Interview with an artist

As I have been practicing a few printing skills recently (screen printing, letterpress, etching) I decided to start researching artists that use print as their main working technique. And as I have been thinking about different ways to research, not just from books or the internet, I decided interviewing a current artist about their work would be the most informative way to research as I could ask specific questions and find out what I wanted to know without wading through irrelevant text.

I spoke to artist Peter Driver who I met at Winchester School of Art a few years ago. As soon as I thought of printing, he came straight to mind as I have a couple of his prints at home. I love his work and am hoping to make some of my own prints in a similar style. Here is the interview:

Could you tell me about your background, where you're from, education, what got you interested in art?

I grew up on a large rural Council estate in the cultural desert that is The Fens.  We were very poor. My dad was a carpenter working in factory jobs and my mum was a school dinner lady but it was a stable family environment. I went to the worst secondary school in Cambridgeshire and did not thrive academically, failing almost all my ‘O’ Levels, including Art.  

I’ve been a birdwatcher since the moment I saw a Lapwing in a Fenland field from my bus window when I was 8 years old.  My first artistic efforts as a child were paintings of birds – lots of them.  I tried to copy the illustrations from my bird books in watercolour and cut them out and had them stuck all over my bedroom wall.

After failing O Level Art I went to the local sixth form centre, got good O and A levels in Art and went to Cambridge School of Art to do the Foundation Course (1981-82). I studied graphics, painting and sculpture on the Foundation Course.  I think I didn’t have the maturity to make the most of those opportunities and I was frightened by the freedom and challenge to my conservative thinking that an art education would have entailed. I took a long break (28 years!) but maintained an active interest in art, visiting galleries and exhibitions during my long public sector career.  Only after my dad died in 2008 did I start making art again.  It was one of those moments in life where you take stock of what you want to do with what’s left of your time. I decided I wanted to make art!

I had ended up as a company secretary for a Government affordable housing agency but in 2011 I took voluntary redundancy (I couldn’t stomach working for the new Tory government anyway).  Redundancy gave me the opportunity to return to Art School and get my Fine Art degree.  I was 48 when I started the BA course and I loved absolutely every minute of it, squeezing the most out of every opportunity.  At the end I decided to stay on and study for an MA in Fine Art – basically, I didn’t want to leave and felt I had a lot more learning to do.  I think I’ll keep learning until I die.  Every time I make a new piece I learn something new.

What themes have your art been about in the past and what you're focusing on now?
What inspires you and why?

I became a keen evangelical Christian in my later teenage years. Although I no longer fit that description, many of those foundational myths are still part of my makeup and inform my philosophy and practice as an artist. A lot of my artwork has been politically motivated, in the sense that it is about society, human responses to difference, migration, generosity, optimism, etc. Because of my past life as a narrow-minded religious fundamentalist I now enjoy exploring the complexity and ambiguity of language. To the extent that I use words and language in my work, one of the main reasons is to expose the way texts can have multiple interpretations and that meanings are not fixed but derive from a participatory process involving the author and the reader.

I also incorporate my experience of landscape into my work. This can involve durational walks (the longest so far was a thirteen-day walk from Winchester to Canterbury) or simply using the memory of walking journeys and memories of place. Because I am a birder, my experience of landscape is often in wild and overlooked corners of the countryside. I’m a country boy – not streetwise or urban in any sense – but my political and social concerns bring me into urban settings too.

My recent work has addressed a specific area of public policy – primary education policy. I am concerned that the school curriculum is being skewed towards what is measurable, rather than what has educational value.  Rather than encouraging creativity, originality and imagination, the curriculum focusses on the rules of grammatical construction, phonics and uniformity. I have made work in response to this situation.

Peter Driver Every one is Important II woodcut print edition of 5.

What do you want viewers to get from your work?

I always make work with an audience in mind. I aim to be inclusive and to avoid the elitism that seems to permeate the art world.  That’s why I have enjoyed taking my work into the streets on my public performative actions or in accessible and non-exclusive spaces like K6 Gallery in Southampton.

I want viewers to have an experience that makes them consider their own position, their own attitudes or experiences.  For example, I have a series of woodcut prints – an ‘infinite’ edition – that simply carries the words ‘I’m glad you’re alive!’.  I have been making and giving these away to people, often complete strangers in the street, for over three years now and have so far given away 2,753 of them.  I want people to be confronted with the statement and to consider what it could mean.  What does it mean to be glad that a complete stranger is alive?  What could it mean to be glad that everyone is alive?  Is there anyone we would exclude from that generous position – and why? Those are the kinds of internal dialogues I am hoping to trigger with that work.  I know it triggers one within me.

Peter Driver I'm glad you're alive infinite edition woodcut print. 

What materials do you use and what type of work do you like to produce? Why?

I use woodcut printmaking, drawing, photography, video, sound, banner-making and performative action. My work is about the ideas rather than perfecting any particular technique. I try to stay open to using a wide variety of media. The works of the last three years have included organising public placard-making workshops; organising public parades; live-drawing; drawing from memory with my eyes closed, woodcut printmaking; durational walks with sets of rules e.g. making a drawing every mile for three days; durational projects such as listing every bird species seen or heard in the order they occur for a fixed period of 94 days - and using the data-set to generate woodcut prints, drawings and further work.

The motivation is usually to communicate something about being human. Sharing experiences of landscape or ideas about optimism or openness. Presenting ambiguously optimistic statements to unsettle the viewer. I think all art work is political in that it either perpetuates and accepts the status quo or it agitates for something better. Whether it's about environmental or social concerns, I hope to express something through my work that makes people question where they stand in relation to my statements.

What exhibitions have you participated in?

I was recently invited to create a solo show for K6 Gallery, Southampton. The show runs until 1 December and is entitled 'Imagined Futures'. It comprises four site-specific banners and six large woodcuts all made to fit within the two phone boxes. The show presents a focussed set of statements addressing primary education policy - albeit in a fairly oblique way.

I had a solo show at OpenHand OpenSpace, Reading in October, called 'For Such a Time as this'. It included two main bodies of work made in 2017: a set of prints on found/recycled materials; and work generated from the 94 day bird recording project.

In the last couple of years I had a solo show at the Jam Factory, Oxford and have participated in a number of group exhibitions, in Winchester, Reading and London, including collaborative work with my colleagues from Chapel Arts Studios, Andover and OpenHand OpenSpace, Reading.

I was selected to show in the 10 Days biennial, Winchester - my submission was a three-day walk from the highest point in Hampshire (Pilot Hill) down to the chalk streams of the Dever, and Itchen, ending at the Winchester Gallery, where I showed the drawings I had made every mile of the journey and did a live chalk-drawing at the opening onto a 8x4 foot blackboard.

I have plans for several projects, which will come to fruition over the next year or so and I am always interested in collaboration with other artists. I love working with other people and learning from those experiences.

Peter Driver Play woodcut print edition of 7.

http://www.peterdriver.info  

Please visit his website for more work!

I think interviews are a very successful way to research as you get a better feel for someones work when they express their own thoughts behind it. There is more emotion and from that I feel more inspired to carry on creating prints. Peter also made a point that backs up my research through practice method, he stated "I think I’ll keep learning until I die.  Every time I make a new piece I learn something new." This shows you can still gain technical and theoretical knowledge through making work. Reflecting on this process is something I strongly believe in.