THE EVENING NEWS CREATURE IN THE STREET certainly not easy. But you have to have gratitude for the fact that we get to deal with art and creatures and fun. Pete Kornowski: It’s gotten easier for me over the years. Early on, being self-employed felt really fragile, thinking a month ahead at a time and worrying where the next job was coming from. But after 10 years of doing it, you realize you always figure it out and things build up to get stronger and more stable. I do feel pressure from time to time to come up with new ideas that are as cool or better than what I just did. I go through waves of feeling confident and then feeling like I want to throw it all away, before waking up the next day realizing what an awesome life I have. Birdy: You definitely have it covered. You come up with new art all the time that blows people away. Pete Kornowski: Thanks, man. People ask where I get my ideas, and I say I just follow my own general interest in legends and lore. But really, I have so many ideas there’s not enough time to do them all. The real problem is picking which one is going to be the strongest so I don’t waste the day. I get waves of inspiration where I want to go in a totally different direction, and that channel is always on. Ideas are just always there. Birdy: How do you exist in this digital, high-information world as an analog artist, especially with things like AI advancing at lightning speed? Pete Kornowski: I grew up seeing the whole evolution of the internet, so I lived a life without it and saw how people really interacted. The idea of making something with a human touch that stays alive and gets passed around, I just stayed in the momentum of my own creativity and never worried about it too much. When I sell to people in person, they calm down. They sit and stare at a painting for a few minutes, the wheels turn in their mind, and they ask a question or share a story. People still have that connection to a real piece of art, especially when the artist is standing there and they can see the artist’s hand in the thing that was made. They’re getting a little piece of you. I think that is still alive and well despite technology. As for tools like AI or digital art, it’s just like when photography or printing came along. Painters panicked, but people can tell the difference and want the real thing. AI is cool for solving problems and creating shortcuts, like a power tool for a carpenter. Art is the constant, and these technologies are just little satellites around the outside. A handmade thing or a live performance made with someone’s own hands doesn’t change, and you can’t really replace that. Birdy:They both can exist. But the human will always win with art. Pete Kornowski: I have conversations with artists about this who worry it’s going to ruin business, but there are billions of people on the planet. Even if AI becomes popular, there are still going to be hundreds of thousands of people who want to buy paintings from you, and you’re going to be fine. That world is so fake too. Real people are feeding content into it, but it’s really easy to just look away from the screen. I know they’re designed to addict and people use them for business and entertainment, but it’s pretty easy to check out and go do something that doesn’t involve a screen. Get out a piece of paper and write something down, draw a picture, go outside and play with your kids, or make up a game. All the old ways of entertainment are still there. They didn’t go anywhere. So I don’t fear technology or AI in relation to my art business. I don’t feel it pressuring me to do anything or to not do anything. I’m just going forward with what I want to do no matter what. Birdy: Speaking of tuning out the visual noise of the screen, do you listen to music or podcasts when you’re working, or do you paint in silence? Pete Kornowski: I have my go-to podcasts and radio programs, like Sasquatch Chronicles. Every once in a while I’ll throw on a movie in the background. I usually have something going on — painting UFOs in my basement in complete silence would make me feel like a psychopath. Birdy: Do you only work in acrylic? Pete Kornowski: Yeah, I own tons of other kinds of paint, but most of my techniques and process I’ve learned over the years are with acrylic. When I decided I was going to paint more, there just happened to be acrylic paint in the house, so that’s what I used and learned from there. For the way I like to make a painting, acrylic works great for me. I can 25
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