Interviewer: Heather Velez

Interviewee: Pete Cardoso

00:00 HV: This is Heather Velez interviewing Pete Cardoso. So, let's begin with the beginning. Why don't you talk about your childhood, where you came from, all that jazz?

00:21 PC: I grew up here in Providence, Rhode Island. Started, went to school here, went to college here, went to high school here. Did the whole nine yards, so I'm very familiar with the whole area and the whole neighborhood, the culture and the things that were going on fairly early, from art and the music. I've been doing art since I could hold a crayon. I knew I was going to go in some direction, I didn't know until years later that it was going to be in design specifically, with music and that whole culture. But I knew pretty early on that that was what I was going to do.

01:00 HV: Did you parents support you?

01:02 PC: They did. They didn't quite understand in the beginning. They thought, oh it's the art thing, he'll get over that. But once I got older, older, and I'm really going to do it, they were like, oh, ok. Are you gonna make a living? That was interesting. As time went on, when they started actually seeing things published or talked about then they kind of understood a little bit more, and were a little more supportive. They were never unsupportive in the way of saying; go be a lawyer or a doctor. They knew that's what I did, ever since I was a kid, so they were pretty supportive.

01:42 HV: Did you start doing graphics in high school or was that not until college?

01:50. PC: A little bit in high school. I knew then that I was more interested in the way things like typography worked and the sociology behind like graphic stuff; not so much the fine arts. In high school I did a lot of it. I did a lot of painting, photography, and different stuff. It was more once I got into college that I realized I wanted to do more graphic stuff. I really like the printed material, and the printed page, and things like that, more so than sitting in a studio and slaving over a painting for months and months, there's nothing wrong with that but I like the instant gratification of doing print and working with other people on concepts and their ideas, and spring-boarding from that, and seeing what would happen from there.

02:43 HV: Where did you go to college?

02:46 PC: I started at the Community College of Rhode Island and then from there I went into RISD's CE (continuing education) program. I finished that a few years ago, which was great, I had a lot of really great professors and it was a really good experience. That gave me the foundation, a lot of technical foundation I didn't necessarily have in the beginning. I got a lot out of it. RISD was great.

03:14 HV: You lived in Providence all of your life, basically?

03:20 . PC: Yup. I traveled outside a lot, especially with certain musicians and bands I worked with, I'd actually go on tour. I got to see pretty much the whole country. I've been to other parts, like Italy, too, which was a great experience. I've had work in other countries but I haven't been there yet. Yea, but, every state except Hawaii, so far, and Alaska. I got to visit everything else.

03:50 HV: When did you decide to start focusing only, or more specifically, on posters and poster design?

03:59 PC: Well, I really had a fascination with music early on. I had a lot of mends that played but I didn't play an instrument. I was always the sort of guy that was doodling all the time. I tried to figure out the medium. I was always attracted early on to my parent's old record covers and stuff like that. Then as time went on, there was a need. I had friends that were playing, various bands or solo, and they needed to advertise. They were doing these really bad ad little flyers, so they were like, you design! Can't you do something? It started from there, doing really simple black and white and it grew out of that. A lot of certain people stay together and started opening for other larger acts and those larger acts saw those flyers and gave me work. A lot of it was just word of mouth, it carried along. It went from, it was many many years that I was just constantly doing it in Providence and then it expanded out of that when certain acts became larger and larger, and carried my work with them. It was great, it's an opportunity.

05:25 HV: Do you have, were there like any influences that impacted your art or were formative in your style, musically or artistically?

05:39 PC: Definitely, artistically early on... when I was young, Shepherd Ferry was still in Providence. He does all the Old Big Giant stuff; which is now hugely successful and his design company outside of that is really successful. When he was still in RISD, he was a senior and I was still a kid in high school, he was a really cool guy, in terms ofletting me come by his studio and visit, and skateboard, and do stuff like that. I was really inspired by his street art and graffiti art. I always saw the urban stuff around, spray painted and stuff like that. But it wasn't anything that I necessarily did and until I met him and saw how he, his version of street art was, which was basically doing posters and flyers, and through Xerox machines and pasting them up. It was just an extension of street art that I didn't even know really existed. I thought it would be spray painting and doing stuff like that. That really had a huge effect. A lot of the early metal stuff I loved when I was a kid, like Iron Maiden covers and Black Sabbath.,.things like that were totally inspirational. I would just sit there for hours and try to copy that stuff. Old comics and a lot of pop culture stuff. I grew up in a neighborhood where there wasn't a lot of kids so; my best mend was just sort of- MTV, television. I was on my own a lot and I was totally affected by pop culture. It totally affected my work. Early on, I look back on it now, and I didn't think about it at the time but it was like, wow I'm doing all these weird graphics related to old Madonna records or Thriller, Michael Jackson. It just carried over later on subconsciously. . .

07:39 PC: ...it was weird. It grew from that and as time went on I started doing flyers and posters for local clubs. Being out of high school, in college, and didn't have a lot of money so at the time if you went to certain clubs if you passed out flyers you could go into a show for free. I did that for about two days and I hated it, and I was like hey, let me try designing some stuff if you guys will give me a shot. And some of those early places did like Club Babyhead, I don't know if you were around when that place was still around. But...

08:13 HV: But it closed in 2000...

08:14 PC: Exactly. They were the first ones to give me a shot. Then I went on to doing stuff with the Strand, when it was still the Strand and then later on, Lupo's. They gave me a shot doing a lot of the black and white flyer work. From there I met Jim Draper, I don't know if you've heard of his stuff, and he was doing all these screen-printed things. I thought it was amazing and he had these gallery shows really early on that were really underground. Nobody except his mends or people in the know knew about these shows. They'd be in his little studio. At the time, emerging screen-printing artists like Frank Kosic and Derek Cassin and people like this, he would have their work up. Being a kid I would go to these shows and it was like mind-blowing. A lot of the people there were older, this hip crowd, and I walk in and there are a few other kids and we were just really interested in the art. He was a great guy, sort of took us under his wing and explained what was going on. That whole look was what attracted to doing screen printed stuff. Up until that point it was just black and white. Seeing these colors and things pop off the wall- when I thought posters I thought of those normal things that you just buy at the mall or any store. It was this muted, printed off colors and these things were just, you could smell the ink, you could see it on the paper, you could feel it. That was a huge inspiration and turning point. From there I kind of learned how to do it on my own.

09:57 HV: You started with just ink, ink and paper and then?

10:02 PC: I started going into AS220, which is sort of an arts thing downtown, it's a community-based thing. There was a guy that was printing in there, his name was Mark Pedini, and he's a successful poster artist now but at the time he was living there and he was printing a lot of art for his band, the Eyesores, and a lot of the events related to AS220. He was printing these things and he had a little studio and he posted there's a class, you can come and learn how to do this if you want. And I ended up being the only one that ever went to the class, nobody else went! He took me under his wing and taught me a lot. Before then I was doing it at home in my basement and just half-ass and really I didn't know anything about it except what I was reading in a book. But to see somebody show me, hands-on, it was great. At that time it was him and all the Fort Thunder stuff; and those were the only two that were doing the whole screen-printed poster thing. Stuff was all over town. These are great, who's doing these? By meeting him I was introduced to that whole scene and I started doing stuff from there. Eventually, Mark got married and moved to Texas and I took over the shop there and started doing what he did, teaching other people. Everyone from kids out of high school to students at RISD to adults that were just interested in it because as time went on and the popularity of things like Fort Thunder got bigger and bigger people wanted to know how this medium was done. When Mark started there would be like two people in the class and by the time I took over it would be packed. There would be any where between 10 to 25 people sometimes. It started a boom of poster art allover the place. All of a sudden everybody starts screen-printing! It was born. . .

12:02 PC: .. . from myself, teaching people, but before me it came from Mark and a lot of the Fort Thunder stuff.

12:12 HV: Do you know what year you started at AS220? And are you still doing it or did you stop?

12:18 PC: I was probably, I would sayabout'96, '97. I still go in there every once and a while. I had my studio in there for a long time but then just about a year and a half ago they started restructuring the whole building and moving studio, so the print studio is currently shutdown but they hope to eventually open it up again, really soon when they get the new building set up and the new rooms. They had to change the plumbing and all that kind of stuff. The way we taught it was really hands-on and the kind of ink we used, and paper, was all water soluble. It was really environmentally friendly. You didn't need any harsh chemicals to do this, water was the clean up. You could go in and print your own t-shirts, print your own posters, basically anything that was porous people were printing on. They were making curtains, blankets, shirts, sweaters, everything. It was really cool to see what other people with other ideas and concepts would come in and do things I never would have even thought of. Everybody starting affecting everybody else's work and bouncing ideas off each other. It was a really good thing for a really long time. But eventually things die out or they slow down or they grow into something else. That's what ended up happening.

13:45 HV: Were what was the demographic of the people that were going to these workshops?

13:52 PC: Oh, it was great. That was the best part because we would have punk rock kids coming in with their mohawks and tattoos and then like a grandma coming in at the same time wanting to print Christmas cards for her grandkids. Everybody would get along because they loved art one way or another and they loved the medium. It would be great. I have great photos of these old women printing right next to punk bands. It was great. It was the whole gamut, all sorts of people and ages. It was just a matter of wanting to do something, getting out of your house and going to do it. The great thing was that these people had passion to do different things. Even if they didn't want to print all the time, it was something to do on a Thursday night. And they wanted to learn, wanted a new experience. Everybody had that in common, learning and experiencing different things. One week they're printing and the next week they're in the photo lab, trying that, or trying some video stuff or doing anything. That's what was really great about AS220 because it was a lot of creative people. It was a real community. It was still underground, there wasn't really a lot of, it didn't go outside to the mass. They were almost afraid in a way, like, what's going on? There's all these artistic people but it was great. There were so many things emerging from that. So many styles and so much was born out of there. It was great.

15:31 HV: Was there a fee to be in the workshop? Or did AS220 pay for some of the expenses?

15:38 PC: They paid for a lot of it, it was community-based. Their whole concept was community-based. There was a fee, the classes were always free but if you wanted to come in and use any of the supplies, a lot of the supplies, the main equipment, things like squigies and screens were donated. From there if people wanted to print projects they would pay a small fee. I think it was five bucks at the time. We would pool all the money together and at the end of the month buy more supplies. Eventually we could get better equipment and better ink. People could bring their own ink and paper and do that but the costs helped buy emulsion and the different things that are involved with the whole process. It was a really inexpensive way to do great things. People were coming in with their bands and buying a dozen t-shirts and coming in and printing whole graphics for- a bottle of ink probably costs like six bucks, seven bucks. It was good way to do some cool stuff that otherwise you wouldn't think you could do. It was all about DIY, coming in and doing it all yourself, figuring out how to do it and doing it!

16:58 HV: Beyond the whole do-it-yourself aspect of poster art, what do you think is unique about it?

17:05 PC: Well, it's definitely a medium that has grown in the last few years. I'll show you a book later. There's a book that just came out called The Art of Modem Rock. There was a poster explosion in just the past couple of years, which started basically with Frank Kosic. Back in the sixties, all the hippies were still screen-printing all these great psychedelic posters and then after that it died out. Then the eighties came along and there was all this Xeroxed great, all these great punk graphics. Frank basically decided to merge the two. He was a punk but he wanted to put these crazy colors and things that the hippies were doing in the sixties. He starts screen-printing punk flyers, early Touch-n-Go bands, Sub Pop bands, sort of things that are really underground. Now they're names that are known but back then nobody knew them. He was doing these sick graphics in a small studio in Texas and posting these things around and at the time no one had really seen that kind of stuff. They were just used to seeing the black and white flyers. He really started that explosion. Through the underground, word got around and people like Jim Draper saw this art and would bring it to places like Providence, throw them up on the wall and have a tiny gallery show. It got exposed that way and people started picking up on that idea and doing it themselves. In the past couple years; all sorts of styles, more graphic designers, illustrators, there were people that were doing more straightforward pop graphics to really obscure things like Lightning Bolt and Fort Thunder stuff. There's just a whole mix now and the book that just came out collects the work from the. . .

19:05 PC: ...mid eighties up to 2003, a lot of poster artists that are in the game right now that have been doing it for a couple years. Before then, part one, there was a book called Art of Rock, and that covered the early fifties up until the eighties. This is the second installment of that.

19:25 HV: You're included in The Art of Modem RocK?

19:28 PC: Yes. I'm doing some book signings for it now on the East Coast. We're kind oflike a network of artists, we all kind of know each other, whether or not we've met each other in contact. It's a little easier with email and stuff like that. We can bounce ideas off of each other and see what we're doing in different parts of the country. The authors of the book signed deals with... Chronicle Books put the book out, they're doing everything from like Borders to little independent coffee shops, whoever wants to have an event and these book signings are doing it. On the East Coast side, anyway, I'm doing some of the book signings; he does a lot of the illustrations for the Boston and Providence Phoenix guy, Dan McCarthy, he's in a Boston band, a band called the Helms. He does amazing graphics for the Boston area. We've been a team, doing some signings on the East Coast- Boston, New York, and hopefully, Providence after the New Year. Everybody in their own region is getting together and doing these signings. It's going to travel around the country. Everybody put some work together and sent it to the authors so they have a traveling gallery show that's gonna go around museums in the US. Once that's done it's gonna go over to Europe. In total, it'll probably take two to three years that this whole thing will be traveling around and stuff. It" be good exposure.

21:08 HV: Have you received any responses so far about, with the publishing of this book or are you anticipating more responses to your own artwork? And more broadly, to poster art?

21:23 PC: Yea. I think so. It took many years for people to take poster art seriously as a form of art. It sort of rode that fine line between graphic and fine art. The fine artists were doing screen prints, there wasn't really words or things involved. And the graphic designers were doing their thing. To merge the two people didn't know how to classify it, 'cause everybody has to classify everything all the time. It took a couple of years for people to realize that there is some amazing talent out there and people just happened to like that medium and they were doing this poster art and that's the way they chose to do it. Just recently, certain galleries and museums are taking it as a serious form of art and showing it. Because of that a lot of us that were doing so much work for the underground are finally getting certain respect in a way that we can get bigger jobs and do stuff. It took a while but I think its getting there. Its starting to be taken a lot more seriously.

22:34 HV: Do you think the severity of poster art is related to the close relationship with popular culture? Like, its hard for people to accept something as a fine art if its still closely related to pop culture?

22:51 PC: Yea. I think pop culture was the main influence between everything we were doing, like all of the art. When you see the book, it's split into different sections. There are the illustrators that have a certain style and then it's broken down from there. Early on, a couple years ago, it was all about devil girls and dice, and that whole look that Coop invented. Then that got dry, so people went and expanded from that. Then it got really dirty and grungy. Then there were people like Fort Thunder that were doing their whole thing. I didn't pigeonhole myself in either way and I sort of mixed both. I do some real graphic stuff and I do some illustrating stuff. Somehow I got lucky and people can recognize what I do. It was fun. I knew from day one that I didn't want to just be an illustrator. I didn't want to just be stuck to doing graphic type. I mix it all the time. I think that's what made it interesting. It made it a little easier for me to get a broader scope of clients and different people that wanted to use me for work. I started doing tiny band graphics to being lucky enough to work with bands like Wilco and Elvis Costello, which was huge! I never thought I would be shaking Elvis Costello's hand or doing stuff for people like that. I still tend to work more for indie bands and punk bands because it's what I love personally. I'll do some major labor but most of the time I won't. But if they approach me and they really like my work then I'll do it. Its good and bad. It's bad because the money is obviously where major label bands are. . .

24:51 PC: .. . and I'm like gee, I'll do the punk band for twenty bucks or whatever the heck they can afford. But it affords more creative freedom. And its more what I love to do. Its more important that I'm loving what I'm doing and working with the people and the music that I really attach to rather than just doing it for some big band or major label that I'm never ever going to see anyway- it's just about the phone call or something. There are still large bands though that are really hands-on. Working with Wilco was fantastic. Their management was really hands-on. The way their look was presented, they've used different poster artists and graphic designers from allover the country to get certain flavors. I think they are one of the few that do that. It's great when bands can have their fingers in that and use different ideas and concepts from different people. It's rare. As far as major label stuff is, anyway.

25:51 HV: Is there a way that you could define your style? Or do you think that it is just so broad that...

25:59 PC: It's pretty broad but it falls more in the graphic category. It definitely falls more in the graphic design category.

26:08 HV: Are there certain things that you always find are in your work, like certain graphic characteristics or an image?

26:19 PC: Well lately, the past few years, it's really sort of messy in a way. I like the looseness and the messiness of what printing can do. Because if everything was so straight and so registered and so perfect it kind of takes away from the feel of what screen-printing was to begin with. I'm always experimenting with what I can do with different colors and inks and styles. Pushing the envelope as far as what graphic would fit a particular client. They always have their generic idea, so I'll do something tenfold on top of that and turn it into something completely different. Luckily most of the time they go with it. It's good. But, the style definitely varies. It changes but you can always pick out what it is. I tend to have a sort of retro twist on modern ideas, if that could make any sense. I'm really connected to old retro graphics, mostly forties and fifties advertising. A lot of work you could recognize that kind of stuff going on in there.

27:46 HV: What's the process of collaborating with a band? Do they contact you and then talk about what they want?

27:57 PC: It varies. Most of the time I'm working directly with the band or their management. Sometimes it's a promoter for a specific event or venue that says, we have so-and-so coming through, can you create something? The band may have a concept or an idea what a tour is about, or a record they just put out. I'll go from that vibe. I pretty much freedom to do whatever I want. They've seen the work that I've done and they just say go with it.

28:33 HV: Is it less collaborative than work you were doing before? You mentioned that you like to do work collaboratively in the beginning?

28:43 PC: Yea. I freelanced for so many years. Right now, recently, I'm designing at Reebok. I'm working with a team which is really interesting and different for me because I'm used to just freelancing and being on my own all the time. Most of my collaborative work had to do with me talking to people over the phone because they could be anywhere in the country. I would be on my own. Talk and then go on my computer or go into the studio and do whatever I had to do. Now I'm working with a group of people and bouncing ideas allover the place. It's different but its great. It's a total learning experience and growing experience.

29:24 HV: Are you excited to be on a team? Are you finding that it's hard to react to other people's ideas or are you just processing it all and still being able to produce work?

29:34 PC: I'm still processing and producing, but being that there such a large company they can afford to bring in designers from different parts of the world. The whole team is fairly young but we've got a guy from Germany, somebody from France, a girl from Japan that all live in America now but have different ideas, concepts, and styles from their particular country. We all bring it together and see what we come up with. It's really cool. I think if we just had a group of people all from the U.S., coming from our background and our culture, our popular culture, it would just get stale. Now we have people from allover coming with their styles and concepts or what's going on in their culture and bringing it all together. Its youth culture from around the world, coming together and trying to create these new concepts. It's definitely different from what I was doing before where a lot of it was just related to music, which is still what I love to do. It's my passion but it's nice to go out and try different things. A lot of these new opportunities would never had arisen without all the stuff I was doing previous, working with all these bands and getting my start from these different places like AS220.

31:08 HV: That's pretty interesting, art on a global scale. Do you have any grand ideas about what it means to have art being produced by a team of international and nationals being projected back out, consumed and then projected out?

31:31 PC: What's interesting is we're designing for years ahead of time. When we're designing a line, whether it's clothing or shoes, I work particularly in clothing we're designing already for 2006. In different markets, in particular at Reebok I'm doing sports and lifestyle, we're almost creating what people are going to be wearing three years from now. I already know what you're going to be wearing three years from now because every company, whether it's your competition or whatever, we're loosely working on the same color schemes. You take trends from places like Europe and London and Italy and bring it to the US. and start creating those things. The US seems like the stepchild to the rest of the world as far as cutting edge and culture, fashion and music. We are always a little bit behind. Everything else is happening in other parts of the world which are a lot more cutting edge. Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Cuban music things like Buena Vista Social Club and everything related to that. You've got these guys in Cuba who are just amazing musicians and they're cutting their own solo records but they're using the best musicians from different parts of the world, like the best DJ in France, and the best trumpet player in Spain, and putting together these amazing records. Here in the US it's more like, well, gee, Jessica Simpson is hot right now we'll get her to come on our record. It's image over quality.

33:31 PC: I'm finding in other parts of the world, it's all about quality of what they're doing and bringing in the best of the best so the end result is great. It's always fresh and it's always new. It's definitely cool to see what's going on in other parts of the world and talking to other people about what's going on and bringing it back and going, "geez we kinda suck!" how can we create something new?

34:00 HV: how do you keep your art fresh?

34:03 PC: I'm constantly researching everything, everything around me. I read every kind of magazine. I'm interested in indie music, I'll read a lot of stuff related to that but I'll also read other things. I'll be sitting at my desk sometimes reading W or Vogue. People are like; you're a guy, why are you reading Vogue? It's because there is phenomenal photographers in there or there's just different people doing different stuff. If you're on top of that your creations are always going to be fresh. My job was to constantly try to be on the cutting edge of whatever their particular market was. Just because I may not listen to a certain band I really have to be in touch with, say their market is males from 18-30. What are they wearing? What are they listening to? What video games are they playing? It's all related to your final product, whether you're creating clothes or music. The bottom line is who is our market and how are we going to market it to these kids. I've been lucky enough to create whatever the heck I want and somehow it works. I'm able to find the markets that my stuff is going to work in and have that freedom. So far I don't have to stray away from it that much and do what other people want. I can just do my own thing and take it to where I want it to go.

35:48 HV: Could you give a specific example of one band that you worked with and the art that you produced for them?

35:56 PC: This band out of Boston called the Street Dogs who are really good friends. Their first singer was in the Dropkick Murphys originally, who went on to become a very successful band. The singer went on to become a fireman but he discovered years later that we really wanted to do music again and so he put together this project. By sitting around one day, over a few beers, we decided- who're trying to reach? What are you singing about? A lot of it is still working class, basically blues music kicked to a punk beat. Instead of keeping things stale it's like how do we plan on that but keep it fresh? A lot of people like that take their influences from the Clash, or bands like the Ramones. Some things never get old. They always stay the same. Its issues and ideas that always matter to people, especially their particular music being blue collar issues and the working class. They're singing about things that actually relate to you and me, instead of some pop princess that's singing about her bling bling which none of us are going to relate to necessarily, at least the common Joe. Its really fun and interesting working with projects like that and seeing where it can grow. Today, they are two records in and they're touring with really big successful bands. They've already done the whole world once and are gonna do Europe again. It came from nothing. To work with projects from the seed, from nothing, and to see where it carries out to, and having your hand in the creation...

37:56 PC: ... all of that, the way its gonna look and the graphics that go along with it, the clothing, merchandise- it's fun. It's like seeing your baby grow.

38:13 HV: Getting back to Providence, when it actually had a good music scene, were you involved at all the music scene? I'm assuming that you were going to concerts and maybe doing art in the early 90s?

38:29 PC: Yea, early on, it was a couple years, it was great. When there were things like Fort Thunder still existing... There was kind of a flavor for everybody. If you were more into cutting edge noise music you could go see bands like Lightning Bolt, either at Fort Thunder or events that Jim Draper was having. He would have really cutting edge music that wasn't anywhere yet but he liked it, and he knew other people that were into similar things would like it. It grew from there. If you liked other stuff there were bands like the Amazing Crowns that were doing more of a rockabilly hybrid. I loved music in general so I was involved in all the different aspects and would go to different events. That's what helped me broaden my horizons and work with different people. I was never in one particular little scene or clique. I went in and out of all of it. I think that helps you to grow later on. Everything is eventually going to die out, bands are gonna die out, but your art may always continue to be there in future collections. I have gallery shows now with bands that don't exist but they're still being represented for as long as the art is around. It was great to work early on with bands from my town, and my city, and do graphics for that kind of stuff. It's almost a history. Now a lot of that stuff isn't around, but it's in the art and it travels. I have stuff that's in Hard Rock Cafes in different parts of the world for little local Providence bands that nobody would ever know about.

40:34 HV: Could you think of anything that was very unique to the Providence, Rhode Island, kind of scene during that era?

40:41 PC: I definitely say everything that was coming out of Fort Thunder. Those guys were doing stuff that was just off the wall. Stuff I hadn't seen done anywhere else. It's interesting to see those guys and myself I think we came more out of a street culture meaning that some of those guys dropped out RISD, they may have started at RISD. I was just Continuing Ed. None of us necessarily came out of there graduating with full degrees, for various reasons. Maybe they didn't like higher education or didn't have the money. We found other ways of doing it and it was taking it to the street and creating it that way. They had their complete own style. It was so different and so fresh. Until recently, it just started getting picked up. I started seeing it in different magazines and different ad campaigns and I know that got them style from here, I saw it, it didn't exist before then. It wasn't around, just in Providence. It's great to see the hybrids now. It makes you bitter sometimes like, geez it was here first, now it's everywhere! You gotta let go.

42:09 HV: Did you get to work with the guys at Fort Thunder?

42:15 PC: They did their own thing. They were their own little crew. Their own niche. I went to a lot of their events and was definitely influenced by a lot of the work that was going on. Brian was always a big influence, both of them, and they still are. It was always cool to wait until next week and see what they came out with. Stuff would be posted around and you would just wait awhile, a couple weeks later, and then some other great art would be posted. I was more excited about seeing that stuff than anything else. I didn't really, at the time, care about what was going on in my world; I just cared about what was going on in my own art world or in my own city. That's what was cool and influencing me at the time.

43:12 HV: Do you feel like there was a disconnect between what was happening at Fort Thunder and what could have been happening in downtown Providence, a kind of separation?

43:23 PC: Yea, yea. That's where the difference between us came. They were promoting stuff for their own events, whether it was for their own bands or bands that they were bringing in themselves whereas I was working for actual venues and clubs. While they are creating their own things, I'm doing my art but I'm doing it for a client. I was doing it for Babyhead, or I was doing it for Lupo's. I would just go in there and pick like, oh great Social Distortion is coming through, I love these guys, can I work on something? It went from there. Even though it was still underground, I was working on a more commercial level than they even were. Nine times out of the ten, nobody heard of the bands that they were promoting or showing whereas the work I was doing the fan base was established somewhat, on a small scale. That was the difference between us but there was always a respect level. There was never any, we're more indie than you! It was all about loving music and doing what we were doing and doing it on our own terms.

44:40 HV: what were the advantages for working with these venues? Did you get into concerts?

44:48 PC: Oh yea. It was always free beer and getting into shows for free. But for me it was just the passion of networking. I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, was make art and especially in the music industry. The more shows I did and the more art I created just gave me this drive to want to do more, and more, and more! I always made it a point to try and really talk to the people I was doing this work for and explain what I was doing and why I was doing this. Early on there wasn't too much poster art going on, as I said, the explosion happened now but when I was doing it and a couple other people were doing it, it wasn't as widespread as it is now. Though when a band would come through and there would be this full-blown multi-colored poster done for their five dollar punk event, they would be psyched that this was happening. It made it a little easier for doors to open next time they came or be supporting somebody else and make contacts that way. That definitely helped.

46:00 HV: Did you ever have any setbacks at all in your work or has it been like one thing after another?

46:08 PC: I wish. There were definitely setbacks. There were definitely some times where on a personal level, ideas that are think are great end up totally bombing. A lot of things are done really quickly and have to be turned around really fast. An event comes up in a week and you have to turn things around. Basically ideas that you have that don't come to fruition. Early on it was just technique wise, learning how to do things, and there would be screw up after screw up. Trying to offer something to people that you know is not necessarily your best piece. But you're still learning and you're still trying. I was lucky enough to have people that were supportive enough early on in the scene and give me a chance. You know, this guy is young and he's trying and he keeps doing this cool stuff. Eventually it got better and better and better. It was definitely good to have a support system early on and people who understood and recognized what I was trying to do. It helped push me along.

47:26 HV: Were there any outside of Fort Thunder and poster art, were there any other influences in the Providence community that affected you?

47:36 PC: As far as Providence it was just a lot of my surroundings. Early on, in the later eighties and into the early nineties, there was no renaissance city. You kind of just did your own thing to make it pretty. It was cool to see a lot of this art work around or posted on mailboxes or telephone polls 'cause that was really all there was to look at. There was no Waterfires. There was no Waterplace Park. There was none of that kind of stuff going on. My studio is called ghost-town because growing up in Providence that's what the city was- a ghost town. If you came downtown in the early or mid eighties there was nothing going on. It was scary. A lot of my environment just affected what I create now and the look that I have. People talk about how Providence is a great city and it is, and grew into a beautiful place and I love living here but early on it wasn't even a quarter of what it is now. Thanks to our good old mayor that's sitting in jail now. Go Buddy!

48:56 HV: What was it like to witness this renaissance? What were your reactions to Providence evolving or devolving however you want to put it?

49:08 PC: I have a love-hate relationship with it. I love seeing things grow and the cool things that have come up. There have been a lot of opportunities for places on the West Side, for people to open up little stores that are really cool. What was hard for me to take and people like Fort Thunder and their place getting closed down was these people saying it's the renaissance city and we're gonna open all these condos for artists lofts. There is not a single artist I know that can afford any of those lofts. The people actually creating these things and creating this art got kicked out of their spaces. They had to be knocked down for all of these luxury places that we can't afford anyway. It was really a kick in the ass to see all this stuffwrltten about how Providence is gonna be all about artists blah blah blah blah- it was a bunch of bulls hit just to get people in the city with a lot of money to say wow, its culture. It's almost like SoHo in the early eighties where all these emerging artists before they became huge, people like Warhol and Basquiat, you could live in SoHo for peanuts. It was nothing 'cause it was the poor part of town and all these artists were creating all this great stuff. Then money started moving in and all these lofts started being built and all these galleries so the artists got kicked out so the rich people could move in. I guess its just the way it goes. We moved out into other parts of town, Pawtucket and Olneyville where it was affordable.

50:58 HV: Do you worry about the gentrification of Providence and the surrounding area? Do you think it will affect the art scene in a negative sense? Or do you think people will continue to produce art and react, like with these class issues?

50:15 PC: Yea. I think people always react and we'll always be making art. Providence as it was and that whole art scene, what it was known as, that's dead. We're all still creating art but we're doing it in a different way, on a different level now. Its not such a close-knit community as it once was. Now everything is fragmented and spread apart. Everybody tries to do their own thing. But at the time we were doing it almost as a necessity for survival. If you wanted something cool, music-wise or visually, we had to create it ourselves. Now there are so many options and things to go and do and see. There's not such much a need, there's always a need but now its so fragmented, its kind of sad...

52:15 PC: ... Everything evolves and grows and what's going on now will eventually die. Then something else will come up and be created. It'll be interesting. The true artists, the guys that weren't just about being in a scene or about being cool at the time, there is a handful of us that are always going to create, always make art, always do posters, no matter what. This is what we love. The ones that are around today are the same guys that were around five or ten years ago, and we will be twenty years from now. Whether or not it is here, I don't know. We'll always be doing it.

52:53 HV: how would you characterize Providence art world now, less of a community and more of a scene?

53:04 PC: Yea, yea. I would definitely say it is more of a scene. I would really compare it to that early New York stuff. Now there are people with more money and a little more culture coming around and living here. Boston got to expensive so they're moving to Providence. Seeing all these interesting things created- wow this is an artsy community. We wanna be a part of that culture. Not such much that they're artists, but they have money to buy art or they want to live in that kind of community. So you can be one of the Jones' or whatever. It opens up some opportunities for some artists but not so much us guys that we're doing the underground stuff. It's because that's what we love, so we're still going to be doing it for underground, whether its music or things like that. There'll be some bigger projects that come along here but for the most part we're not creating for that community. We're not creating for that crowd, not for a museum, not to sell this stuff for a zillion dollars. Its more creating for people, music, and scenes that we grew up with and love. No matter what happens with me or who I'm doing work for, I'm always going to be doing stuff for people and bands and stuff I like. It's a double-edged sword. Early on and even still today, I've printed stuff and I can sell it at a show for five bucks or ten bucks. I still do that, to an extent here in Providence today but because my name is a little bigger and known- stuff I've printed will go on eBay tomorrow and sell for a hundred dollars...

55:04 PC: Which is insane! I know the same stuffis happening with the Fort Thunder guys. It helps your name to get built and helps you to get known but at the same time the idea of being able to buy that art for five bucks or do that stuff back in the day doesn't exist as much anymore. Not because we're trying to make a profit, it's just the way it goes. Everybody wants to be a part of something so they'll do whatever it takes to get that. I've had that happen multiple times where I've created stuff and I sold it at a show for eight bucks and a week later it blows up and its selling for four, five times that amount on eBay. Which is fine. Sometimes I go- geez, I sold that for eight dollars and now its selling for a hundred! Its nice but at the same time I'm still eating soup out of a can.

56:11 HV: Have you any kind of sense about how other people perceive you and your art? Or do not have that detached sense yet?

56:24 PC: That's a good question. I'm sort ofa loner in a lot of ways. I'm very humble about what I do. A lot of times I'll go to parties and people will have my stuff on the wall and they don't necessarily know that I'm the one that did it. I'm not going to be like- hey, that's me! It's usually mends or other people like- hey Pete did that! Yea, that's me. It's interesting to see that kind of stuff happening where irI introduce myself people are like, yea we know you. It's like, how do you know me? They know of me because they've heard about it or seen the work. They don't really know me, know me. It's a really odd thing for me to try and get used to. It can be weird how people perceive who I am or what I do. Just because I work with bands doesn't mean I'm doing coke off of strippers and getting boozed up every single night. I'm not like that at all. The way people perceive it I don't know and I don't really care. If you like the art and you like the music and what I'm doing- great, cool, call me up, we can talk about it. Other However they see it, its really up to them.

57:52 HV: Could you imagine your work being in a museum in fifty years or that something you don't even want, because you said you were creating work for the people?

58:02 PC: Sure. No it would be great. A few years ago there was a show put together by Sara Neil. She's a big supporter oflocal artists. It was a print show of all the artists that were doing stuff in Providence. The whole thing was bought by RISD. RISD museum now owns a piece by me and all those people that were in there, so its part of the permanent collection. That was great that that happened. I have certain things that are in galleries but I get more a kick out of seeing things in Hard Rock Cafes or people's apartments. It would be great jfit went into museums, I wouldn't say that that would suck. Its not my ultimate goal. Whatever happens happens.

59:02 HV: Do you see yourself creating art for the rest of your days? Do you have any other aspirations or is this the real thing?

59:13 PC: No... This is the thing. I don't do much of anything else! Wish I did. I would love to expand it and see. I'm interested in now in a lot of photography and things like that. I hope to see where I could take the work. I would love to work on video. Print things that I've created and take them to another media and see how I can expand that and blow it up. I've had little opportunities to do that. I did a tour with Paul Westerberg, who is a hero; I loved the Replacements growing up. I designed his merchandise and he said you know we need somebody to come on the road. I jumped at the chance. From just being on the roads for a couple days, we decided I'm going to put a DVD together. He decided that. From what was going on with his music at the time and the graphics I was creating to go along with it, we created a whole DVD based on that whole tour. I hope to do more of that kind of stuff in the future.

1:00:31 HV: You definitely see your art expanding into different mediums? 1 :00:35 PC: Yea, I think so. I would like to see it happen that way. Time will tell.

1:00:54 HV: I know that you did work for BRU?

1:01:00 PC: Yea, I do a lot for the radio station. I do a lot of local stuff still. You're sitting next to the GAM theatre poster I just did. I do stufffor local theatre and the local college radio station. Any project that can be related locally that I think is great, I'll do it. I've done things for different non-profit organizations. I'll definitely consider anything if somebody comes by and talks to me about a project. Ifl have the time to do and we can work it into a budget, I'll definitely take it on. Early on, I did so much pro bono work just to get stuff out there. I'll still do it if it's the right project but now that I'm older I have to eat and pay rent so I can't do as much stuff for free. Early on a lot of my work got noticed because I did so much of it for free. Any money that I made I put right back into the work. I would buy more paper, more ink, more supplies. Make more and more. While other people were obtaining things, material stuff; I was just buying more art supplies.

1:02:21 HV: By taking on multiple projects do you think is that how you stay in touch with the community? Are you still affiliated with AS220?

1:02:31 PC: Yep. I'm still affiliated with those guys. Through that it helped locally, people be aware of who I was and the style of what I was doing. I didn't think I would be certain things for a theatre or stuff like that, which is what I've always, it's a dream. I love theatre and I always wanted to do stuff for a theatre. By doing certain things locally, the art director saw the stuff and got in touch, said- hey we like the style and we think it will work for our particular productions, would you be interested in doing something? I got to fulfill a dream.

1:03:29 HV: Do you have any...

1:03:31 PC: I'll give you this (Motif), there's an interview from it from BRU this week that I did last week. You can read it later.

1 :03:38 HV: Do you have any final comments on your work or the Providence art scene?

1:03 :48 PC: That's a tricky one. I don't know. I hope to stay around here and build. My whole idea was trying to show people that you can create art, especially in the music industry, in a place like Providence. A lot of the stuff that's coming out of New York and California and these design studios, I always dreamed of saying, why not Providence? Why not do it here? That's what I'm trying to do and hope to continue to do. Obviously a lot of the opportunities are in those places because that's were they've always been. I think with the poster scene and the explosion that's going on now, people are starting to see that there is great art coming out of different parts of the country. Its not just New York and California. Minneapolis right now is amazing! The design that is coming out there, especially people like Aesthetic Apparatus or Patent Pending in Seattle, things like that, the work is amazing. I think it's the best stuff I've seen in a long time. If you pick up a How or a Communication Arts or Print and look at any of those annuals- like, oh yea, great New York, it's not a big deal. But then you flip to Minneapolis and this stuff is so cutting edge and beautiful. Why not Providence? Who knows? If! could have a hand in that- great. I think with a lot of the artists around here it could happen.

1:05:27 HV: Are you proud to be from Rhode Island? Represent?

1:05:30 PC: Yea. I am. Definitely. We're a small place, a small state. I like it. I think we'll still see some big things coming out of here in a few years. What's come out in the last couple of years has been from the underground. To see how that progresses and blows up and what it could turn into- I don't know, but it will be interesting to see.

1:06:04 HV: Would you still identify with the underground or do you think you kind of streamlining?

1:06:14 PC: I think I'm streamlining in a way. I definitely always identify with it. But I don't go to as much Wednesday night punk shows and stuff as I did back when I was a kid 'cause I didn't have any responsibilities. I still get out and do as much as that as I can but getting a little older, I'm not that old, I'm only 27, but trying to let kids do what kids do and learn from that. Everything comes out of the youth. Everything that ends up being marketed to us, whether or not your older, comes from the youth. They're always rebelling from what's current. Keeping in touch with that and constantly studying that and keeping your ear to the ground, its always gonna keep you fresh no matter how old you are and keep you in touch with what's going on.

1:07:20 HV: So you see yourself as a sixty year old still trying to team up with the youth?

1:07:25 PC: Oh, definitely. If I still have hair at sixty I'm gonna have a mohawk. Why not? I think so. Some of my heroes in design now are, that are much older than I am, they're hip guys. They are totally in touch with the scene, as far as music and stuff that's going on now. Whereas if you looked at your grandfather or your father, they would have no concept. These guys are the same age but they are in a totally different realm. They know what's happening. They might not dress like your normal twenty year old coming out of Urban Outfitters but they're still in touch with it. Ijust met a photographer, Richard. We did this little event together for BRU and I had never met the man. I walk into the show and he's got all these amazing photographs he took from the punk scene in San Francisco and London back in the seventies. Previous to that he was a photographer for Rolling Stone, shooting the Who, Zeppelin, and the Doors. When I met the guy he was this short older man that you would never in a million years think was down with the Sex Pistols. But he was there at the last show, shooting everything.

1:09:00 HV: Is that the punk rock retrospective?

1:09:01 PC: Yea! Exactly. Did you meet him?

1:09:04 HV: No, but I did go over there. If! had lots of money...

1:09:09 PC: Exactly.

1:09:11 HV: I want to buy these things. But no one look as I discreetly take out my digital camera. But no, that's a bad idea.

1:09:17 PC: If you saw him on the street you would never know thirty years ago he was punk rock, totally hip. He still is. He's in touch and in tune with what's going on. We just did this radio event together. I hope to be like that someday. I just hope the youth can look back the way I'm looking at his work now and see my stuff the same way. That's what is more important to me. Whether or not something becomes super valuable or wherever it goes, if somebody could get something out of it- that's more important.

1:10:04 HV: What do you want people to say about your work in twenty years?

1:10:08 PC: Hmmm... good question. I have no idea.

1:10: 18 HV: He's so hip and fresh and cutting edge?

1:10:21 PC: Well, maybe or it's good design. I like it. And I still do. I have pieces from certain artists that I like that are really old but I still look at them today and it's still fresh from me. I get ideas and concepts from them even though I've looked at it every single day for the past five years because its on my wall. I'm still like- wow, that's really really good! Whether it's a really simple design or complicated, it doesn't even matter. It's just how it was executed and how it looks. If it's good, its good. And if it's done well, it's done well.

1:11:05 HV: Do you see your work having timelessness or being part of a specific historical moment?

1:11:16 PC: I think it will be a little bit of both. For Providence it will always have that historical view. But overall in the big picture, I don't know. I think I'll always expand the way I'm designing and never be stuck in one genre. I'm even interested in seeing where my work goes. What I'm doing today is really different from what I was doing five years ago or even two years ago- just from new experiences and new inspirations. I think any artist or anyone that is decent at what they do, it's always evolving, it's always changing, it's always something different. I love Warhol's early graphic illustrations he was doing from shoes just as much as I love his later screen prints of Marilyn. On a visual level they are two very different things but its still the same artist, just evolved. I hope to do the same " thing.

1:12:29 HV: Kind of like a Jerry Springer final thoughts, do you have any final thoughts about yourself?

1:12:41 PC: Hmm...

1:12:41 HV: The work you're doing?

I: 12:44 PC: Good question, if it's Jerry Springer...

1:12:46 HV: Your life? It has to be something saucy...

1:12:50 PC: Yea! Uhhhhh! I don't know

1:12:53 HV: Like, I'm going to eat bacon every day for the rest of my life starting right now.

1:12:56 PC: If I could, if my heart wouldn't explode, I would eat bacon every single day. It's the greatest thing in the world and not only that, friends that are vegetarians that are no longer vegetarians it's because of bacon. They realize how good bacon is. Yes I'm going to do a whole series of art just on bacon.

1:13:19 HV: I should be in the credits

1:13:20 PC: That's right.

1:13:29 HV: That was awesome, thank you.

1:13:30 PC: Thank you.