Volume 4, Issue 10
May 16 - May 29, 2002
By Mindy Jamiel
Cover Photo: Jolene Anderson by Richard Peterson
For a guy who sees a lot of boobies, photographer Richard Peterson is perfectly well mannered. He is nonchalant, even about the long, varied career that has put him in contact with icons like Allen Ginsberg and Iggy Pop. I mean, how can you be calm when you're one degree of separation away from the Sex Pistols? But soft-spoken Peterson recalls his days as a punk scene photographer with quiet reverence. His current passion is nude portraiture, which he whispers about in spiritual terms--that's where the boobies come in.
Though Peterson makes money shooting editorials and advertisements these days, the artistic aspect of his work finds expression in the studio above his garage, where he takes pictures of naked women. But the women aren't sprawled on silk sheets with their thumbs in their mouths. The postures of most of his nudes appear to be shying away from the camera, unwilling to entirely yield their secrets. In women, Peterson envisions nature's mystique--the slow, curious raveling of the earthly unknown. In his photos, he tries to demonstrate his sense of supernatural enchantment, but he does not try to unwrap the charming package, nor decipher the enigma. The women's faces and bodies are often partly obscured by shadow or drapery, reserving for the spotlight fragile curves of soft, smooth skin. The pictures are tasteful enough to frame in the hallways of his home.
Peterson describes his nudes as emotive works that portray the feelings of his subjects and his perceptions of them. He often uses the term "magical" to describe women and their appeal, which will sound either flattering or ridiculous to women--the latter if they have a sense of humor. What exactly is magical about women? Peterson says, "It's hard to explain." When he describes his nudes as "passages to death," the confusion increases. Is he describing women in terms of the earthly cycle of birth, death, and rebirth or has he been severely abused in the psyche by his mother? "It's hard to explain," he insists. He often refers to a quality that "has no name in any language," that cannot, therefore, be given vocal expression. Fair enough, but from his faltering words, one gets the impression that Peterson may simply be confounded by chicks in general, like many men are. However, from his photos, it seems that Peterson retains a boyish fascination with women's physical and emotional machinations.
In fact, fascination with his subjects drives much of Peterson's work, nude or swaddled. Despite his 51 years of experience with the famous and infamous, Peterson is still captivated by people, and is genuinely curious about them; a nice quality for a guy who has to photograph the creatures for a living. One of his more compelling subjects is a heroin-addicted false beard merchant from Tijuana who stares vacantly, away from the lens, his pores huge and skin tangibly clammy, even on paper. This print illustrates one of the best qualities in Peterson's photography: he captures his subjects' faces in brief moments of self-reflection, so that when you see their crisp images, you imagine you know exactly what they're thinking.
Peterson says that his favorite subjects are those who "think differently," who are creative and courageous. He appreciates subjects who don't let themselves "become a commodity" by succumbing to the trendiest influences. Such subjects presumably prevent Peterson's work from becoming commercial products, though he views such work as a necessary evil for the sake of creating what he calls "pure art."
Trendy influences are anathema to Peterson's work, over which he brandishes the credo "abandon clichés." Wasn't that a Benetton slogan? Well, according to Peterson, it means not doing "what's become acceptable and (what) people want to see...because it's the 'right' way to do things. Even if you can push it just a little bit beyond those boundaries, it makes it more interesting. Why do you want to see something that's already been done?"
Peterson keeps the flava real by experimenting with digital effects and surrealist subject matter. So what is surrealist photography? How do you get the clocks to drape over the emaciated horse long enough to take the picture? Peterson says, "The dictionary definition of surrealism is pure psychic automatism. It means you're on automatic pilot and you're just letting things flow through you." He refers to a photo of a woman's lap. Her hands are resting just above the lace hem of her dress. Your eye follows the hem to her knees to her dress shoes to the floor. Her head must have hovered just past the frame, but you picture her sitting daintily in the midst of a party, and you feel as though you'd glanced at her lap as you passed by, perhaps on your way to the bar. Maybe your head was heavy with booze and you wanted to see her face but your neck wouldn't cooperate. The photo of the woman's lap is a moment in time, a glimpse of a passing awareness. Peterson's surrealism is approachable, intimate. His photos steer clear of the more fantastic, bizarre works of artists like Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Man Ray, although Peterson says his work has earned comparisons to the iconic Man Ray in terms of his experimental style.
Peterson's very home is a gallery of surrealist artwork and a whimsical collection of curiosities. His imposing bed, guarded by a headboard of jutting spikes, looks as if you could be impaled upon it. A solemn statue of a saint wearing several Mardi Gras necklaces of plastic frogs and beads protects the house, Peterson says, from the recent fire danger. The vermilion walls are bedecked with artwork and photographs by Peterson, his wife, and their friends.
Peterson has worked as a photographer since the early seventies, when he was the staff photographer for San Francisco punk scene mag Search and Destroy . Between snapping shots of his ex-girlfriend's bare body, he exposed to the flashbulb rising ragamuffin stars like the then-nubile Debbie Harry. He affectionately recalls the old days. "Life's been kind of drab since. I was going to punk clubs every night. I was hanging out in San Francisco, so everyone was kind of a deranged beatnik artist, poet, creative . . . that whole period just brought so much intensity out of everybody. It's indescribable."
Peterson could learn you a thing or two about the ideas and people who drove the political and artistic uprisings of the late sixties and early seventies. His personal collection of work is an homage to that "rebellion against complacency . . . and boredom . . . " His photos document the freaky beatnik scene in San Francisco that rumbled into the unruly punk era. He's got photos of the guy who inspired Malcolm McLaren to create the Sex Pistols. He's an anthology of underground culture history. He was in the nucleus of a movement that was "raw and original and vital," snapping pictures and recording on film the swell of anti-pop.
He describes his role in photography as a documenter of a scene or a time period, much as a writer chronicles his world. In fact, Peterson considered himself a writer before he ever took up the camera for Search and Destroy . In the early days, the self-described rebel artist wrote political satire for subversive anti-government magazines. Before he went to college for photojournalism, he edited his high school newspaper. "I picked up photography so I could illustrate my articles," he says. "Over the years, photography came to dominate." When he got to Search and Destroy , a publication founded and somewhat overwhelmed by writers and poets, there was a deficiency of photogs and Peterson was offered a place behind the lens.
After all this time, photography continues to intrigue Peterson, who challenges himself to create work that is wholly original. So how does Peterson plan to shake up the established art world next? "I don't plan," he confirms, "because planning is what makes you do things you already do." That's the problem with art directors for commercial work, he says, who rob art of creativity by over planning. "They always give you the most rigid (instructions) you can imagine and you hardly have any room to deviate at all and (the photos) come out so stiff and so stupid looking."
Peterson gets creative in collaboration with his wife, Sydney, whose colorful and eclectic frames display his photos. One of her borders marches a procession of classically attired fops and countesses, their necks sprouting flowers rather than heads, around a black and white photo. In one frame, a strip of rust-colored upholstery embroidered with owls contrasts with a scrap of skull-themed tapestry. A meticulously jeweled mosaic frame awaits a photo on a workbench in the garage. Peterson does much of his work out of that garage, over which he's built a two-room studio that houses his vast archive of work, collected since he was only 12 years old.
When the contemporary, polished look of his studio fails to provide the proper sense of earthy mystery, Peterson uses for a backdrop a stone cottage, built directly into the slope of the mountaintop, only inches from his own house in Evergreen. In 1926, a miner built the house single-handedly. The lore, as Peterson tells it, is that the miner, who drove a Model T in reverse until it collapsed, had a creative streak that appears in the structure of the house itself. The miner built quirky, asymmetrical windows into his cabinets and painted the stone floors in abstract designs. He used the defunct parts from his Model T to build his fireplace. He crafted a stone table by blasting away a huge chunk of rock from his kitchen wall and grinding the top into a smooth, ebony plane. The mountaintop where Peterson resides must bear some divine attraction for artists. The landscape about his home certainly appeals to the eye and Peterson moves between the modern studio, the rustic cabin, and the lush landscape to frame his subjects. He says, "I try to get people to come up here. Then I (get) a combination of a studio-type atmosphere and outdoor things."
While he seems to have finally found his niche in Colorado, the art scene wasn't welcoming at first. When Peterson moved from California to shoot advertisements for Printemps department store, which has since closed, the Denver reception was cold. "I had a pretty good reputation (in California), so I came here with all this press and it seemed to be very competitive and people tried to push me away in the art circles here, like they didn't want this outsider coming in digging into their scene." But Peterson wasn't daunted. He understood that his status in California was a result of his work running a gallery showing underground art and of his high profile history in the San Francisco art community since the Search and Destroy days. So he dug his heels in and admits, "It's gotten better (than when) we first came here. But it just felt like (Colorado artists had) established their circles and they didn't want anything to disrupt what they had going." He adds in his detached manner, "I think those social circles form everywhere. It's just part of life, I guess."
After breaking into the Colorado scene, Richard Peterson continues in his quiet way to break the rules of art and photography. You can see his work in July at the Funky Buddha at 776 Lincoln in downtown Denver.
All Rights Reserved © 2002 Go Go Media, LLC, Denver, Colorado