Peggi Kroll Roberts : The Pursuit of Learning & Creating
Artist and Educator Peggi Kroll Roberts has dedicated her life to painting and teaching others. From a successful career as an illustrator to leading fine arts workshops for adults, Peggi is constantly exploring new opportunities within the art world. In this interview Peggi shares her creative journey and discusses the relationship between her teaching career and art practice.
Hi Peggi! Tell me about your background and where your creative journey began.
I was born in Canton, Ohio in 1954. My creative journey and commitment to art began when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I was influenced by my mother who was a very in demand fashion illustrator in the 50’s and 60’s. She was passionate about art and though she did not push us in any direction, her love for art and encouragement was a huge influence on me. I can remember while in grade school, drawing horses and ladies with elaborate bouffant hairdos incessantly. I also had an affirmation when my 3rd grade class selected my drawing of a cowboy as “the best” and I was awarded a pack of M&M’s! Fast forward, I was always involved in art. It was always my favorite class through my early education and I aways knew that in some way it would become my career. After high school I enrolled at Arizona State University as a Fine Art Major. This is where, in the beginning, my thoughts of making art as a career began to wane. This was because the school of thought was towards very modern and abstract expressions. My head was entrenched in that pictures had to look like the subject I was painting. I was enthralled with John Singer Sargent’s work. This, amazingly was dismissed. I continued on this course but my parents could see the floundering begin to happen. My mother encouraged me to think of focusing on a commercial illustration career and this opened a whole new world! I loved what was being created. This led me to leave ASU after 3 and 1/2 years and apply for admission to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. I found so many great illustrators that had attended this school and many great illustrators teaching there. It was intense and a lot of drawing and painting from life. I was in heaven. Underneath, though, was always a goal to be working in the real world. During the middle of my 5th semester at Art Center I went back to Arizona for Spring Break. I took a slapped together portfolio with me and thought I’d get a couple of reactions from professionals I was aware of. A retail store sent me home with work that same evening! I brought the drawing back, they sent me home with more work! By the time the break came to an end they offered me a full time staff position. I was so ready to make a living and gain real experience I left school and took the job working as a fashion illustrator concentrating on children’s and young teens fashions. I loved it! Fast forward to my last full time job before becoming a fine artist, I worked staff for a prominent advertising agency called Doyle, Dane, Bernbach in Los Angeles, CA. They hired me as their only staff “wrist” to work for their 7 or 8 art directors. I did all the comps and storyboards. I pulled many all nighters. I worked for them for 4 years and it gave me one of the greatest art experiences of my life. I drew everything you could imagine. I give this job credit to where my drawings skills are today.
By this time I am about 30 years old with a successful illustration career, newly married to a wonderful guy and fellow illustrator, Ray Roberts. As we started a family we moved from Los Angeles to Scottsdale, AZ and continued with illustrating for all sorts of national clients. We had agents in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Just by chance through our illustrator friend, Kevin Macpherson, we connected with the Scottsdale Artist School and started attending their open life drawing sessions. This relationship changed everything! Ray and I no longer wanted to be illustrators. We wanted to pursue fine art. The school invited both of us to start teaching and we went full steam ahead! We concentrated on Plein aire painting. Ray pursued landscape painting. I loved the figure so I painted my children and their friends. We pursued the fine art world vigorously. Many years by, this brings me to present day, being in my 60’s, painting and teaching full time.
Whether you're painting the figure or depicting a still life, your work emphasis light and color. What led you to focus on these elements?
I have always been drawn to depicting light and choosing pleasing, colorful subject matter. This comes from painting from life as much as I have. I love the challenge of painting the relationships of shapes of value and color I see in front of my eyes. This is the very thing that depicts light and form. I get very excited about feeling the effect of light in a work. I am drawn to strong contrast through the use of values, whether the work is representational or abstract. I have come full circle in appreciating all the “isms.” Thank God for maturity. My favorite will always be Joaquin Sorolla along with so many, many greats, spanning realism to abstract expressionism. I swoon over a beautiful Richard Diebenkorn as much as a I do an Abbott Thayer angel painting, as I do a Willem DeKooning abstract, as I do an Andrew Wyeth. I can’t decide and I could list so many more!
When did you begin teaching workshops for adults, and how does your work as a teacher inform your art practice?
I began teaching beginners up to other professionals around 1990/1991 through the Scottsdale Artist School. That was my real introduction. Teaching has provided a number of benefits for me. I’ve had to learn to articulate what’s in my head and translate it into words so that I could explain my process in user friendly exercises. Teaching has expanded my appreciation for the passion others feels. Teaching has introduced me to so many great people and created lasting friendships. But most importantly it gave me the courage to explore all the “isms” I have wanted to for years now. You can see from my IG content how passionate I am about being an explorer.
Your current series of collage work is centered around greek mythology. What inspired you to create this series, and how is this work similar or different than your paintings?
I was yearning to explore new mediums and directions. I had worked in oils for so long. I decided to take a class from an artist I admire named Nancy Gruskin. She was doing a lot of collage and though I had done work like this in college I wanted to get back to my exploring and I felt this was a great opportunity to play with another group of artists. A year later, it was purely by accident that I had some scraps of painted paper in disarray on my table and they happen to evoke an image of a flower in a vase. I gave myself permission to explore this further. Hence the flower and fruit collages. I happened to have a lot of painted black scraps I was piecing together and the shape just reminded me of the grecian urns I had seen in museums. I loved them. So I took one and collaged some female figures on it and that sparked me to create this series. My take was to use unexpected color relationships as well. This led me to start reading some of the greek myths. My goodness! Talk about drama! Maybe a little bit of the cart before the horse.
How is this work different or similar to my paintings? I think only through medium is it different. Otherwise the esthetic is all me no matter what materials or subject I have chosen. Some may say, “Peggi, this is so different for you”. And all I can think is “no, not really, it’s me”.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you? How has your studio practice shifted or evolved or time?
My typical day in the studio is finally at a point of getting out there and doing whatever I feel like doing at the moment! Even if a subject is in demand I don’t feel compelled to do more because of that. I don’t want any of my work to be thought of as a product. Even though it has a price and it sells and it’s in a market, its’ “being” does not begin as a product. It begins and ends as an artistic expression from my heart using all the knowledge I have gained through my life. It’s like Mary Cassatt’s gorgeous aquatints. Did she create a body of 10 or 12 of them? And then back to painting? I don’t know but that’s how I approach my art now. The passion has to be there for me. With everything else I work 10 to 14 hours almost everyday. This includes painting, working in ceramic, managing my online workshop content, managing my Social Media presence and the rest of life.
How has Instagram impacted your career as an artist?
Instagram and other social media platforms have changed everything! It has altered, upended, rearranged, for better or worse, the way we promote, expose, introduce, perpetuate ourselves and how we do business. I love it and it has enabled me to make a living. As requests came in for “more beach paintings” I found I was “empty.” I was in the middle of redefining myself as an artist and redefining the direction of my career and of what I wanted to say. With the resistance from galleries to this notion, it prompted me to open my own online shop using the Etsy platform. I needed a market for all my exploratory work. I wanted to become known for more than beach paintings and florals! I am still represented by a few select galleries but only ones that embrace my vision.
What are your greatest accomplishments as both a painter and teacher?
Well, my mother said to me so many years ago, “Peggi, you can be an artist AND have a family”. I have both. I have a wonderful supportive husband and 3 very successful children that are navigating life beautifully and these beings have supported and respected my artistic endeavors. The awards I have earned have only helped to bring my work to the attention of a larger audience. I hope it continues to grow. Teaching has connected me to a community of like minded people that are there for the pursuit of learning and creating. The passion is contagious and fuels me.
Follow Peggi on Instagram: peggikr
Website: www.krollroberts.com