RIDE LIKE HELL PENDING REPAIRS internet, I built a Bigfoot page on a website called GeoCities with the few pictures that existed at the time and wrote dumb Bigfoot stories. My family would tell ghost stories camping, or my grandparents would tell legends and lore, and I just ate up those types of stories. Since most of that stuff isn’t something you can go outside and study or get a reference for, you have to imagine it. Coming up with my ideas is fun because you get to imagine what this would look like, and mix in a real story and reality so people relate to it, and then conjure up a “what if.” “What if” is the biggest theme of all my art: What would it look like if such and such happened? Birdy: That absolutely comes through in your art. Though each piece has your personal stamp of imagination in it, your work is always seemingly open to the viewer to put their personal touch on it. Pete Kornowski: I sell at art fairs primarily, interacting with customers directly, and seeing people’s reactions is so cool. It triggers or reminds them of something very personal, or means something completely different from what I could have ever intended. When you’re making stuff every day, sometimes you just make something because you treat it like a job and need to work. Then you show it to somebody and it makes that connection. The power of that fascinates me every time because I could never plan for it. Birdy: You’re putting out good energy through what you’re doing, making a positive impact on people, which is pretty dope. But also staying true to your vision as an artist. Pete Kornowski: Thanks. Some people come into my art fair booth and say, “I love your sense of humor,” or “That one really makes me laugh.” I’m not trying to make my art silly, goofy or comical. I want it to be like, “What would this really look like if …” But I also don’t want it to be scary. I don’t want real violence or anything brutally over the top in my paintings, but I want it to be a little bit shocking. Like what would that moment look like and feel like if you encountered this creature or saw this craft? I try to walk that line where it’s not silly, but it’s not scary — just believable. Birdy: You capture that perfectly. And you create that mystery where the viewer has to use their imagination, which makes it interactive. No. 151 Pete Kornowski: When you can tap into the viewer’s own imagination, it saves you the trouble of having to explain it all. Whether it’s a written story or what I try to do in my images — you don’t have to explain everything. You get to use the viewer’s imagination as one of your tools in the painting. People ask me all the time in my booth, “What is happening?” or “Where is this from?” And I say, “That’s for you to answer. My job is done. I made the picture, now you get to tell the story.” That keeps the painting alive forever. There could be a whole backstory, a future, and it can intertwine with other images. I love the open-endedness of it because that’s how I see life. I don't have all the answers, and I don’t want to know all the answers. Birdy: You’re speaking our language. Being a full-time artist how do you stay disciplined with making art? What’s a day-in-the-life of Pete Kornowski like? Pete Kornowski: Staying motivated for me is easy because for a long time I had a non-art job. Every day I thought, Man, if I could just do something else. It wasn’t the hardest job, but I knew I wasn’t using my superpower. Now, any moment I feel like I don’t want to fulfill a print order or don’t feel like painting, I remind myself, Dude, you could be plunging a toilet right now at your last job. As for the practicality of a real day, we get up, have breakfast and I usually have a plan set up from the day before. Leave something to start on from the previous day — whether it’s a painting, initial drawings, or printing and packaging wholesale orders. Once I start working, it leads me into the next thing to do. We’ve created a flexible lifestyle mixing in time with my wife, our daughter, and family stuff around our property. But I start the day by working, trying to do at least five or six hours on something each day, sometimes much more. My mentality is to treat it like a workday: show up and get something done. At the end of the day, it’s a fun, creative small business filled with Bigfoot and UFOs. But it is a business. Like an electrician, I still have to find customers, fulfill orders, pay taxes, order supplies. I remind myself it wasn’t always like this. So if I can’t enjoy this, what else am I going to do? Birdy: When you’re self-employed, it’s not a linear path, and it’s
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