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July 2008 Dropkick Murphy's Baseball TourUnique set of posters: 3 separate shows with individual posters that placed side by side create a 4th large design that shows Fenway! Collect all three...
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CHECK OUT THE ARTICLE FROM THE MERCURY:
http://www.newportmercury.com/articles/2005/06/20/off_the_li
p/offthelip.txt
June, 6, 2005
Say uncle
"My pictures are usually realistic. Some of my recurring themes are the devil, or well-endowed women."
PETER MACPHEE
A.K.A. UNCLE PETE, 33
ROCK 'N' ROLL DRAFTSMAN TO THE STARS
Daydream doodling enabled Peter MacPhee to beat boredom and dyslexia when he was in elementary school. Who knew it would lead to a thriving business and many admirers all over the country and abroad for the Providence resident. MacPhee, a.k.a. Uncle Pete, a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, creates poster and T-shirt designs for national and international rock, surf and motorcycle venues. His bio on his Web site at www.skidderdesign.com notes his best rock 'n' roll moment occurred when he dressed up in a dinosaur suit during an Amish Alcoholics concert and got accidentally stabbed in the eye with a utility knife, thus setting off an explosive. His body twisting in pain, bleeding inside his costume, he got beaten up by unsuspecting band members. He certainly enjoys life on the edge. See his work hanging June 19-26 at Arnold Art Store, 210 Thames St., Newport.
How did you get to do what you are doing now?
I started to do some work for rock 'n' roll people in Providence and that went on to posters. I was working with a band called Freak Show. I started doing posters for them and from then on, I did pretty well. I also did work for people who came to town and needed promotional posters to sell at their shows. I had quite a few good reactions. Later I started doing posters for Iggy Pop and for other big national acts. Now I have been doing it for so long, that I am dealing more with managers and no longer with the musicians themselves.
Your personal motto is that stupidity is the back door to knowledge. What's the front door? And why not use that one?
The front door is being adaptive, knowing what you're doing, having persistence, looking around. But I just started doing my stuff by trial and error, trying different things until I figured out what I wanted to do. First it helped paying the bills. Then I went to art school and learned a thing or two about illustration. It was something I enjoyed doing. In retrospect, I want to say, the back door is more fun.
How did dyslexia help you as an artist?
When I was a kid, my dad would draw out pictures for me on flash cards to help me to learn how to spell, and then from there it progressed into me drawing the pictures. My dad was a high school science teacher and he had this notebook where he drew the basics of whatever we had to study. That way I could visualize even abstract ideas. It helped me remember and understand things a lot better.
On your Web site you tell us that one of the reasons for being an artist was to impress the chicks. Does it work?
Well, now I have a girlfriend. If I said yes, that would just get me in trouble. I met a lot of people, though. Art school as a whole seemed to be more a singles bar than actually a school. A lot of the guys who had nothing better to do were just hanging around. Instead of saying "I'm a bum," you go, "I'm an artist," and things look a little different with females.
What inspires your art? How do you get started in your head?
Well, first I listen to the band's music and I try to figure out what they are singing about. Then I concentrate on what I feel, because I have to get into a certain mood. Sometimes I just sit down and draw something up that is not related at all. I have a lot of religious symbols in my work. I also have the classic rock stuff resurfacing a lot of times. My pictures are usually realistic. Some of my recurring themes are the devil, or well-endowed women. I like the older, straightforward rock-n-roll stuff. Now, especially in Providence, there is a scene that is working with a lot of abstraction. They have almost Vincent van Gogh-like colors, are stripped down and scratchy looking. That's not really my thing. I still like the 1990s posters better, and also a lot of the '60s stuff. The art of the '80s punk era was also really good stuff. I just got a book by a guy called Jeff Phillips who did a lot of skateboarding venues in Santa Cruz. That reminds me of when I was skateboarding when I was a kid. I always liked that style. That's pretty much the era I grew up in and I go back there a lot in my head.
Since religious iconography comes up a lot in your work, what role did religion play in your life when you were growing up?
I've never been very big on religion. I am interested in it, but I'm not religious myself. My mom goes to church and I grew up a Protestant, which is more of a free and open religion and not as strict as Catholicism. Now, where the world is going, it seems that religion is a bigger pain in the ass than help. They're all just beating each other up and actually missing the point.
Are you still actively involved with music? Playing with bands? Wearing any dinosaur suits lately?
I was in a band called "Randy Pinto and the Galactic Boots." I played the cattle bell. I'm not really musically talented and I'm not much of a cattle bell player either, but it was fun. I was always into rock, even as a kid, but I could never play a guitar and can't sing at all. On top of that, I have really bad stagefright, so the next best thing, I guess, is drawing pictures about the music.
Why do you call yourself uncle?
It's just something that caught on a long time ago. It was my nephew Billy. I was actually putting together my T-shirt business. At the time, I was trying to figure out a name and he was like, 'I call you uncle.' I think he was like 12 or 10.
Any plans for the future?
Right now I'm creating a clothing line for a place in New York City called the Bikini Bar. They sell vintage long boards and have a funky coffee shop. It's a lot like the '70s surf culture. Besides that, I am doing a lot of posters for stores. One of the stores I am working for is Java Speed in Providence; they deal in scooters. I'm also doing work with a motorcycle magazine in Finland called KOPETRI. That is actually my first European gig. This came into being while I did work for this motorcycle rally in Finland. Over there they are into the American rock 'n' roll culture of the 1950s, all the early stuff. My artwork has been doing really well there. I have a friend in New York, Brian Lux. He is in a rockabilly country band called Sixgun Republic. They have been touring in Finland quite a bit. So he goes over and brings my posters along. They just love it. The Sixgun Republic are planning a show with DJ Scratchy, who was the DJ for the Clash in the 1980s. That's going to be a big thing for me. Because of all these things, my Web site gets a lot of hits from Finland. It's funny because my grandmother grew up in Finland. She has a bunch of my stuff. So you come to the house of this 86-year-old lady and she has all these rock posters on her walls. I always get a kick out of that.
MARTINA HESSER
