A Interesting Conversation with Peter Bartczak

Courtsey of artist

Peter Bartczak is an American visual artist and muralist who has been creating beautiful airbrushed murals and illustrations satisfying clients since 1976. Disney, Universal Studio Tours, Dell Publishing, and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Peter attended Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts. Peter stated, “ That Art is elevated fun that brings wisdom. Art renews our sense of wonder and curiosity and reconnects us to our humanity. My job as an artist is to be faithful to my vision and to learn the tools and the disciplines necessary to manifest that vision as powerfully and as clearly as possible into an object that can be viewed by others. Each painting is a new beginning into uncharted territories (where most creative spirits find their inspiration). Both the artist and the viewer return, changed forever, by the many unexpected rewards of taking that leap of faith.” Peter developed techniques that allowed him to airbrush highly detailed, realistic images on a large scale on any surface, even heavy texture and cinder block.

Working with the Honor Society at Cupertino High School in 1991, Peter created a 32’x8’ mural depicting the school’s heroes. Peter won a competition sponsored by the Santa Cruz Art Commission in 1993 to paint a 60’x15’ iconic mural downtown. Buck Owens Productions hired yours truly in 1996 to design and produce a 35’x15’ mural depicting Buck’s life story. In 2003, Peter created a 55’x12’ panoramic mural of historic Santa Cruz buildings with the redevelopment agency and the City of Santa Cruz Art Commission. He executed over eight large murals for three Ashley Furniture Homestores and, in 2007, collaborated with Victoria Sulski on a 44’x16’ mural in the Morgan Hill library and an 18’x10’ mural for the Santa Claritas Walk of the Stars. He also taught a mural workshop together at Cabrillo College that same year. Peter has been featured on T.V. and radio, and featured in the New York Times, the Santa Cruz Good Times, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the Paradise Post, the Chico News and Review, the Chico Enterprise Record, and the L.A. Times, as well as being published in various books and magazines. He has won several awards from Airbrush Action Magazine for his artwork.

I had the pleasure of asking Peter what he has not done artistically, what he wants to do, what was the best advice he has gotten as an artist, and much more.

UZOMAH: How do you prepare an idea for a mural?

PETER: I sit back and daydream, loosely adhering to a rough outline of intent. What do I want to say or show? Sometimes a trigger in the outside world will make me ponder a random curious aspect of being alive. Lateral (associative), rather than linear (rational) thinking, produces more poetic associations. Holographic thinking produces transformative results. The goal is to break the bonds of logic to induce a type of dream logic consciousness that allows access to rich, imaginative sources. In my younger years, I didn’t dare try to create an image from scratch – I hoped inspiration would drop one in my lap. That’s happened once in fifty years. Now, I set out with specific outcomes in mind. It may change during the creative process once the project has a life of its own, but I pretty much know what I want.

I ponder the indifference of angels – their long lives make them seem callous and indifferent to our trials and travails. It’s not that they’re evil or arrogant; their epic frame of reference erases their humanity. I reluctantly forgive them for their inability to feel.

The painting was inspired by a ledge at the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco. The lighting and the sense of place of this cement construct seemed to want something more to complete. I took a picture of it and wondered for several weeks what it needed. The lofty heights of the building reminded me of a modern version of Mount Olympus, where the Greek gods lived, so I decided an angel of death/mercy be appropriate. She is contemplating her next move, if any, concerning the events down below.

U: How do you use art to invoke inspiration and create a connection between not just the artist and the audience but the audience with other members of the audience?

P:   I inspire through taking experiences and feelings that everyone shares but thinks they alone experience and making images to celebrate these emotions so that each person can own them in a positive way. Murals, because of their public nature, insinuate themselves into the community’s day-to-day life. It can be an affirmative, constant background energy surge that maybe lifts someone’s spirits a little bit each day, which may make that person more open than they would be if they were in a foul mood.

Morning Devil • 40”x30” • acrylics on illustration board • $5,500.00

I had a dream when I was five or six, and it took more than 40 years to put brush to canvas. In the dream, I had just woken up and walked over to my second-story bedroom window. Parting the curtains revealed the normal boring suburbs I grew up in, except that all these leering devil heads were popping up from the ground in everyone’s backyard. I believe the nightmare was the concept of evil entering my naïve mind for the first time. Some people dream of a poisonous or radioactive mist creeping into the house– one man talked of an evil octopus on top of a skyscraper sending out signals to take over his mind. In our psychological/emotional development, this is an important first step in curdling our innocence.

U: Is there anything regarding art you have not yet done and want to?

P:  I still want to make a feature-length science fiction movie.

U: While at Pratt, you experimented with various types of art; however, what led you to the fine arts? 

P:  I changed majors many times because I had access to every media at Pratt and the tools and the equipment to create pottery, metal sculpture, oil and acrylic paintings, printing, intaglio, silkscreen, and motion pictures –I wanted to take advantage of this golden opportunity. Fine Arts were one of many choices. It was a playpen for artists in training.

Crucifixion.com • 22.5”x29.75” • acrylics on wood panel • $5,000.00

I believe that the new pornography pushed by the media is having undeserved access to a stranger’s most personal moment. The newscaster asking the recent widow how it felt seeing her husband’s brains exploded – turning someone’s anguish entertainment. These people, in their pursuit of news, have no mercy or compassion. And the audience that laps it up is just as bad.

U: Why art? Why now?

P: Art is not just what I do; it is who I am. The bug bit me hard – I never would have chosen this career – it’s too hard. It has been the main focus of my life for fifty years (to the dismay of my parents and a few girlfriends) and remains a very gratifying and fascinating spirit/energy/friend/haven/inspiration/religion/addiction

U: What is the best saying or advice you have been given about being or becoming an artist?

 P: Don’t be an artist unless you have to.

U: What does being an artist mean to you?

 P:  Being an artist gives me an incredible opportunity to affect the world in a positive way that is also very personal and meaningful to me, even if the world doesn’t respond. Being creative is an elevated form of play, especially when one has the ability, imagination, and confidence to make something that has never existed before.

Please visit Peter’s site for more information about his artwork.