithole and I don't finding that
this is literally all that I'mdoing.
And you know, and I think thatthat every week, every month,
every year, things change andthere are more and more
(19:14):
opportunities.
I think an artist needs to becareful about what those
opportunities really are versuswhat they're, not what they're
asking of you.
There are a lot of scams outthere that are directed
specifically towards artists tosteal their money.
I've been subject to a lot ofthem, and as have everybody that
(19:36):
I know, so that's a tough onetoo.
Laura (19:37):
Yeah, and I really appreciate what you're saying
because it's so true and I wantto offer I know you're giving a
talk in person, which isfabulous in Asheville Can you
let people know about that andhow they can reach you if they
want to contact you?
Peter (19:54):
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Thanks for asking.
So there's a gallery that's inmy building, a wonderful gallery
called Tiger Tiger Gallery.
If you haven't been there,we're a Riverview Station
building at 191 Lyman Street inAsheville, in the River Arts
District.
Mira Gerard is the owner of thegallery.
She's a wonderful woman, alsoan artist herself.
(20:14):
It's a beautiful space.
I've been showing with her forabout a year now and I'm really
enjoying the process, and I havework up there continually.
I have a room right now full ofmy work, which they were
gracious enough to hang all ofmy stuff exclusively in a room,
and we have an artist talkthat's scheduled for, I guess.
(20:35):
Let me look at my calendar.
I guess it's next Thursday.
Laura (20:38):
It's this Thursday.
Yep, it's this Thursday.
Peter (20:41):
It's not this Thursday, it's the 20th.
Laura (20:43):
Right, it's the 20th.
Right, it's this Thursday.
It's it's the 20th.
Right, it's the 20th great,it's this Thursday, because this
show is on Monday, right, sothis coming.
Peter (20:49):
Thursday, the 20th yeah and, uh, you can find Tiger
Tiger Gallery online, um, tigertiger gallerycom.
They also have a great presenceon Instagram, um, and you can
find me on Instagram as well.
Um, my handle is at Peter Rueart and my last name is spelled
R O U X.
I also cross post anything thatI post on Instagram onto
(21:12):
Facebook.
So I am there as well though Idon't spend as much time there
and then threads, and there's abrand new social media platform,
relatively new, called Kara C AR A, which is geared primarily
towards artists.
Jury's still out as to howthat's going to go, but I'm
there as well.
My handle in all of those is atPeterRueArt A-R-T.
And then my website isPeterRueArtistcom, so it's
(21:34):
A-R-T-I-S-Tcom.
I try and post primarily onInstagram.
Any new work goes on there.
Most of the work that's newgoes into my website as well.
Webs work goes on there.
Most of the work that's newgoes into my website as well.
Website is where you cancontact me.
Certainly, you can contact methrough Instagram in addition to
that, and there's a list of thegalleries that represent me on
my website as well, and history,et cetera.
Laura (21:58):
Fantastic.
Well, I really want to thankyou, peter.
This has been fantastic to getan opportunity to listen to you
and get your expertise, so Ireally appreciate you spending
time on the show.
Peter (22:09):
Well, I appreciate you asking and it was fun for me too
.
Laura (22:12):
Thank you so much, yeah yeah, and I want to thank you
for listening to the Mosaic Lifewith Laura W, and I want to
encourage you to go tobizradious and click on shows to
listen to other great hosts aswell.
I hope you all have a greatrest of your day, thank you.
Good morning.
I'm your host, lauraWagenknecht, ceo of Mosaic
Business Consulting, and you'relistening to the Mosaic Life
with Laura W.
Mosaic is a bunch of piecesthat, when put together, make up
the whole in a really beautifulway.
This show plans to discuss thevarious pieces of a business
throughout different industriesand how these pieces, when put
(00:28):
together, can help develop abetter, more efficient,
efficient and effective runningof your business.
To reach me, contact bizradious.
And our special guest today isnone other than the
internationally acclaimed PeterRue, who is a full-time artist
and teacher living in andworking in Asheville, north
(00:50):
Carolina.
Originally, he was from Bostonand he earned his BFA and MFA
from the Massachusetts Collegeof Art and Design and has a
studio in the River ArtsDistrict here in Asheville.
His artwork can be seen in manygalleries throughout the US and
internationally, and he has hadnumerous solo exhibitions all
(01:13):
over the world.
Peter works primarily in oils,but also creates drawings and
monotypes.
Using nature as a subject, heexplores not only natural forms,
but also how we experience theworld around us.
We are confronted by more imageson a daily basis than any other
(01:34):
time in history, and this isinvariably affected how we see
and experience the world, andPeter is interested in how the
language of imagery influenceshow we take in the natural world
.
And Peter is interested in howthe language of imagery
influences how we take in thenatural world.
He sees all images as windowswith predetermined edges, sizes
(01:54):
and layers of information, andrecently Peter has focused on
land, clouds, water and trees,often combining representational
approaches alongside elementsof abstraction, areas of marks
and flourishes.
That reminds the viewer thatthe pieces are not the things
(02:15):
they represent, but instead theresult of the experience of
seeing them.
And I can't wait to get intothat a bit more because I'm a
little bit trepidatious, if youwill, about abstraction.
So this is going to beinteresting.
Anyway, peter also tends towork with one-on-one with select
(02:38):
artists to help them strengthentheir work, develop gallery
relationships and navigate thechallenges of working as a
professional artist.
So welcome to the show, peter.
It is absolutely a pleasure tohave you.
Peter (02:51):
Well, thank you, Laura.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Thank you for asking me to dothis.
I'm excited.
Laura (02:55):
Yeah, yeah.
When I found out you're givinga talk on Wednesday, I thought
this is going to be fantastic.
Or Thursday sorry, coming up onthe 20th right.
Yes, thought this is going tobe fantastic.
Or Thursday, sorry, coming upon the 20th Right.
So, yeah, Well, so I'm curiouswhat got you interested in
becoming an artist?
Peter (03:13):
Well, you know it's.
It's one of those stories thatprobably is a little bit boring
to listen to and in the sensethat I I don't really remember
any time where I didn't want tobe an artist, I kind of my
earliest memories were always ofdrawing and of thinking about,
you know, when I got old enoughto sort of think about these
things what being an artistwould be like.
as an adult, I didn't reallyknow what form it would take.
(03:35):
I think for many years, as Iwas a child and as I was, you
know, growing into youngadulthood, I think that I was
kind of vacillating betweendifferent possibilities.
I think at one point I thoughtabout going into architecture,
but I realized that my interestin architecture was really less
about the buildings themselvesand more about the drawings that
one could make.
(03:55):
And so really it was alwayscreating visual imagery that was
really driving me.
And then, as I was in highschool, I was really fortunate
because I went to a school thathad a teacher, an art teacher,
who really took me under hiswing and guided me.
He was a working artist himselfand spent a good portion of my
(04:18):
senior year just doingindependent studies with him.
I had kind of gotten all of mycredits together to graduate
already and so that was really,um, pretty beneficial to me and
I think at that point I I thinkI had it in my head if I'm going
to try and make a living as anartist, I think I need to look
at commercial art of some kind,and so I started getting
interested in illustration.
Um and um, you know we'retalking about the early 80s.
(04:40):
I graduated from high school in1983.
Um, this was reallypre-internet and it was
pre-digital and so you know youcould still see lots of
illustrators work on the coversof magazines and inside them and
in books and things like that,and certainly that world has
changed pretty dramatically.
But I started at school as anundergraduate as an illustration
(05:04):
major and then quickly, throughsome feedback from some of my
instructors, actually saying,look, your work is very
painterly.
I think that you're you knowyou might be interested in
looking at the paintingdepartment.
Instead, I realized that that'sreally kind of where my heart
was, was was lying, and so I didmake the switch and ended up
graduating with a degree inpainting, never regretted it,
(05:26):
always thought it was the rightmove for me.
I think my interest began toreally expand into what it means
to make art, what it means tobe a person in the world who's
making art.
And I heard not too long ago adistinction.
Someone said something like theonly difference between an
artist and someone who is not anartist is that the artist makes
art, and that's really sort ofwhere it starts and stops.
(05:47):
And that's kind of meaningfulto me because I think that I
think that that's that reallykind of defines it.
I, you know, don't think that Icould exist very well and
successfully in the world if Iwasn't making art.
It's just sort of been kind ofbred into or I it, I it's so,
it's so deep into me now that Ican't really imagine not doing
(06:08):
it.
And I feel really lucky becauseI'm never.
I never feel like I'm at a at aloss for ideas.
Um, I, I might have theopposite problem sort of too
many ideas all at the same time.
But, um, but I I've never sortof at a loss for wanting to make
something else and it's thatprocess of making that I really
(06:28):
feel so comfortable in and sofulfilled in.
So that was really kind of myjourney and I never really
looked back.
I did, between undergraduate andgoing back to graduate school,
for about three or four years Iworked in the retail, the retail
coffee industry actually andfound very quickly that that
(06:48):
wasn't for me.
And so, going back to school andand and got a graduate degree
and and you know, I I did itprimarily because at the higher
ed level, um, an MFA in studioart is the terminal degree, so
you need to have that to be ableto be, to be to, to teach, if
that's the route you want toplay red, yeah, I never wanted
(07:11):
to do that full time.
I was always worried that if Idid that I'd kind of get lost
into it and, you know, findmyself not able to do my own
work as much.
But I thought, well, you knowto have it so that if I ever
needed to, if I ever foundmyself not able to make a living
and to support myself, makingwork that I'd have that to fall
back on, which you know, onpaper sounds great.
(07:34):
The reality is is that that'snot the easiest profession to be
able to kind of get into aswell.
So and I did teach.
I taught adjunct faculty at auniversity up in the Boston area
for a few years, admittedlytrying to teach as little as
possible because I really wantedto spend as much time in the
studio as I could.
And after a few years.
(07:55):
My studio practice got busyenough and successful enough
that I dropped the teaching and,as you mentioned in your intro,
I do work with selectedindividual artists.
Usually it's work critique asopposed to instructional
paintings.
Also, we talk a lot about insome cases, depending on what
(08:16):
their needs are, about galleryrepresentation, how to work with
galleries and navigate thatwhole area, as well as a little
bit about marketing and reallykind of ways to be able to kind
of structure a life as an artistprofessional artist, you know
full time, you know, as a goal.
(08:36):
There's a lot of pitfalls.
There's a lot of places thatthat are are sort of maybe less
familiar.
There are a lot of veryparticular, idiosyncratic,
idiosyncratic things about beingan artist, especially from the
from the professional side.
A lot of I learned on my own andI learned through a lot of
trial and error, heavy, heavy onthe air, and and took me.
(08:59):
You know, took me quite a while, but I've been doing this now
for a while.
I sort of stopped at one pointa couple of years ago and went
oh my gosh, I've been workingnow as as an artist
professionally for 20 years,which kind of crept up on me.
So I went into this situationwhere I was suddenly I don't
know, I guess a veteran didn'teven realize it.
Laura (09:20):
But you know, you bring something up, peter, which I
think is really important isthat you know all of us
entrepreneurs struggle withmaking errors, right?
Nobody likes to make mistakes.
And yet you're in an industrythat you know people might see
abstracts, abstracts on a walland and think, ok, my five year
(09:43):
old could do that or somethinglike that.
But in truth, there's method tothe madness, if you will, and
there's conceptually an approachfor specific reasons.
And I'm curious how doessomebody not think, or how does
somebody who's an artistdetermine when something is done
(10:05):
, when you feel like you havereached a final product and
haven't made that mistake, ifyou will or haven't made an
error?
Peter (10:14):
Well, that's a really interesting question and I think
that it's one that I, if youwill or haven't made an error.
Well, that's a reallyinteresting question and I think
that it's one that I, in thepast, have sort of struggled to
kind of figure out myself.
I kind of found that I wasdeveloping a set of criteria for
determining when a painting wasfinished and when I felt like
something was successful.
And I think every artist reallyneeds to come up with that, and
(10:35):
they need to come up with theirown, and some of those can cross
over into what other people youknow tend to utilize and
measure as well.
But at the end of the day, Ithink we all kind of have come
up with our own set of criteriato kind of determine that.
And what's also reallyinteresting, I should add, is
that is that you know, I thinkit's probably a little heavy
handed to say, oh, a painting isnever finished, but there's a
(10:58):
little grain of truth in that,in the sense that I'll encounter
a piece that maybe I did 10years ago I haven't seen in 10
years and I'll look back andstill I'll have this urge to go
back in and fix something orchange something or alter
something, and I have to keepmyself from doing that if I have
the opportunity, because thesepaintings, after a certain point
(11:21):
, they need to have a life oftheir own.
Laura (11:22):
These pieces have to exist in the world and they mark
time in a way is really kind ofunique and interesting.
Peter (11:25):
You know, the work that I did 10, 15 years ago, 20 years
ago, is not like the work I donow and so and there's a and
there are good reasons for thatand that's a good thing.
They still can hold power, butthey're not.
They're not what I'm doing nownecessarily.
Laura (11:40):
And I yeah, sorry to interrupt, I'm just curious.
Can you share one example ofhow your work may have differed
from your earlier work.
Peter (11:49):
Sure, oh gosh, yeah, there's more color in it now
than there used to be.
I always kind of consideredmyself to be not officially a
tonal painter, because that is awhole category of approach to
painting.
As much as I was one.
I really grew into painting outof drawing, and I always saw
color by virtue of value, thedarks and the lights, how light
(12:10):
or dark a particular value was,and I sort of look at the world
with that kind of a measure.
And so my first love really wasdrawing, which is limiting,
really.
It's limiting color to just onemonochromatic statement and
variations of it lights anddarks.
And so my early work didn'tcontain quite as expansive of a
(12:32):
color palette as it does now.
I began to kind of deliberatelypush myself a few years ago to
start to expand my palette alittle bit, was finding that I
wasn't giving myself theopportunity to utilize some of
those tools, namely, you know,more, an expanded you know
series of colors that was thereand available to me, and so I
(12:52):
started taking advantage of thata little bit more.
And that's definitely one way.
Another way is my subjectmatter has changed.
You know, I make a bigdistinction between subject and
content in art of any kind,subject is what I'm focusing on,
what I'm using from the worldto create the work, what I'm
focusing on, the subject thatI'm kind of approaching.
(13:15):
Content is what ends up comingout as a statement about that
subject, and what it does.
And so my subjects.
When I first was in school, Iwas a complete abstract painter.
I was not what we callnon-representational.
It wasn't anything identifiablein my work that you could say,
oh, there's an apple, there's atree, there's a beach, there's a
(13:39):
cloud.
But that started to changeafter I got out of school and I
started working morerepresentationally.
So the subject shifted verymuch in that respect.
A few years ago I had beenworking very much in landscapes
I really look at myself as alandscape artist primarily and
had been working with land andsky breakups, with horizon lines
(13:59):
.
You know what you think aboutwhen you think of land.
And then at one point I kind oflooked up and started painting
clouds and started painting themin these frames and in these
paintings where there was noland, everything had fallen away
.
Laura (14:12):
And if you had?
Peter (14:13):
ever told me, prior to that, that I'd be painting
clouds, I would have told youyou were crazy, because I
thought, they're so romantic,they're so, they're so
emotionally driven.
People have such personalrelationships with them that
what can I possibly add to it?
They're too epic on their own,you know but, I, realized that
there was a lot in there that Icould use as an intro into the
work and that's with the cloudseries, kind of how I see it.
(14:35):
It's a very universally knownsubject.
We all look up into the sky andwe share this universal
experience of seeing clouds.
They're very, very familiar andI decided to use that form as
an entry into the work.
So, whereas the subject isclouds, to me the content is
much different than clouds, butI'm using clouds as kind of that
(14:55):
vehicle um so and, and as youmentioned in your intro, I work
with with trees as a subject, Iwork with water as a subject, um
and uh and other land forms, um, so it's all nature-based um.
But but again that that has haskind of shifted, uh, uh based,
or compared to what it was a fewyears ago.
Laura (15:16):
Yeah, and I'd like to go back to help some of our
entrepreneurs who might belistening on this call and
thinking about.
Two of the things that youmentioned in particular was the
marketing aspect, that the artworld is unique in that industry
and that marketing for artists.
(15:39):
There are so many differentavenues that could be taken and
I'm curious what would be someof the pitfalls that you would
encourage artists to avoid andwhat do you find works the best
for artists in general?
In reference to marketing.
(15:59):
Sorry.
Peter (16:01):
Those are really good questions.
In terms of pitfalls, I thinkyou know, like you mentioned,
there are lots and lots ofdifferent ways to market
yourself and there's certainlymore ways than ever existed when
I first started out.
You know, when I first startedout the internet was still
pretty young.
Not everybody had a website,all of that stuff was still a
little bit out of reach andthere was no social media
(16:22):
whatsoever.
And in you know, 20 short years, that all has has changed
pretty dramatically.
Um and so, you know, the one ofthe first places that I think
about when I think aboutmarketing is uh, particularly
for entrepreneurs, people whoare self-employed is is social
media.
Um, you know, social media arethese platforms which,
(16:42):
theoretically, are free to use.
There, you know, you're notcharged a fee to have an account
.
There are certainly ways thatyou can pay and ways that you
can sponsor posts and all kindsof things.
You can spend a lot of money ifyou want to, but they do exist
out there, and so they are areally good vehicle some more
than others, depending on theirformat and how they're
(17:04):
structured to be able to shareyour work and to be able to get
the word out that you exist.
As we all know, it's a supersaturated situation now.
There are lots and lots andlots of people who are promoting
themselves on social media, onevery platform that exists.
And so then the question becomeshow do you stand out, how do
you get more followers?
(17:24):
How do you get the attention?
And one of the pitfalls that Ithink that can occur with
artists is that they get drawndown into that rabbit hole so
much of trying to pursue as manyfollowers as they can get with
as many as many hits on theirposts as they can that it begins
to change how they are makingthe work that they make.
(17:45):
They start to perhaps changethe work's content, subject,
form, to appeal to what theyconsider larger audiences want,
even if it's not what they wantto do, and that can start to
make big changes in the workitself as well.
As you know, social media canbe great.
It can also be an incredibletime suck, and you know you can
(18:08):
spend all day posting and allday trying to figure out slick
Instagram reels to do and that's, you know, there's only so many
hours in the day that will takehours out of out of working,
and so I think that pursuit canget out of control for some
people really easily.
I try and limit how much I'mdoing on social media and I try
not to worry too much about theamount of followers that I have
(18:32):
or even the amount of likes orhits that I'm getting on any
given post.
I kind of think of it as a longgame that these are tools.
They are not the only toolsthat are out there, but they're
certainly tools and they'reavailable for me to use.
I limit my expectations as towhat they can do and I let the
(18:54):
thing grow as organically as Ican, and that takes time, but I
think that's a smarter way forme to be able to do it.
So I don't fall into that rabbithole and I don't finding that
this is literally all that I'mdoing.
And you know, and I think thatthat every week, every month,
every year, things change andthere are more and more
(19:14):
opportunities.
I think an artist needs to becareful about what those
opportunities really are versuswhat they're, not what they're
asking of you.
There are a lot of scams outthere that are directed
specifically towards artists tosteal their money.
I've been subject to a lot ofthem, and as have everybody that
(19:36):
I know, so that's a tough onetoo.
Laura (19:37):
Yeah, and I really appreciate what you're saying
because it's so true and I wantto offer I know you're giving a
talk in person, which isfabulous in Asheville Can you
let people know about that andhow they can reach you if they
want to contact you?
Peter (19:54):
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Thanks for asking.
So there's a gallery that's inmy building, a wonderful gallery
called Tiger Tiger Gallery.
If you haven't been there,we're a Riverview Station
building at 191 Lyman Street inAsheville, in the River Arts
District.
Mira Gerard is the owner of thegallery.
She's a wonderful woman, alsoan artist herself.
(20:14):
It's a beautiful space.
I've been showing with her forabout a year now and I'm really
enjoying the process, and I havework up there continually.
I have a room right now full ofmy work, which they were
gracious enough to hang all ofmy stuff exclusively in a room,
and we have an artist talkthat's scheduled for, I guess.
(20:35):
Let me look at my calendar.
I guess it's next Thursday.
Laura (20:38):
It's this Thursday.
Yep, it's this Thursday.
Peter (20:41):
It's not this Thursday, it's the 20th.
Laura (20:43):
Right, it's the 20th.
Right, it's this Thursday.
It's it's the 20th.
Right, it's the 20th great,it's this Thursday, because this
show is on Monday, right, sothis coming.
Peter (20:49):
Thursday, the 20th yeah and, uh, you can find Tiger
Tiger Gallery online, um, tigertiger gallerycom.
They also have a great presenceon Instagram, um, and you can
find me on Instagram as well.
Um, my handle is at Peter Rueart and my last name is spelled
R O U X.
I also cross post anything thatI post on Instagram onto
(21:12):
Facebook.
So I am there as well though Idon't spend as much time there
and then threads, and there's abrand new social media platform,
relatively new, called Kara C AR A, which is geared primarily
towards artists.
Jury's still out as to howthat's going to go, but I'm
there as well.
My handle in all of those is atPeterRueArt A-R-T.
And then my website isPeterRueArtistcom, so it's
(21:34):
A-R-T-I-S-Tcom.
I try and post primarily onInstagram.
Any new work goes on there.
Most of the work that's newgoes into my website as well.
Webs work goes on there.
Most of the work that's newgoes into my website as well.
Website is where you cancontact me.
Certainly, you can contact methrough Instagram in addition to
that, and there's a list of thegalleries that represent me on
my website as well, and history,et cetera.
Laura (21:58):
Fantastic.
Well, I really want to thankyou, peter.
This has been fantastic to getan opportunity to listen to you
and get your expertise, so Ireally appreciate you spending
time on the show.
Peter (22:09):
Well, I appreciate you asking and it was fun for me too
.
Laura (22:12):
Thank you so much, yeah yeah, and I want to thank you
for listening to the Mosaic Lifewith Laura W, and I want to
encourage you to go tobizradious and click on shows to
listen to other great hosts aswell.
I hope you all have a greatrest of your day, thank you.
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