ART
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Pete Moraites
www.petemoraites.com
Watch "Program Yourself" on YouTube
When did you really get into art?
Always been into art. Drawing and writing stories since I was four years old...
started collecting comic books when I was in 3rd, 4th 5th grade, which is about
when I started to intentionally focus my attention on drawing... it's always
been fun but this is about when I began to focus with a deliberate intention of
what I first thought of as improvement, and I've since come to know as
evolution.
How did you come to the realization that you should try
your luck at art on a more serious level?
When I started reading comic books and playing role playing games like dungeons
and dragons... video games, too... all this stuff which I found entertaining, a
lot of time I was actually more engaged by the art of it then by the actual book
or game itself. I'd look at the illustrations... read the stories, use the
gaming systems and I loved the art of it all. That was when I first started
making art with the intention of developing my skills, and also when I started
thinking about making art as a process which I wanted to integrate fully into my
life, which in a commercial society means making it a career if you want that
degree of integration.
How did you discover the particular style that you have?
I find my palette broadening every day. Lately my work grows out of the twin
focuses of "Say what's in your heart" and "all I need is within me now... use
what you have... you have all you need"
How would you describe your style?
I've been mixing different iterations of my work... so it's all evolving... I'm
a big believer in making things with whatever you have access to at the moment,
which in my case for a long time was a digital still camera and a few reams of
printer paper, so the style evolves with access to tools and resources... as my
work has become more collaborative, it's become more complex as well. I think
style is ultimately ephemeral if what you're focused on is a need to communicate
something, either to the world or to yourself, or both. Maybe someday I'll
settle into a set of comfortable tools and processes, and the evolution of my
process will be more of a fine-tuning. Maybe that's already begun. Maybe it's
not for me to say.
Who or what influences your art?
Communication. Evolution. Hypnosis. Magic. Comic books. Disinformation.
RESfest. I love the proliferation of stuff like the 48hr. film festival. I
guess that's more of an inspiration than an influence. Visually, big influences
have been comic books, artists like John Byrne and George Perez when I first
started noticing particular artists works... then there's Walt Simonson and Bill
Sienkievicz who I think are still likely to be my top favorites. Rob Schrab (www.scud.com),
too... for his writing as well as his art. Arthur Adams. Cartoons... I grew
up on Battle of The Planets Space Cruiser Yamato Star Blazers, that kinda
thing... now I love stuff like south park and aqua teen and twelve oz. Mouse.
12 oz mouse is brilliant. If the twin Peaks audience ever finds it en masse,
and they see past the look of it, it'll be huge. commercial motion graphics,
film titles, station ID's ...people like Kyle Cooper... musically, Peter
Gabriel, The Police, Thomas Dolby, Ultravox, a huge amount of influence from all
the great music I grew up with in the eighties... I also grew up with the
Beatles, the Stones, The Who, Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers... classic rock was
a big influence... and then of course moving on through Bowie, some jazz,
particularly Brubeck and Herbie Hancock. Then though the Chili Peppers, Nine
Inch Nails, Ministry, Sarah McLachlan and Natalie Merchant (Probably the most
polar time in my consistent music listening ) the Chemical Brothers And very
much Underworld... Soma and Amon Tobin are two of my current favorites...
Now I'm more influenced by process, though... I've absorbed
alof of media and stuff still comes in, but lately I'm more in output mode, so
what influences me is parameters like creating as exercise in intention... in
manifestation... magick is a big influence. I'm reading Taylor Ellwood's "Pop
Culture Magick" which is influencing my current works.
How often do you create a new piece?
To some extent or another, there's always a new piece beginning... and now a lot
of the work I've done, I've been remixing into various iterations... gradually,
you don't see individual pieces as much as a steady stream of creation... with
things like the proliferation of YouTube, we're seeing the role of the creator,
the artist in our culture becoming more of a comprehensive role... we are the
writer, director, observer (director of photography) editor , score and special
effects of our lives... we're realizing more and more that we're also the
supporting cast. Like I was saying about YouTube, now people broadcasting
their lives and revealing more and more... the flip side of the whole "BIG
BROTHER " is watching you thing, is that the more we are revealing ourselves,
the more we realize we don't need secrets... the internet is the end of privacy,
both as an inevitable process propelled really by curiosity... and as something
we've been choosing to discard because secrets and lies and that kind of thing
are too much friggin work to keep up.... Wow... I should get back on topic...
ah... so as we tune into making art as a process of ongoing communication with
ourselves and with each other and the universe, well, mine seems to be evolving
more as a steady stream, which can be edited into any amount of new pieces at
any given time. Does that make sense?
What kind of success have you had with your art?
Different successes at different times in different ways. I wrote and
illustrated a comic strip for Nickelodeon which I thought was such a cool
experience.
Around that time my friend Brian Palmer and I shot a couple of videos for Ecko Clothing when they were starting out... that was another moment ... they both were projects which gave me great artistic freedom and so they were projects which were huge breakthroughs for me in terms of broadening my palette of skills, as well as putting more of my skills into practice and actually broadcasting my creative work to the attention of a lot of people... all of which really fuelled a lot of creativity.
I did motion graphics and video stuff for Tony Robbins live seminars for a while, which was a really cool experience as well... I got to travel around a bit as a result, which was a new kind of success for me, and something I'd always wanted. The environment and energy helped me focus a lot, and I adopted a lot of skills there. The immersive focus on language the power and process of language... it took me a while to realize how much that became an influence in my artwork...
What would be the ultimate goal for you and your art?
To transmit my version of what's been said a billion times before... visions of
love, unity, compassion, and how life is really awesome when we're in line with
our heart's intentions which all seem to come back to love, unity, compassion.
I think an ultimate goal for any artistic process is to harmonize the artist
more and more with the universe.
What do you see as an accomplishment in the way of art?
I think my most remarkable accomplishment in the way of art so far has been
manifesting the qualities in me which attracted and allowed a really amazing
person into my life, and allowing myself to be transformed in that connection...
fusing together the creation of art with the creation of relationship.
What kind of message, if any, do you try to convey
through your art?
Sometimes it's all about the process... just letting go and seeing what comes
through... other times it's very intentional, and usually the message I'm
communicating is whatever I feel I most need to hear / see myself. Even stuff
that gets churned out in "Just make stuff, stop thinking about it" mode, either
winds up tuning itself into something more intentional, or maybe getting
incorporated and edited later on with more deliberation. It can sometimes be
like digging up clay for the fun of the digging, and then shaping the clay later
with a vision in mind.
Sum up your art in one word.
Communication. Or love. I find those words very much synonymous
Any additional comments?
The one thing I'm excited to see more and more of is people mixing and remixing
and editing each other's works. Colaborative Creation is the emergent trend in
entertainment. Passive entertainment is a fading dinosaur. I love seeing stuff
like YouTube proliferate where, with each step of gathering more and more social
aggregation, it becomes more and more about the communication and how we relate
to one another. People are spending less time on TV and more time making and
sharing stuff. This makes me smile.
So much of the work on PeteMoraites.com, particularly the "Spelling Test" DVD, is hugely collaborative. My favorite and, in my opinion, best works have been in musical collaboration with Eric Scott at DayForNight.com. PeteMoraites.com as a work of art in and of itself has been an ongoing collaboration with Eric as well. He's one of my favorite people to have the joy to work and create with... and that kind of collaboration makes for very powerful friendship as well. I can't overemphasize how, in my experience, co-creating is one of the most profound activities we can engage in together as humans. It adds such depth to our relationships. "Twitterpation" (one of the "Spelling Test" videos) is the result of my first date with Alyson Boote. Over the course of a year and a half we created "Hypnorama", "LineTwine", "Adventure" and "Program Yourself" together which, with a few of my solo pieces have become the "Spelling Test " collection, just to name the "completed" pieces, plus an enormous volume of photography and drawings. This collaboration has resulted in my best work, as well as the greatest depth of an intimate relationship I've known in my life. When I experience the work myself, it's the collaboration for which I feel most grateful... the creation of joyful, playful memories.
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