CyberFair 2000 Project
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Carpinteria, California, USA
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Mrs. Gravitz's room two chose to interview Rich Peterson
We all enjoyed Mr. Peterson coming to our classroom. He does sculptures out of bronze and other materials. He did the big fireman sitting in front of the Goleta fire station. He showed us how he made the molds and cast them. He even brought the rubber and glove he used for the hand. We saw slides of his fireman being made. We also saw slides of the sculpture that is going up in front of the Santa Maria courthouse.
We asked him a lot of questions after his presentation. Here are some of the questions and answers:
Question: What did you like about the fourth grade?
Answer: He liked it when he and his friends would take gliders and fly them off of the highest point of the school. The other thing that he liked is when they made hot air balloons, and they would float them off into the air. They could be seen even a mile away in Burbank where he lived.Question: Did you always want to be an artist?
Answer: He kind of always wanted to be an artist. He thinks doing sculptures is really fun. It is like playing to him when he is sculpturing. He was a fireman first.Question: When did you know for sure you wanted to be an artist?
Answer: About ten years ago, when he retired, he knew for sure that he wanted to do sculpture. That was in 1990.
Question: Do you ever get discouraged being an artist?
Answer: He gets discouraged almost every day. For instance, he might need an instrument and it gets broken. Then he has to slow down. It is also discouraging when he is almost done with a piece and something goes wrong.
Question: If I want to be an artist, what should I do?
Answer: He thinks that the stuff that we are doing in class with the Contemporary Arts Forum is great for becoming an artist. We are learning a lot about art and artists. He said that we are really lucky to be able to go to the Santa Barbara Contemporary Art Forum, see what is going on, and use our imagination. He thinks we should pay attention in school, and go to a lot of art museums and shows. We should find out a lot about art before we become grown-up artists.
Question: What kind of art do you like to do most?
Answer: He likes to do figures out of medals. He likes to do sculptures that have a feather type shape to them. We saw one of these in our classroom.
Question: Do you have an idea for a project for us to do in sculpturing?
Answer: He said that we could make really interesting things out of cardboard. That made us happy because we have saved cardboard tubes all year. We plan to make a sculpture after testing.
Question: What makes you work unique or different from everyone else's work?
Answer: He is one of the few people in this town that makes metal sculptures.
Question: Did someone inspire you to be an artist?
Answer: His wife inspired him to be an artist because she was an artist. She really likes to go to art museums and other art happenings. She took him along.
Question: What did you parents think about you wanting to be an artist?
Answer: They liked the idea because I was older when I started. When he was little, his parents probably would not have wanted him to be an artist. They were happy he was going to be a teacher or a firefighter. This is because it is hard to make a living being an artist.
Question: Did you go to a special school to become an artist?
Answer: He went to Santa Barbara City College to learn sculpturing. He went to a lot of other programs also.
See what's going on at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum
This page was written by David S.
This page was edited by Matthew R.
This page was photographed by Audie W.
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