WEBVTT

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>>I love the way it looks,

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the way it looks right
now, when you look at it.

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That\'s some deep shit, boy, I tell you.

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>>Can you describe what you see?

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>>Hmm.

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Hmm, hmm, hmm.

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Pretty fuckin\' far out.

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I mean, serious movement with color.

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It\'s very peculiar.

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It\'s extremely peculiar, and uh...

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I don\'t know even know how
to explain it, or even start.

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There\'s a shadow in the painting.

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See it?

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You see the reflection from
these doors and into the right there?

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The light fluctuates
and it gives me an idea

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how to introduce that shape
right into that space.

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I like that.

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It may have to take another color there,

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which would be interesting.

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What kind of color are you thinking about?

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(musing music)

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There\'s people that are portrait painters,

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there\'s people that paint objects,

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and then there\'s people
that just paint color,

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and they\'re called abstract.

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I\'m not certain it\'s abstract at all.

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I think the concept
sounds a little abstract,

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but the reality of it is,
color\'s the most important thing.

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(musing music ends)

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Most people think of an artist saying,

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\"I\'m gonna draw this apple today

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and it\'s gonna be the best
apple that\'s ever seen.\"

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They spend all their time
drawing the fucking apple.

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Forget about the stem,
just look at the color.

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And it\'s a better thing
than the apple itself.

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You can\'t eat it, but the color\'s better.

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That\'s the only way I see
it, and other than that...

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I don\'t know what\'s going on.

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(jazzy music)

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In 1972, I had my first one-man
show with André Emmerich.

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André had the major gallery
in the world at that time,

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abstract painting, Color Field painting.

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I did three shows with him.

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And I was the first
Black person ever to show

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at 57th Street and Madison Avenue.

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And um, it\'s been 45 years
since André showed me

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and I\'ve never been able
to get a gallery since.

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That was it.

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And um...

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you know, it just...

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You just paint because you
have to paint, that\'s all.

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You can\'t consider painting
because you wanna sell it,

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because you didn\'t get
into the game to sell it.

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You didn\'t know it could be sold

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when you started doing it anyway.

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(engine roaring)

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♪ Mm, and my father ♪

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♪ Night and day ♪

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♪ Left this poor child to cry ♪

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♪ Night and day ♪

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Ray Charles! (chuckles)
♪ Whoa, whoa, baby ♪

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♪ Night and day ♪

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♪ Yeah, come home baby♪

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♪ Night and day ♪

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♪ I want you to hold my hand ♪

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♪ Night and day ♪

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♪ Yeah, tight as you can ♪

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Everything you do every day,
if you\'re a human being,

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makes you a better human being
at what you\'re trying to be.

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I think I\'m at the point right now

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where I\'m at the best point

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I\'ve ever been in my life as an artist.

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And at this age, I\'m lucky to
still be doing it every day.

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Trust me.

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It\'s physically demanding
starting it and getting it done.

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Every canvas is a new battle,

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and if I\'ve got the paint,
I\'m gonna win the battle.

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(grandiose music)

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(jazzy music)

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I\'m still intrigued by it all the time,

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making art.

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(music ends)

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The seasons give me encouragement to work.

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Different times of the year, I
get more inspired with color;

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the changing color of
leaves, what ice does.

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Everything changes every day.

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I\'m impressed by that because
that\'s just the way it works.

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It\'s all about work every day.

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(wind whistling softly)

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(Peter exhales)

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Ooh...

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(Peter sighs)

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My grandson says I\'m not realizing my age.

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He says, \"You\'re too old to do

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as much as you\'re doing today.\"

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I had the shoulder replacement,

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both knees replaced (sighs)

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and COPD.

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A lot of pain...

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There\'s certain things I can\'t do,

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but I keep doing \'em all the time,

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carrying wood, walking
up and down the hills...

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My strength all goes to
painting at this point.

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(fire crackling)

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Come on, I\'m gonna be 80 years old

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so I\'ve gotta get another
at least 10 or 15 years

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in this gig, at least,
to get on top of it.

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(Peter chuckles)

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(pencil scratching)

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Hmm.

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It\'s been my life.

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All my life, it\'s all I\'ve ever done.

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I\'ve been painting since
I was tiny, I think.

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I had a studio just like this,

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a room on the top floor,

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and my mom would come up to the room

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and sit in the mornings
with me and watch me draw.

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And she said, \"Well, I could do this,

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but someone\'s gotta work around here.\"

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And she\'d go to work and that was it.

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And then she bought me a lot of paint

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and I started to paint.

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She was a great woman.

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(musing music)

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I grew up in Connellsville, Pennsylvania,

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where I was adopted as infant.

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My mother had no children of her own,

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and she was determined I
was gonna draw all the time.

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My mother said, \"Do not leave your studio

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until you\'re satisfied.\"

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She said, \"You know, if
you\'re gonna be a painter,

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you have to paint every day.\"

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And I would start painting
pictures and she\'d look at it,

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I\'d say, \"What do you think of this?\"

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\"Yeah, It\'s good, but
it\'s not a real flower.\"

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Because that\'s all I painted was flowers.

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What else was I gonna paint?

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I didn\'t know any
different about anything.

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Look at this guy.

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Well that\'s all I ever did -

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my chore was always the flowers.

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I planted the flowers and cut the flowers

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and put \'em in the house
for my mom to look at.

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It\'s an orchid,

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It\'s very rare.

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It was a huge garden I had.

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I learned how to use a shovel and a pick

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and be delighted when something came up

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with color on it that I planted.

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I think that was the main message

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my mother was trying to give to me.

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And we\'re the only Black people

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in the town that had flowers. (laughs)

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Tragic, isn\'t it?

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That\'s really tragic.

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(wood cracking)

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(piano music)

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The paint\'s frozen.

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(drill whirring)

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(jazzy saxophone music)

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(music ending)

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(distant car traffic)

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(John Coltrane music)

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>>What are some of the
CDs you\'ve got over there?

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>>This is John Coltrane.

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Outrageous CD.

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Major musicians would come to our house

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all the time and hang out.

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That\'s what we\'re listening to now.

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\"The Trane.\"

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We had a huge house

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way on top of a big hill
overlooking the river

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and the railroad tracks
and the train station.

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Bradley, where I got my name from,

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was a waiter on the railroad.

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So he\'d meet all these
Black guys, musicians,

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and he\'d go, \"I got a house

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in Connellsville near Pittsburgh.

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You can stay there overnight

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for such and such amount of money,\"

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and they would all come and stay there

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on their way to Pittsburgh

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\'cause the train didn\'t go to Pittsburgh.

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That was it.

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(jazzy music)

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Art Blakey, he was from Pittsburgh.

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And he would bring Erroll Garner,

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Harold Betters,

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the Miles band came to there one time,

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not the whole band, but
Paul Chambers was with him,

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some people out of the Basie band.

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There were so many of them.

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And they would come to
house and eat dinner

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and sit and talk, and I got records.

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(jazzy music continues)

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I have to have music,
otherwise I can\'t paint.

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Anytime I go in that studio,
that sound system goes on,

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and it\'s a great one.

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(drill whirring)

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(jazzy music)

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Music is the key that opens your heart.

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I think I can promote the feeling

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of what I\'m thinking
about with music to color.

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And if I can get the
color to go with the music

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I\'m listening to in my interpretation,

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then I think I have a successful painting.

00:14:09.890 --> 00:14:12.393
(classical piano music)

00:14:18.691 --> 00:14:20.526
This is becoming more
like we\'re listening to.

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You see right here?

00:14:26.115 --> 00:14:28.242
This cloud here is becoming
more like we\'re listening to

00:14:28.242 --> 00:14:29.952
this music.

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(music continues)

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Every sound has a color.

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I could play you music

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and you could tell me what color you hear.

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It\'s simple, (laughing) I mean.

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Really.

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And I think that\'s what it\'s based on.

00:14:49.972 --> 00:14:52.057
(jazzy music)

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Different instruments

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have a different color spectrum on them.

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The bass is always gonna
be blue, black or tan.

00:15:00.691 --> 00:15:02.526
Trumpet, you can go to
yellow, you can go to white,

00:15:02.526 --> 00:15:03.694
you can go to silver.

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(jazzy trumpet music)

00:15:09.700 --> 00:15:13.370
(jazzy drum music)

00:15:13.746 --> 00:15:15.289
When I hear the rhythm section

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when a great drummer\'s playing,
like Art Blakey, Max Roach...

00:15:18.417 --> 00:15:20.794
they push everything forward.

00:15:20.794 --> 00:15:23.297
(jazzy music)

00:15:25.090 --> 00:15:27.593
Blakey was the greatest
drummer of all time.

00:15:27.593 --> 00:15:30.471
And um, he came to our house
four or five times or so,

00:15:30.471 --> 00:15:32.473
even more than that, when I was a kid.

00:15:32.473 --> 00:15:36.185
I was listening to Art Blakey\'s
band when I did this...

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The movement interacts with the music

00:15:38.062 --> 00:15:39.229
and that can interact with painting

00:15:39.229 --> 00:15:41.065
a certain way with color.

00:15:41.065 --> 00:15:43.192
Like I can almost dance with color

00:15:43.192 --> 00:15:45.653
instead of dancing physically.

00:15:46.862 --> 00:15:48.656
Music, when you see it in person,

00:15:48.656 --> 00:15:50.115
you see these people doing
all these kind of things,

00:15:50.115 --> 00:15:51.617
they doing all this kind of stuff,

00:15:51.617 --> 00:15:54.662
that\'s what gets into the
painting situation part of it.

00:15:54.662 --> 00:15:57.122
See, like when I come in
here, I\'m ready to play.

00:15:57.122 --> 00:15:58.916
Whatever instrument I\'m picking
up, I\'m ready to play it,

00:15:58.916 --> 00:16:01.001
you know, in color.

00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:03.962
(jazzy music)

00:16:16.183 --> 00:16:17.976
Jazz is completely abstract

00:16:17.976 --> 00:16:20.562
when it comes to certain people in jazz.

00:16:20.562 --> 00:16:24.316
It lift\'s your spirit and it
adds color to your mind

00:16:24.316 --> 00:16:26.902
on a lot of levels, because
you know, the blues,

00:16:26.902 --> 00:16:29.196
all they do is talk about
how sad it is being Black.

00:16:29.196 --> 00:16:34.034
But modern jazz, they had a
tendency to set the blues up

00:16:34.034 --> 00:16:36.829
and then spark it with
something really sharp

00:16:36.829 --> 00:16:38.580
that let you know how
intelligent they were.

00:16:38.580 --> 00:16:40.541
And that\'s where I come
in on the deal, I think.

00:16:40.541 --> 00:16:42.251
That\'s what I look for.

00:16:42.251 --> 00:16:43.085
What do you wanna hear,

00:16:43.085 --> 00:16:45.295
Stan Kenton, Dizzy
Gillespie, Charlie Parker,

00:16:45.295 --> 00:16:50.300
Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins,
Art Blakey, Jimmy Cobb?

00:16:50.342 --> 00:16:52.302
I\'ll play you something that I like a lot.

00:16:52.302 --> 00:16:54.763
Let\'s see if I can find it.

00:16:54.763 --> 00:16:56.181
>>So what\'s this?

00:16:56.181 --> 00:16:57.933
>>Sarah Vaughan.

00:16:57.933 --> 00:16:59.101
I love her.

00:16:59.101 --> 00:17:00.978
♪ Summertime ♪

00:17:00.978 --> 00:17:02.980
...time, yeah!

00:17:05.441 --> 00:17:08.694
♪ And the livin\' is easy ♪

00:17:08.694 --> 00:17:12.573
I saw her in Pittsburgh when I was a kid.

00:17:12.573 --> 00:17:16.702
♪ Oh, your daddy\'s rich ♪

00:17:18.037 --> 00:17:22.708
And your mama\'s good looking.
♪ And your ma is good looking ♪

00:17:22.708 --> 00:17:25.627
She\'d better be if your daddy\'s rich.

00:17:26.670 --> 00:17:31.049
♪ So, hush little baby ♪
Hush little baby.

00:17:31.049 --> 00:17:35.471
Don\'t you cry.
♪ Don\'t you cry ♪

00:17:35.471 --> 00:17:40.476
My mother made money. Because
she had foster children.

00:17:40.517 --> 00:17:42.770
64 of \'em she had.

00:17:42.770 --> 00:17:45.522
There were no white kids,
they were all Black kids

00:17:45.522 --> 00:17:47.733
and she treated all of us like love.

00:17:47.733 --> 00:17:50.944
Every one of us was treated
with great love from her.

00:17:52.946 --> 00:17:55.199
Only two of us were adopted.

00:17:55.199 --> 00:17:56.492
I didn\'t know I was adopted

00:17:56.492 --> 00:17:59.828
till, I guess, I was in
maybe eighth or ninth grade.

00:17:59.828 --> 00:18:01.914
And if my mother knew,

00:18:01.914 --> 00:18:05.292
she never told me who
my real parents were.

00:18:05.292 --> 00:18:06.293
For a long time, you know,

00:18:06.293 --> 00:18:08.045
I thought Miles Davis
might have been my father.

00:18:08.045 --> 00:18:10.130
He never said he wasn\'t.

00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:11.215
Miles was in our house one time

00:18:11.215 --> 00:18:12.758
and my mother\'s brother said,

00:18:12.758 --> 00:18:15.094
\"He\'s just like that
little ugly Black father

00:18:15.094 --> 00:18:18.096
of his over there,\" and
he pointed to Miles.

00:18:18.096 --> 00:18:19.515
And he was the type of Black person

00:18:19.515 --> 00:18:22.017
that if you were one
shade darker than him,

00:18:22.017 --> 00:18:24.103
you were considered no good

00:18:24.103 --> 00:18:25.562
\'cause Black people wanted to be white.

00:18:25.562 --> 00:18:26.980
They didn\'t wanna be that dark.

00:18:26.980 --> 00:18:28.941
And I was confused
because I was just a child

00:18:28.941 --> 00:18:33.695
and um, I thought that Bradley was my father

00:18:33.695 --> 00:18:36.490
\'cause I had the same name.

00:18:36.490 --> 00:18:38.659
And my mom said, BAM,

00:18:38.659 --> 00:18:40.202
she hit him with a dish cloth,

00:18:40.202 --> 00:18:43.038
a wet dish cloth in the mouth.

00:18:43.038 --> 00:18:46.208
He never spoke to me again, never.

00:18:47.167 --> 00:18:49.294
That story existed from
the time I was a child

00:18:49.294 --> 00:18:51.713
that he was my father.

00:18:51.713 --> 00:18:53.507
Miles is only 14 years older than me,

00:18:53.507 --> 00:18:56.885
but I know guys from the town
I came from had kids at 13,

00:18:56.885 --> 00:19:00.472
you know, so as long as
something comes out the gun,

00:19:00.472 --> 00:19:03.142
you can do it, I guess, I don\'t know.

00:19:04.226 --> 00:19:06.478
All I know is I was adopted
and there\'s no record

00:19:06.478 --> 00:19:09.857
saying anything about a
father one way or the other.

00:19:10.566 --> 00:19:12.442
You never saw my trumpet, have you?

00:19:12.442 --> 00:19:15.612
(Peter plays the trumpet)

00:19:19.867 --> 00:19:23.412
This is the same trumpet
that Miles Davis plays.

00:19:23.412 --> 00:19:26.373
I had four or five of Miles\' mouthpieces.

00:19:26.373 --> 00:19:28.333
These two are his, I know that.

00:19:28.333 --> 00:19:30.502
That\'s one of them.

00:19:30.502 --> 00:19:32.379
When I was a kid I had a trumpet

00:19:32.379 --> 00:19:34.173
and I was getting pretty good at it.

00:19:34.173 --> 00:19:36.466
And the teacher told my mother

00:19:36.466 --> 00:19:39.845
my lips were too big to
be a good trumpet player.

00:19:39.845 --> 00:19:43.140
So she opened up a drawer on my desk

00:19:43.140 --> 00:19:44.850
and threatened him with
an ax and she said,

00:19:44.850 --> 00:19:48.103
\"Well, is Louis Armstrong\'s
lips smaller than his?\"

00:19:48.103 --> 00:19:50.439
Scared the shit outta the guy.

00:19:50.439 --> 00:19:51.648
She terrified him.

00:19:51.648 --> 00:19:54.902
And I never played anymore, I quit.

00:19:54.902 --> 00:19:56.445
But I was painting at the same time.

00:19:56.445 --> 00:19:59.198
But that\'s when I realized
can happen to a young child

00:19:59.198 --> 00:20:02.701
with a racist comment coming
at \'em like that, you know?

00:20:03.702 --> 00:20:04.995
And my mother, she made sure

00:20:04.995 --> 00:20:06.121
that I was the best dressed kid,

00:20:06.121 --> 00:20:08.457
Black or white, in the town.

00:20:09.541 --> 00:20:11.752
There was a place called Gigliotti.

00:20:11.752 --> 00:20:13.837
They made custom-made clothing

00:20:13.837 --> 00:20:16.882
and my mother bought all my
clothes from Gigliotti\'s.

00:20:16.882 --> 00:20:18.634
Sometimes people would make fun of me

00:20:18.634 --> 00:20:20.510
because of the clothes I wore.

00:20:20.510 --> 00:20:23.472
And she would say that I was special

00:20:23.472 --> 00:20:26.183
and not to be concerned about anybody,

00:20:26.183 --> 00:20:27.684
\"Black, white, blue or grizzly gray,\"

00:20:27.684 --> 00:20:29.561
that\'s what she would say.

00:20:29.561 --> 00:20:33.023
She said, \"Don\'t let
anyone fuck with you.\"

00:20:33.023 --> 00:20:35.692
My mother was a powerful
woman in that town,

00:20:35.692 --> 00:20:38.487
I didn\'t have any resentment
about being Black.

00:20:38.487 --> 00:20:39.905
We had brand new cars all the time.

00:20:39.905 --> 00:20:42.908
And I had money in my pocket all the time.

00:20:44.242 --> 00:20:47.287
I didn\'t have many Black
friends because of that.

00:20:48.789 --> 00:20:50.916
I got on top of because I had the clothes,

00:20:50.916 --> 00:20:55.295
I traveled and I had the big
mouth, \"Go fuck yourself.

00:20:55.295 --> 00:20:57.089
I don\'t care what you think
about me,\" and that was it.

00:20:57.089 --> 00:20:58.590
If you don\'t like it, let\'s go
out in the back of the house

00:20:58.590 --> 00:21:00.259
and take care of it.

00:21:03.512 --> 00:21:05.514
I didn\'t finish my senior year

00:21:05.514 --> 00:21:09.184
because I didn\'t like
Connellsville anymore.

00:21:09.184 --> 00:21:12.104
Nothing there for me to do.

00:21:13.188 --> 00:21:16.024
(geese honking)

00:21:26.702 --> 00:21:29.538
This is the loneliest
I\'ve ever been in my life.

00:21:30.205 --> 00:21:31.331
I\'m here by myself all the time

00:21:31.331 --> 00:21:34.334
because my wife works
so we can pay the bills.

00:21:34.334 --> 00:21:37.587
She works outside the house
and I stay here all the time

00:21:37.587 --> 00:21:42.592
and I paint day and night and
hope for the sale of paintings.

00:21:42.843 --> 00:21:44.177
This is where I come
first thing in the morning

00:21:44.177 --> 00:21:45.846
and then to the studio every day.

00:21:45.846 --> 00:21:47.014
It\'s kind of redundant,

00:21:47.014 --> 00:21:49.141
but that\'s what I do every day of my life.

00:21:49.141 --> 00:21:51.393
I don\'t leave the property.

00:21:53.770 --> 00:21:56.356
So if you don\'t go anywhere,
you don\'t talk to anyone,

00:21:56.356 --> 00:21:58.859
but people that come to see you,

00:21:58.859 --> 00:21:59.693
it\'s kind of difficult.

00:21:59.693 --> 00:22:02.362
It\'s like living on another planet almost,

00:22:02.362 --> 00:22:05.949
which I don\'t mind, as
long as it\'s my planet.

00:22:06.950 --> 00:22:09.453
Time to get rid of all this shit here.

00:22:09.453 --> 00:22:12.539
I can plant something
that\'s hipper than this.

00:22:12.539 --> 00:22:14.875
(Peter straining)

00:22:15.876 --> 00:22:17.711
Why would I keep that?

00:22:22.049 --> 00:22:25.552
It\'s close to 30 years
ago, getting this house.

00:22:25.552 --> 00:22:29.014
You think it\'s a wreck now,
you should have seen it then.

00:22:32.726 --> 00:22:34.770
I love it here.

00:22:34.770 --> 00:22:38.565
I don\'t care if I ever go
back to Manhattan again.

00:22:38.565 --> 00:22:40.650
I\'m tired of paying rent.

00:22:43.195 --> 00:22:47.032
This house was built in
1709 is what I understand.

00:22:47.032 --> 00:22:49.868
The Dutch, I know they\'re
noted for stone houses,

00:22:49.868 --> 00:22:52.913
but people say this house
was built by Black slaves.

00:22:52.913 --> 00:22:56.792
Slaves built this house, that\'s
what I hear, on the down low.

00:22:56.792 --> 00:23:00.545
I can believe that, 300
years back, you know?

00:23:02.422 --> 00:23:05.842
Dutch know what stone is,
they know how to work with it.

00:23:05.842 --> 00:23:07.677
But so do we, you know,

00:23:07.677 --> 00:23:10.430
if you think about Egypt.

00:23:10.430 --> 00:23:15.435
(fire crackling)
(shovel scraping)

00:23:17.646 --> 00:23:21.400
I\'ve only sold one
picture in two years here.

00:23:24.069 --> 00:23:25.320
I paint pictures every fucking day

00:23:25.320 --> 00:23:28.949
and they\'re here but, you know, Jesus!

00:23:28.949 --> 00:23:31.284
We have no place to put \'em.

00:23:32.494 --> 00:23:34.496
What can I say?

00:23:34.496 --> 00:23:36.665
I\'m not gonna cry about it.

00:23:36.665 --> 00:23:39.876
I\'m just not in position
to sell paintings.

00:23:39.876 --> 00:23:41.461
I mean, no one knows where I live,

00:23:41.461 --> 00:23:43.839
and I never go to New York City.

00:23:43.839 --> 00:23:46.424
And no one here buys paintings.

00:23:48.218 --> 00:23:51.304
That\'s why my wife has two jobs.

00:23:51.972 --> 00:23:54.724
(wind whistling)

00:23:59.062 --> 00:24:01.940
Watch me start this fire.

00:24:01.940 --> 00:24:04.693
(match scraping)

00:24:06.695 --> 00:24:09.448
(fire whooshing)

00:24:10.323 --> 00:24:11.741
Fires are like people,

00:24:11.741 --> 00:24:13.243
they take a long time to get to know,

00:24:13.243 --> 00:24:15.579
then they warm up. They start slow.

00:24:16.538 --> 00:24:18.290
They start very slow.

00:24:18.290 --> 00:24:21.918
You have to build \'em from the bottom up.

00:24:21.918 --> 00:24:24.504
Once you get it built,
that son of a bitch will

00:24:24.504 --> 00:24:26.548
Burn up, boy.

00:24:30.927 --> 00:24:33.221
(jazzy music)

00:24:33.221 --> 00:24:34.723
When I dropped out of high school

00:24:34.723 --> 00:24:37.267
I went to Detroit to live
with my older sister,

00:24:37.267 --> 00:24:38.560
Ellen Wright.

00:24:41.813 --> 00:24:43.732
Black people that were just
starting to run into money

00:24:43.732 --> 00:24:48.236
on a hip way like Marvin
Gaye and Smokey Robinson,

00:24:48.236 --> 00:24:50.697
I mean, they all were
in that neighborhood.

00:24:50.697 --> 00:24:52.324
And Aretha was always parked on the corner

00:24:52.324 --> 00:24:54.242
in the Cadillac, you know?

00:24:55.452 --> 00:24:56.912
I met Aretha Franklin

00:24:56.912 --> 00:24:58.663
and she was just another talented kid

00:24:58.663 --> 00:25:00.248
in the neighborhood.

00:25:00.248 --> 00:25:02.667
I used to see her every day.

00:25:02.667 --> 00:25:06.463
And at night sometimes
I\'d go to the nightclubs.

00:25:06.463 --> 00:25:08.006
The first time I saw Miles get it for real

00:25:08.006 --> 00:25:09.674
was in The Minor Key.

00:25:09.674 --> 00:25:11.801
He had Coltrane with him.

00:25:11.801 --> 00:25:14.346
Miles would always hang
out with me in Detroit.

00:25:14.346 --> 00:25:15.847
And he would talk to me
and have conversations

00:25:15.847 --> 00:25:18.517
about things when he wouldn\'t
look at anybody else.

00:25:18.517 --> 00:25:20.894
And I thought that was important.

00:25:20.894 --> 00:25:23.355
When I went to Detroit, it
was a whole different life.

00:25:24.439 --> 00:25:26.483
I saw Black people driving brand new cars.

00:25:26.483 --> 00:25:29.736
I saw Black people wearing
certain type of clothing

00:25:29.736 --> 00:25:32.822
and I saw Black people
owning their own houses.

00:25:32.822 --> 00:25:35.200
Black people were able to
buy at Boston Boulevard,

00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:39.287
Chicago Boulevard,
LaSalle, beautiful houses.

00:25:39.287 --> 00:25:42.457
I didn\'t see that in Connellsville.

00:25:42.457 --> 00:25:44.918
It gave me a sense that I could do better.

00:25:44.918 --> 00:25:47.420
(jazzy music continues)

00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:52.592
And that\'s how I got to see
museums and things in Detroit.

00:25:52.592 --> 00:25:54.302
De Kooning was the first one

00:25:54.302 --> 00:25:57.097
got my attention when
I was a kid, I think.

00:25:57.097 --> 00:25:59.557
De Kooning took the human figure

00:25:59.557 --> 00:26:02.686
and pushed it around to an
abstraction look or whatever.

00:26:02.686 --> 00:26:05.230
But I didn\'t feel that he
set the pace for abstraction,

00:26:05.230 --> 00:26:06.898
I think Pollock did.

00:26:08.275 --> 00:26:12.237
But I don\'t know many
Black abstract artists

00:26:12.237 --> 00:26:15.490
that were successful
at making abstract art.

00:26:16.533 --> 00:26:18.827
Two that I knew that were great,

00:26:18.827 --> 00:26:21.871
Ed Clark was a great friend of mine.
I knew him in France

00:26:22.539 --> 00:26:24.291
And then there\'s Sam Gilliam,

00:26:24.291 --> 00:26:28.253
And they\'re considered major Black artists
in the world, abstract artists.

00:26:29.462 --> 00:26:32.132
They gotta make some room for me.

00:26:32.132 --> 00:26:34.301
(Laughs)
That\'s all.

00:26:35.218 --> 00:26:37.721
(blues-jazz music)

00:26:43.310 --> 00:26:44.686
It\'s a hard struggle to be recognized

00:26:44.686 --> 00:26:45.729
if you\'re a Black person

00:26:45.729 --> 00:26:47.439
if you don\'t have a horn in your mouth

00:26:47.439 --> 00:26:49.941
or a microphone in your mouth.

00:26:52.152 --> 00:26:55.363
I don\'t have that.
I have a brush in my hand,

00:26:55.363 --> 00:26:56.781
sometimes.

00:27:10.128 --> 00:27:12.631
(music ends)

00:27:15.467 --> 00:27:17.052
My feeling is that Black artists

00:27:17.052 --> 00:27:20.221
have been pushed into some
kind of realism feature

00:27:20.221 --> 00:27:23.350
that really is not acceptable to our race

00:27:23.350 --> 00:27:25.268
because we\'re abstract people.

00:27:25.268 --> 00:27:27.395
African art is totally abstract,

00:27:27.395 --> 00:27:28.813
what is happening.

00:27:28.813 --> 00:27:30.398
Look at that.

00:27:30.398 --> 00:27:31.941
I mean, come on, you know,

00:27:31.941 --> 00:27:33.693
things like this are so beautiful.

00:27:33.693 --> 00:27:38.156
Why bother with painting
realism now in America

00:27:38.156 --> 00:27:39.574
when Andrew Wyeth and all of \'em did it,

00:27:39.574 --> 00:27:40.659
you know, why bother?

00:27:40.659 --> 00:27:42.994
It just doesn\'t make any sense

00:27:42.994 --> 00:27:45.121
when we came from a place
that invented that stuff.

00:27:45.121 --> 00:27:47.457
We invented all this art.

00:27:47.457 --> 00:27:48.917
This is pretty abstract.

00:27:48.917 --> 00:27:51.753
You can see Picasso stealing
it, you can feel him.

00:27:51.753 --> 00:27:54.089
He stole every bit of this.

00:27:54.089 --> 00:27:56.174
But Picasso wasn\'t abstract,

00:27:56.174 --> 00:27:57.467
he always had a figure in the situation.

00:27:57.467 --> 00:27:59.469
That\'s what trapped him.

00:27:59.844 --> 00:28:02.889
I\'ve been looking at
Picasso and Braque and Leger

00:28:02.889 --> 00:28:07.143
and Delaunay and all these
people all these years,

00:28:07.143 --> 00:28:09.854
and they all had to get into
some figurative bullshit

00:28:09.854 --> 00:28:12.107
to get their message across.

00:28:12.107 --> 00:28:15.443
What is some woman gonna
get my message across?

00:28:15.443 --> 00:28:18.488
I mean, just sitting on a piece of canvas.

00:28:18.488 --> 00:28:20.824
It had nothing to do with the color.

00:28:20.824 --> 00:28:23.701
So I\'m assuming that if you
got more and more figurative,

00:28:23.701 --> 00:28:26.413
I mean non-figurative and more abstract.

00:28:26.413 --> 00:28:30.166
You had a chance to produce
color in a more pronounced way

00:28:30.166 --> 00:28:32.627
than it was being done.

00:28:34.337 --> 00:28:37.966
I did some figurative things
when I first went to art school

00:28:37.966 --> 00:28:41.553
and then I just decided
it wasn\'t worth it.

00:28:42.595 --> 00:28:46.641
There\'s drawings in that box
over there that are figurative.

00:28:48.643 --> 00:28:52.147
I\'m shocked I kept these drawings.

00:28:52.147 --> 00:28:57.485
This is a model that was
in the life drawing class.

00:28:58.570 --> 00:29:01.948
I was at Society of Arts and
Crafts in Detroit, Michigan

00:29:03.116 --> 00:29:04.951
1960.

00:29:05.910 --> 00:29:06.744
I was walking down the street

00:29:06.744 --> 00:29:08.455
and I saw this beautiful building.

00:29:08.455 --> 00:29:11.458
Then I realized it was an art
school designed by Yamasaki.

00:29:11.458 --> 00:29:12.542
So I went there and talked to \'em

00:29:12.542 --> 00:29:15.044
and they said, \"You\'re
on full scholarship.\"

00:29:15.879 --> 00:29:18.381
(jazzy music)

00:29:36.357 --> 00:29:37.901
I learned how to engrave,

00:29:37.901 --> 00:29:40.737
but I didn\'t pay much attention to drawing

00:29:40.737 --> 00:29:42.447
until one of the teachers I had

00:29:42.447 --> 00:29:43.740
said, \"Well, you can\'t draw.\"

00:29:43.740 --> 00:29:46.159
And I said, \"I can draw better than you.\"

00:29:48.036 --> 00:29:50.288
I tried to draw what I saw,

00:29:51.915 --> 00:29:54.000
then I realized that wasn\'t important,

00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:55.210
that cameras could take care of that,

00:29:55.210 --> 00:29:58.129
you didn\'t have to do it that perfect.

00:29:59.756 --> 00:30:02.759
So I just started adding
a little bit to it here and there.

00:30:04.511 --> 00:30:07.013
(jazzy music continues)

00:30:09.140 --> 00:30:11.100
Painting class was interesting.

00:30:11.100 --> 00:30:14.062
He would always criticize
the paintings I was doing.

00:30:14.062 --> 00:30:15.021
He said, \"You can\'t do that.\"

00:30:15.021 --> 00:30:16.898
And I said, \"Why not?\"

00:30:16.898 --> 00:30:17.899
Well,

00:30:17.899 --> 00:30:19.400
then I quit.

00:30:19.400 --> 00:30:22.612
I did not graduate from the
Society of Arts and Crafts.

00:30:22.612 --> 00:30:25.240
I wasn\'t good in schools.

00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:27.033
I didn\'t like schools.

00:30:28.243 --> 00:30:29.702
Came home and told my
mom, \"Send me the money,

00:30:29.702 --> 00:30:31.829
I\'m going to Manhattan.\"

00:30:31.829 --> 00:30:33.748
I remember getting on the bus.

00:30:33.748 --> 00:30:35.041
My sister said, \"You\'ll die, honey,

00:30:35.041 --> 00:30:36.835
you can\'t stay in New York City.\"

00:30:36.835 --> 00:30:39.837
I said, \"I\'m gonna try it.\"

00:30:39.837 --> 00:30:41.548
So my mother gave me a bus fare

00:30:41.548 --> 00:30:43.758
and I came to New York City.

00:30:43.758 --> 00:30:46.010
Never went back to Detroit.

00:30:48.388 --> 00:30:50.932
(distant road traffic)

00:30:57.814 --> 00:31:00.483
(tool clanking)

00:31:03.361 --> 00:31:07.198
Oh, boy, they\'re coming
outta here like crazy.

00:31:13.079 --> 00:31:15.957
Here\'s what happened when
I first came to New York:

00:31:17.458 --> 00:31:21.796
I got a job as a guard at the
Hispanic Society of America.

00:31:22.881 --> 00:31:26.759
And then one day on my
lunch I was engraving

00:31:26.759 --> 00:31:29.178
and the director of printmaking
at the Metropolitan Museum

00:31:29.178 --> 00:31:33.057
was there and he said, \"I want
that, will you gimme that?\"

00:31:33.057 --> 00:31:35.560
I said, \"I can\'t give it to
you, I\'ll sell it to you.\"

00:31:35.560 --> 00:31:37.562
He bought my first
engraving and put in the

00:31:37.562 --> 00:31:40.440
permanent collection at
the Metropolitan Museum.

00:31:41.858 --> 00:31:44.027
It was of a girl from Detroit

00:31:44.027 --> 00:31:47.864
and I just used this Matsumi Maki

00:31:47.864 --> 00:31:51.868
because Matsumi Maki
was a Japanese engraver.

00:31:52.994 --> 00:31:55.538
I mean, I got into the Met by a mistake.

00:31:55.538 --> 00:31:57.415
I didn\'t ask him to put
anything in that collection,

00:31:57.415 --> 00:31:59.125
he just did it.

00:32:00.043 --> 00:32:03.296
And then I worked at the Guggenheim.

00:32:03.296 --> 00:32:05.798
(jazzy music)

00:32:06.841 --> 00:32:08.134
What\'s the name of the department?

00:32:08.134 --> 00:32:10.094
We hung the exhibitions.

00:32:10.094 --> 00:32:11.679
I don\'t think there\'d ever
been another Black person

00:32:11.679 --> 00:32:13.514
that ever worked in the Guggenheim.

00:32:13.514 --> 00:32:15.516
I might have been the first.

00:32:17.268 --> 00:32:21.314
In 1964 we put up a Calder retrospective.

00:32:21.314 --> 00:32:25.318
Calder was represented by
Perls Galleries at that time.

00:32:25.318 --> 00:32:27.403
One day, Klaus Perls and Calder

00:32:27.403 --> 00:32:29.989
came to see how the exhibition was going.

00:32:29.989 --> 00:32:32.867
And I was the one that put
\"The Ghost\" up in the ceiling

00:32:32.867 --> 00:32:34.952
at the top of the Guggenheim.

00:32:34.952 --> 00:32:37.288
\"The Ghost,\" that was the name of it.

00:32:39.082 --> 00:32:40.500
I suggested it go there

00:32:40.500 --> 00:32:42.585
and they said, \"Nothing can
hang from the Guggenheim top.\"

00:32:42.585 --> 00:32:44.379
I said, \"It doesn\'t weigh anything!\'

00:32:44.379 --> 00:32:46.673
So the guy that was head of
the construction department,

00:32:46.673 --> 00:32:48.508
they said, \"Well, if
you say, Peter, do it,

00:32:48.508 --> 00:32:50.468
you go up and hang it there.\"

00:32:51.678 --> 00:32:54.055
So I\'m way up into the
top where the skylight was

00:32:54.055 --> 00:32:56.140
and hung it from there and dropped it.

00:32:56.140 --> 00:33:00.269
And Calder said, \"Oh,
give him a job, Klaus.\"

00:33:00.269 --> 00:33:03.981
So Klaus Perls came and
hired me from the Guggenheim.

00:33:03.981 --> 00:33:07.235
(jazzy music)

00:33:07.235 --> 00:33:08.736
They were the top modern art gallery

00:33:08.736 --> 00:33:10.446
in the entire world at that time.

00:33:10.446 --> 00:33:13.533
And then Picasso\'s contracts and Soutine,

00:33:13.533 --> 00:33:15.493
Braque, Leger...

00:33:18.329 --> 00:33:23.334
Perls hired me to construct
and repaint and repair Calders.

00:33:23.835 --> 00:33:25.753
Then they found out I could express myself

00:33:25.753 --> 00:33:27.463
when it came to art.

00:33:27.463 --> 00:33:29.173
And so finally he said,

00:33:29.173 --> 00:33:31.843
\"Would you be interested in
showing people paintings?\"

00:33:31.843 --> 00:33:36.723
And I was selling 30 or 40 thousand
dollars worth of Calder a week.

00:33:36.723 --> 00:33:39.142
And then every time Calder
would come to New York,

00:33:39.142 --> 00:33:40.685
he\'d do drawings with me.

00:33:40.685 --> 00:33:42.228
I don\'t own one of those drawings.

00:33:42.228 --> 00:33:45.273
I have no idea where they disappeared to.

00:33:47.400 --> 00:33:49.902
(jazzy music ends)

00:33:51.696 --> 00:33:54.782
This is an engraving, one of two.

00:33:54.782 --> 00:33:57.076
D-E-K-T-O-R...

00:33:57.076 --> 00:34:00.079
\"Dexter walked in!\" I was
listening to Dexter Gordon,

00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:01.831
the saxophone player.

00:34:01.831 --> 00:34:03.374
It\'s colored ink, it\'s printed.

00:34:03.374 --> 00:34:06.085
You see when you put your hand
on top of it like this here,

00:34:06.085 --> 00:34:10.047
you can feel the embossment,
these things are all raised.

00:34:10.047 --> 00:34:13.718
Boy, I didn\'t know I had that bad boy.

00:34:13.718 --> 00:34:15.553
I\'m seen them in 20 some years.

00:34:15.553 --> 00:34:17.221
I didn\'t know what it was in that box.

00:34:17.221 --> 00:34:20.433
That box has been upstairs
in the attic for a long time

00:34:20.433 --> 00:34:22.977
and I bet there\'s more of \'em up there.

00:34:22.977 --> 00:34:25.188
Ay. (exhales)

00:34:25.188 --> 00:34:28.024
Lot of stuff up here, isn\'t there?

00:34:30.401 --> 00:34:33.488
(articles shuffling)

00:34:36.074 --> 00:34:37.784
This might be a big nothing

00:34:37.784 --> 00:34:40.620
but it\'s wrapped pretty
secure to be nothing.

00:34:40.620 --> 00:34:41.454
Okay,

00:34:42.455 --> 00:34:44.165
I\'m ready for it.

00:34:44.165 --> 00:34:47.168
(percussive jazz music)
(saw rasping)

00:34:49.754 --> 00:34:52.590
(plastic crackling)

00:34:53.674 --> 00:34:56.010
Better be something I like in here.

00:34:56.010 --> 00:35:01.015
(music continues)

00:35:03.142 --> 00:35:04.602
Almost there.

00:35:05.770 --> 00:35:07.313
Oh, they\'re engravings!

00:35:07.313 --> 00:35:09.315
Shall we look at them?

00:35:09.315 --> 00:35:12.276
Robert Blackburn Studios 1/1.

00:35:12.276 --> 00:35:14.320
It\'s one of one, yeah.

00:35:14.320 --> 00:35:17.698
I was a printmaker at
Robert Blackburn Studio.

00:35:17.698 --> 00:35:19.367
He was absolutely terrific.

00:35:19.367 --> 00:35:21.369
I got free material to work on.

00:35:21.369 --> 00:35:22.912
I didn\'t have to pay to go there

00:35:22.912 --> 00:35:24.747
and I could come morning, noon and night.

00:35:24.747 --> 00:35:27.166
It was open 24 hours a day.

00:35:27.166 --> 00:35:29.126
So it was filled with little old women

00:35:29.126 --> 00:35:31.170
who wanted to make little
flower etchings and stuff.

00:35:31.170 --> 00:35:32.964
And that\'s how he stayed alive.

00:35:32.964 --> 00:35:34.215
And he gave people that were serious

00:35:34.215 --> 00:35:35.716
about trying to make abstract prints

00:35:35.716 --> 00:35:38.928
with aquatint, etching and graving.

00:35:38.928 --> 00:35:41.097
He paid attention to them.

00:35:46.185 --> 00:35:49.230
I\'m gonna tell you something,
that\'s not a bad print.

00:35:49.230 --> 00:35:51.274
That\'s very difficult to print

00:35:51.274 --> 00:35:52.859
and that\'s the only proof of it.

00:35:52.859 --> 00:35:54.235
That\'s probably why I stopped,

00:35:54.235 --> 00:35:56.237
it\'s too much work.

00:35:56.237 --> 00:35:57.071
Huh.

00:35:58.155 --> 00:35:59.824
Like this is pretty terrific here.

00:35:59.824 --> 00:36:02.451
You see this, see where
this white overlaps here?

00:36:02.451 --> 00:36:03.953
Then there\'s this kind of stuff here

00:36:03.953 --> 00:36:05.246
makes it feel like it\'s
coming right on top

00:36:05.246 --> 00:36:06.914
of this space here.

00:36:06.914 --> 00:36:08.666
This space here and this space.

00:36:08.666 --> 00:36:13.379
It sets up layers of getting
more aggressive to it

00:36:13.379 --> 00:36:16.716
and you can feel the
depth of the engraving

00:36:16.716 --> 00:36:19.969
right through here by feeling it.

00:36:19.969 --> 00:36:22.471
But the deepest engraving, I must say,

00:36:22.471 --> 00:36:25.933
I was not about to use a burin to do this.

00:36:25.933 --> 00:36:28.102
You see, because I can
show your engraving tools

00:36:28.102 --> 00:36:30.938
and they\'re about this big,
and to make a line that big

00:36:30.938 --> 00:36:33.482
and that deep, you gotta be on top of it.

00:36:33.482 --> 00:36:34.984
You gotta be Superman.

00:36:34.984 --> 00:36:37.236
This is electric tool
that you cut wood with,

00:36:37.236 --> 00:36:38.905
it\'s uh...

00:36:38.905 --> 00:36:40.948
This boy here.

00:36:40.948 --> 00:36:42.700
The width of the blade is the same width

00:36:42.700 --> 00:36:45.369
as the lines on the engraving.

00:36:45.369 --> 00:36:47.496
(jazzy music)

00:36:47.496 --> 00:36:49.749
After a couple of years,
Klaus Perls promoted me

00:36:49.749 --> 00:36:52.251
to be associate director of the gallery.

00:36:52.251 --> 00:36:54.420
And Dolly said, \"I\'m gonna give you

00:36:54.420 --> 00:36:55.755
a charge account at Bloomingdales!\"

00:36:55.755 --> 00:36:58.674
I said, \"My clothes are all
made at Meledandri, I\'m sorry.\"

00:36:58.674 --> 00:36:59.967
And she looked at me

00:36:59.967 --> 00:37:01.886
and said, \"Who in the hell\'s Meledandri?\"

00:37:01.886 --> 00:37:05.556
Klaus said, \"He\'s an
important tailor in New York.\"

00:37:05.556 --> 00:37:07.892
(jazzy music)

00:37:07.892 --> 00:37:10.144
I had about eight or nine suits.

00:37:10.144 --> 00:37:11.646
Roland Meledandri.

00:37:12.730 --> 00:37:14.815
We got to be friends, he was a good guy.

00:37:14.815 --> 00:37:16.901
I remember one time I went in there,

00:37:16.901 --> 00:37:19.153
and I think Joel Grey was there

00:37:19.153 --> 00:37:21.447
and he\'s, \"Ah! gotta stop
\'cause Mr. Bradley\'s here

00:37:21.447 --> 00:37:23.491
and he\'s only here for a few minutes.\"

00:37:23.491 --> 00:37:24.784
\'Cause I would go in my lunchtime

00:37:24.784 --> 00:37:26.410
to get a shirt made or whatever.

00:37:26.410 --> 00:37:28.412
I can show \'em to you, I still have \'em!

00:37:28.412 --> 00:37:30.915
(jazzy music)

00:37:31.958 --> 00:37:35.962
This one here is Meledandri,
but the label\'s gone.

00:37:35.962 --> 00:37:38.172
I have no Meledandri labels left,

00:37:38.172 --> 00:37:39.465
but I could to give you the names

00:37:39.465 --> 00:37:41.509
of the people that stole most of it.

00:37:41.509 --> 00:37:42.885
This is custom-made.

00:37:42.885 --> 00:37:45.012
I bought this shirt with Miles.

00:37:45.012 --> 00:37:46.931
He started some shit with me

00:37:46.931 --> 00:37:48.057
about his shirts,

00:37:48.057 --> 00:37:49.850
I said, \"This place here makes shirts.\"

00:37:49.850 --> 00:37:52.353
We went into Sulka on Park Avenue.

00:37:52.353 --> 00:37:55.273
This is suede and this came from Blakey.

00:37:55.273 --> 00:37:58.442
This is one of Art Blakey\'s jackets.

00:37:58.442 --> 00:38:00.695
He stole mine and I took his.

00:38:00.695 --> 00:38:02.446
I never put this on in my life.

00:38:02.446 --> 00:38:03.990
I\'ve never put this on either.

00:38:03.990 --> 00:38:05.408
What the fuck is this?

00:38:05.408 --> 00:38:07.451
(jazzy music)

00:38:07.451 --> 00:38:10.621
>>You kinda like those
hunting jacket style things.

00:38:10.621 --> 00:38:13.040
>>Well, I\'m in the country.

00:38:13.040 --> 00:38:16.127
You know? I\'m not walking
down Fifth Avenue in this!

00:38:16.127 --> 00:38:18.045
This is for the country.

00:38:18.045 --> 00:38:20.840
Anytime I\'ve been involved
with the police in Manhattan,

00:38:20.840 --> 00:38:22.425
they\'ve left me alone.

00:38:22.425 --> 00:38:24.302
They\'ve left me alone, I
think because of my clothes.

00:38:24.302 --> 00:38:27.179
In fact, one police woman
tried to have a date with me

00:38:27.179 --> 00:38:28.931
because of my clothes.

00:38:28.931 --> 00:38:30.766
But this is my favorite, the red one.

00:38:30.766 --> 00:38:32.601
Black people like red.

00:38:32.601 --> 00:38:34.645
All Black people I know like red.

00:38:34.645 --> 00:38:37.940
(jazzy music ends)

00:38:37.940 --> 00:38:40.192
I need another closet.

00:38:40.192 --> 00:38:42.445
The people that came to Perls
were very wealthy people

00:38:42.445 --> 00:38:45.448
and they didn\'t wanna be seen
in museums in the public.

00:38:45.448 --> 00:38:46.532
So I\'d have to spend all day long

00:38:46.532 --> 00:38:48.909
talking to the most
famous people in the world

00:38:48.909 --> 00:38:52.455
and the richest people in
the world about paintings.

00:38:52.455 --> 00:38:54.373
You know, Ginger Rogers
would come in there

00:38:54.373 --> 00:38:56.292
and talk shit to me all day long.

00:38:56.292 --> 00:38:58.461
Kurt Douglas was there a lot.

00:38:58.461 --> 00:39:02.173
Greta Garbo was there,
Bette Davis, you know,

00:39:02.173 --> 00:39:04.300
and I had to deal with Paul McCartney.

00:39:04.300 --> 00:39:06.761
He came there one day with
his wife to buy something.

00:39:06.761 --> 00:39:08.137
He just couldn\'t talk
to anybody, you know,

00:39:08.137 --> 00:39:09.013
I don\'t care about him.

00:39:09.013 --> 00:39:11.432
I mean, I knew Miles Davis
and Dizzy Gillespie,

00:39:11.432 --> 00:39:13.934
and Charlie Parker and John Coltrane

00:39:13.934 --> 00:39:15.478
so what did I care about him?

00:39:15.478 --> 00:39:16.937
Those little songs they sang.

00:39:16.937 --> 00:39:19.523
I didn\'t care about them little songs!

00:39:19.523 --> 00:39:21.067
Pretty funny.

00:39:27.656 --> 00:39:30.409
These are all tapes of
different musicians.

00:39:30.409 --> 00:39:31.827
It\'s super music

00:39:31.827 --> 00:39:35.664
but I don\'t know what
the fuck it is anymore.

00:39:35.664 --> 00:39:40.628
This is Max Roach and Clifford Brown,
side two, great band.

00:39:40.628 --> 00:39:41.921
Super band.

00:39:47.426 --> 00:39:49.929
(jazzy music)

00:39:59.814 --> 00:40:02.316
Early on in my career, I used spray guns.

00:40:02.316 --> 00:40:04.777
It was easy to get done quickly.

00:40:04.777 --> 00:40:06.237
I\'d work all day long
at Perls and come home

00:40:06.237 --> 00:40:07.947
and get a can of beer
and spray for two hours,

00:40:07.947 --> 00:40:10.991
and I\'d get five paintings going.

00:40:10.991 --> 00:40:15.204
And you can cover a lot of
surface, keep it wet and paint.

00:40:15.204 --> 00:40:17.748
But I realize I don\'t need it now

00:40:17.748 --> 00:40:22.753
because now I can - my road to success
with painting now is water.

00:40:22.878 --> 00:40:26.715
(jazzy music)
(water splashing)

00:40:26.715 --> 00:40:29.009
(bucket clanging)

00:40:30.261 --> 00:40:31.929
See I can get the water to go now

00:40:31.929 --> 00:40:33.597
and just a touch of a bit
of color in that water,

00:40:33.597 --> 00:40:35.516
I can do the same thing with spray gun,

00:40:35.516 --> 00:40:38.144
better than a spray gun \'cause
a spray gun just sits on top,

00:40:38.144 --> 00:40:40.729
this will soak into the canvas.

00:40:43.649 --> 00:40:46.694
You have to get it so
the canvas accepts paint

00:40:46.694 --> 00:40:49.238
instead of looking stupid.

00:40:49.238 --> 00:40:50.614
Well, you know, you see these paintings

00:40:50.614 --> 00:40:52.575
where the paint sits right
on top of your canvas

00:40:52.575 --> 00:40:55.244
and nothing all around it,
it\'s spotless around it.

00:40:55.244 --> 00:40:56.912
That\'s one way to handle canvas.

00:40:56.912 --> 00:41:00.541
I think canvas is designed
more to handle the color

00:41:00.541 --> 00:41:03.169
with stain the wetter it is.

00:41:03.169 --> 00:41:05.629
The deeper the pores open in the canvas,

00:41:05.629 --> 00:41:08.632
the more it will do
something different for you.

00:41:08.632 --> 00:41:11.760
Any color you put on it will
spread tiny, tiny, tiny bits,

00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:13.095
little bits,

00:41:13.095 --> 00:41:14.680
like that green goes up
under there but it stops.

00:41:14.680 --> 00:41:16.348
You don\'t see where it goes.

00:41:16.348 --> 00:41:18.517
All of \'em stop with this cloud.

00:41:18.517 --> 00:41:20.561
Now when that cloud of water dries,

00:41:20.561 --> 00:41:22.938
you have no idea what\'s
gonna be there to see.

00:41:22.938 --> 00:41:25.483
That\'s another tricky thing, you know?

00:41:27.985 --> 00:41:29.570
Pretty interesting.

00:41:30.446 --> 00:41:31.489
And there\'s already things I\'m seeing

00:41:31.489 --> 00:41:32.990
that you couldn\'t paint with a brush

00:41:32.990 --> 00:41:35.159
if your life depended on it.

00:41:35.993 --> 00:41:38.579
And you can feel you\'re in a
storm or wherever, you know,

00:41:38.579 --> 00:41:40.998
it\'s a storm of color.

00:41:42.666 --> 00:41:45.169
It\'s supposed to rain hard tonight.

00:41:45.169 --> 00:41:47.755
Well, we\'ll see what kind of
present the rain brings.

00:41:47.755 --> 00:41:50.132
Its water, it could bring another present.

00:41:50.132 --> 00:41:52.718
I hope, if it happens.

00:41:54.803 --> 00:41:59.808
(engine roaring)
(contemplative jazz music)

00:42:21.539 --> 00:42:23.874
Water does the whole trick.

00:42:23.874 --> 00:42:27.044
It\'s the main ingredient for us too.

00:42:27.044 --> 00:42:30.881
For everything, for
plants and the whole deal.

00:42:37.137 --> 00:42:39.598
I like gardens. Because you know,

00:42:39.598 --> 00:42:41.517
if you put energy into them,

00:42:41.517 --> 00:42:43.310
they give the energy back in beauty

00:42:43.310 --> 00:42:45.563
and color some kind of way.

00:42:56.323 --> 00:42:58.659
You get ideas from plants, they grow

00:42:58.659 --> 00:43:00.452
and if they like you, they really grow

00:43:00.452 --> 00:43:02.871
and you can see it.

00:43:02.871 --> 00:43:06.208
(music continues)

00:43:08.419 --> 00:43:11.422
In 1966 I went to Yale University

00:43:11.422 --> 00:43:14.800
to be in the graduate painting program.

00:43:14.800 --> 00:43:18.721
Tworkov was head of the
department. He came to my studio.

00:43:18.721 --> 00:43:21.265
I don\'t know how he knew who I was.

00:43:21.265 --> 00:43:23.851
He said, \"You can come
to Yale if you want to.\"

00:43:23.851 --> 00:43:25.769
And I said, \"Yeah, sure.\"

00:43:25.769 --> 00:43:27.146
He never once looked at a painting,

00:43:27.146 --> 00:43:29.773
looked at the floor the whole
time he was there, like this.

00:43:31.275 --> 00:43:34.069
And he never spoke to
me when I was at Yale.

00:43:34.069 --> 00:43:35.946
He didn\'t like me, he
said I couldn\'t paint,

00:43:35.946 --> 00:43:37.948
never would be an artist.

00:43:37.948 --> 00:43:39.241
And I said, \"Why did
you gimme a scholarship

00:43:39.241 --> 00:43:40.409
to come here?\"

00:43:41.368 --> 00:43:43.537
He said, \"We want you to
travel to different states

00:43:43.537 --> 00:43:45.456
and bring Black people to this school.\"

00:43:45.456 --> 00:43:46.999
I said, \"Go fuck yourself.\"

00:43:46.999 --> 00:43:49.168
And I walked outta Yale.

00:43:49.168 --> 00:43:51.670
(improvisational jazz music)

00:44:01.013 --> 00:44:03.599
Come look, there\'s a face here!

00:44:04.641 --> 00:44:06.185
Very strange.

00:44:06.185 --> 00:44:07.853
Looks like me.

00:44:09.605 --> 00:44:12.775
This picture was photographed in the \'60s

00:44:12.775 --> 00:44:15.152
when I needed a haircut.

00:44:15.152 --> 00:44:19.365
When I lived at 654 Broadway
with Williams T. Williams.

00:44:19.365 --> 00:44:21.450
William T. Williams, he went to Yale

00:44:21.450 --> 00:44:23.786
same time I was at Yale.

00:44:23.786 --> 00:44:25.537
He said, \"I found a studio,

00:44:25.537 --> 00:44:27.373
maybe you wanna come in
and partner with me.\"

00:44:27.373 --> 00:44:30.417
I said, \"Yeah, cool,\" on
Broadway, 654 Broadway.

00:44:30.417 --> 00:44:32.586
The rent was $150 a month.

00:44:32.586 --> 00:44:35.089
(jazzy music)

00:44:40.010 --> 00:44:43.222
654 Broadway was filled
with famous artists.

00:44:43.222 --> 00:44:45.891
Joe Shapiro had a floor upstairs

00:44:45.891 --> 00:44:48.602
and Noland lived downstairs.

00:44:48.602 --> 00:44:51.522
I don\'t think I could have
got as successful as I did

00:44:51.522 --> 00:44:53.524
if it hadn\'t been for Kenneth Noland.

00:44:53.524 --> 00:44:56.443
Noland\'s the one who discovered me.

00:44:56.443 --> 00:44:58.946
And through Kenneth Noland

00:44:58.946 --> 00:45:00.739
I became very close with Clement Greenberg,

00:45:00.739 --> 00:45:02.324
the great critic of his time,

00:45:02.324 --> 00:45:04.618
the one who discovered Jackson Pollock.

00:45:04.618 --> 00:45:05.953
He used to come to Perls

00:45:05.953 --> 00:45:09.665
and spend a whole damn day
there at Perls talking to me.

00:45:11.166 --> 00:45:13.419
He talked to very few people.

00:45:13.419 --> 00:45:17.506
People would beg him to
say hello to them, artists.

00:45:17.506 --> 00:45:20.259
Clem\'s concept, color
supersedes subject matter,

00:45:20.259 --> 00:45:22.678
took the forefront in art.

00:45:22.678 --> 00:45:24.430
That color supersedes subject matter,

00:45:24.430 --> 00:45:27.015
you know that for real because
once you see the color,

00:45:27.015 --> 00:45:30.561
you don\'t care what it is as
long as you see the color.

00:45:30.561 --> 00:45:32.855
So it\'s considered abstract.

00:45:32.855 --> 00:45:35.149
He was the big mouth writing
about art all the time

00:45:35.149 --> 00:45:36.483
and talking shit.

00:45:36.483 --> 00:45:37.443
>>Writing where?

00:45:37.443 --> 00:45:40.487
>>I don\'t know because I don\'t read.

00:45:40.487 --> 00:45:42.406
I don\'t read anything.

00:45:42.406 --> 00:45:44.575
>>But where do you get your
information on the world?

00:45:44.575 --> 00:45:45.868
If it\'s not through reading-

00:45:45.868 --> 00:45:49.163
>>Through my eyes, the eyes that I have,

00:45:49.163 --> 00:45:50.831
like your eyes.

00:45:50.831 --> 00:45:53.834
You see things and you do
something about it, that\'s all.

00:45:53.834 --> 00:45:56.336
(piano music)

00:46:10.642 --> 00:46:13.479
My seeing translates into what I paint.

00:46:13.479 --> 00:46:16.732
And I don\'t know how that works
\'cause I\'m not that smart.

00:46:20.444 --> 00:46:24.406
Everyone that paints picks
up a unique color situation

00:46:24.406 --> 00:46:26.658
that they work with.

00:46:29.328 --> 00:46:33.373
Ken Noland really put the
picture in my head the right way.

00:46:33.373 --> 00:46:37.503
Noland and Jules Olitski had a jump on it

00:46:39.838 --> 00:46:42.174
and then William T. Williams
was doing the same thing

00:46:42.174 --> 00:46:44.551
and all of \'em were playing
around the same way, you know,

00:46:44.551 --> 00:46:47.429
putting the stripes down, but
there was no action and motion

00:46:47.429 --> 00:46:50.599
in the color, it didn\'t
move far enough for me.

00:46:50.599 --> 00:46:53.101
So I had to be able to think
about color at the same time

00:46:53.101 --> 00:46:56.522
but get it abstract with motion
on it in some kind of way.

00:46:56.522 --> 00:46:58.982
(jazzy music)

00:47:01.527 --> 00:47:03.153
You know, the pictures
I\'m trying to paint,

00:47:03.153 --> 00:47:04.738
I think you can actually move in the color

00:47:04.738 --> 00:47:06.573
in some kind of way.

00:47:18.502 --> 00:47:20.003
You know, and there\'s no such thing

00:47:20.003 --> 00:47:22.130
as the wrong way to paint.

00:47:24.049 --> 00:47:25.342
Every day I\'m trying something new

00:47:25.342 --> 00:47:28.136
to put down on that canvas

00:47:28.136 --> 00:47:30.264
\'cause I\'m not looking
for a Peter Bradley look,

00:47:30.264 --> 00:47:33.016
I\'m just looking to paint a picture.

00:47:35.727 --> 00:47:38.105
See, I\'m trying to get my hand out of it

00:47:38.105 --> 00:47:41.608
to make it feel like the human
hand is not involved in it,

00:47:41.608 --> 00:47:45.946
it\'s all accidental
nature feeling about it.

00:47:45.946 --> 00:47:48.240
You get the color to move on its own.

00:47:48.240 --> 00:47:50.158
Once you can get the color
down and the texture,

00:47:50.158 --> 00:47:52.953
see, color by itself is kind of boring.

00:47:54.288 --> 00:47:57.082
If you can get it to where
it\'s touchable and whatever

00:47:57.082 --> 00:47:59.251
then that make sense.

00:48:01.837 --> 00:48:03.964
It was painted in Santa Barbara

00:48:03.964 --> 00:48:08.218
three years ago at the Squire Foundation.

00:48:08.218 --> 00:48:10.387
I had a limited amount
of paint to paint with,

00:48:10.387 --> 00:48:12.222
that\'s my problem here.

00:48:12.222 --> 00:48:15.475
That\'s how I started putting
these patches inside.

00:48:15.475 --> 00:48:17.561
Because to mix this paint is ridiculous,

00:48:17.561 --> 00:48:19.396
you know what I\'m saying?

00:48:19.396 --> 00:48:21.648
The painter that\'s left
in the bottom of a bucket,

00:48:21.648 --> 00:48:24.735
becomes very abstract once it dries.

00:48:24.735 --> 00:48:27.946
And you\'re look in that
bucket and you see this green,

00:48:27.946 --> 00:48:30.949
but there\'s several greens in there.

00:48:30.949 --> 00:48:34.161
You see, and then you\'ve
got a painting right there.

00:48:35.287 --> 00:48:38.165
And a reverse! Another one right there!

00:48:38.165 --> 00:48:40.667
(soft jazz music)

00:48:41.752 --> 00:48:44.421
In 1971 the Whitney
Museum did an exhibition

00:48:44.421 --> 00:48:48.008
called Contemporary
Black Artists in America,

00:48:48.008 --> 00:48:50.385
curated by Robert Doty.

00:48:53.597 --> 00:48:56.892
Doty had heard about me
and came to get my advice

00:48:56.892 --> 00:48:59.478
\'cause I was the only Black
person on Madison Avenue

00:48:59.478 --> 00:49:02.522
other than a African art dealer.

00:49:02.522 --> 00:49:04.358
Politically he had to do that show

00:49:04.358 --> 00:49:06.735
because Black people had to be recognized

00:49:06.735 --> 00:49:08.654
as artists some kind of way.

00:49:08.654 --> 00:49:11.531
And I think he came to me to
find out what to say in public

00:49:11.531 --> 00:49:13.367
\'cause he really wanted
to say the right things

00:49:13.367 --> 00:49:14.952
about Black people.

00:49:17.621 --> 00:49:19.665
It was extremely controversial.

00:49:19.665 --> 00:49:21.208
It was protested by a lot of artists

00:49:21.208 --> 00:49:24.169
that thought they were excluded.

00:49:24.169 --> 00:49:27.589
He asked me to put a painting
in exhibition, but I refused.

00:49:27.589 --> 00:49:29.383
I refused because I didn\'t
like most of the art

00:49:29.383 --> 00:49:31.134
that was in the exhibition.

00:49:31.134 --> 00:49:32.969
A lot of it was figurative from pop art

00:49:32.969 --> 00:49:36.807
and I didn\'t wanna be
associated with that situation.

00:49:36.807 --> 00:49:39.142
And I put my friend in
who made the cat, Junior.

00:49:39.142 --> 00:49:40.811
Nathaniel Hunter Jr.

00:49:42.062 --> 00:49:43.730
I put him in the show!

00:49:43.730 --> 00:49:46.233
He camps out across the
street from the Whitney Museum

00:49:46.233 --> 00:49:48.694
in a tent with a thing over his head,

00:49:48.694 --> 00:49:51.321
watching everyone that goes in, he was...

00:49:51.321 --> 00:49:53.365
And he died, one of my best friends

00:49:53.365 --> 00:49:55.242
in the world, Junior. Some guy...

00:49:55.242 --> 00:49:58.370
He told me one day, \"I talked
to 10,000 people today.\"

00:49:58.370 --> 00:49:59.246
I said, \"You\'re full of shit.\"

00:49:59.246 --> 00:50:00.080
He said, \"No, I wasn\'t.

00:50:00.080 --> 00:50:02.124
I was downtown at the World Trade Center

00:50:02.124 --> 00:50:04.584
and I spoke to everybody
came in that door.\"

00:50:04.584 --> 00:50:06.294
>>And he was an artist as well?

00:50:06.294 --> 00:50:08.547
>>Uh, he made the cat!

00:50:08.547 --> 00:50:11.466
You tell me if he\'s an
artist or not, I don\'t know.

00:50:11.466 --> 00:50:13.969
(soft jazz music)

00:50:14.886 --> 00:50:16.096
A few months earlier

00:50:16.096 --> 00:50:18.140
the de Menil\'s commissioned Larry Rivers

00:50:18.140 --> 00:50:20.517
to do an exhibition in Houston, Texas.

00:50:20.517 --> 00:50:22.352
And I was in it.

00:50:23.812 --> 00:50:25.439
The de Menil\'s were wealthy collectors

00:50:25.439 --> 00:50:27.816
of art internationally.

00:50:27.816 --> 00:50:31.737
And John de Menil\'s wife,
Dominique, was an art curator.

00:50:34.156 --> 00:50:35.323
They had hired Larry Rivers

00:50:35.323 --> 00:50:38.285
to do an exhibition for
\'em with Black people.

00:50:38.285 --> 00:50:41.455
It was called \"Some American History.\"

00:50:45.667 --> 00:50:48.128
Larry was white and, for whatever reason,

00:50:48.128 --> 00:50:51.840
he did a show all about
Black identity and slavery.

00:50:54.926 --> 00:50:58.764
He had a few Black people
put things in, including me.

00:50:58.764 --> 00:51:02.267
But most of the art was
about him, promoting him.

00:51:06.063 --> 00:51:08.690
It turned out to be a horrible exhibition.

00:51:09.524 --> 00:51:12.360
People being hung or slaves being poor

00:51:12.360 --> 00:51:14.196
or someone picking cotton in a picture.

00:51:14.196 --> 00:51:16.364
Some stupid shit!

00:51:16.364 --> 00:51:18.074
And one of my pieces in there

00:51:18.074 --> 00:51:19.826
makes me sick when I think about it.

00:51:19.826 --> 00:51:21.578
He did something really nasty.

00:51:21.578 --> 00:51:24.164
I made the sculpture and when
I saw it in the exhibition,

00:51:24.164 --> 00:51:25.874
he had cut photographs out

00:51:25.874 --> 00:51:28.835
and pasted \'em all over my sculpture.

00:51:28.835 --> 00:51:30.879
Looked like he took a hit
of heroin and did the show.

00:51:30.879 --> 00:51:32.923
It was just horrible.

00:51:32.923 --> 00:51:35.675
I think it disappointed John de Menil.

00:51:35.675 --> 00:51:37.761
He was a client of Perls.

00:51:37.761 --> 00:51:41.932
So he came and got me and I
did \"The De Luxe Show\" for him.

00:51:41.932 --> 00:51:44.434
(jazzy music)

00:51:47.229 --> 00:51:48.814
He had this theater that was there

00:51:48.814 --> 00:51:50.899
called the DeLuxe Theater.

00:51:50.899 --> 00:51:53.110
It was a movie theater
that was deteriorated

00:51:53.110 --> 00:51:56.613
in the Black neighborhood
in Houston, Texas.

00:51:56.613 --> 00:51:59.366
And he and I went and looked
at it and I said, \"Listen,

00:51:59.366 --> 00:52:02.869
this place has to be rebuilt,\"
and that\'s what they did.

00:52:02.869 --> 00:52:05.956
And it\'s an incredible viewing space.

00:52:06.790 --> 00:52:09.084
And I refused to do an all-Black show,

00:52:09.084 --> 00:52:13.797
I brought white and Black
people into \"The De Luxe Show.\"

00:52:17.134 --> 00:52:19.511
Well, I had an idea that I
could bring Black artists

00:52:19.511 --> 00:52:22.097
to some sort of recognition
in the art world,

00:52:22.097 --> 00:52:24.266
which we had none.

00:52:25.767 --> 00:52:28.979
Abstract painting by the top
white artists in the world

00:52:28.979 --> 00:52:32.232
and the top Black artists in the world.

00:52:33.984 --> 00:52:35.318
This catalog here

00:52:35.318 --> 00:52:37.988
shows some of the greatest
artists of their time.

00:52:39.531 --> 00:52:41.074
Well, Anthony Caro was world famous

00:52:41.074 --> 00:52:43.326
and so was Noland at that time.

00:52:43.326 --> 00:52:45.203
I selected everything that was in there

00:52:45.203 --> 00:52:47.789
and it was an interracial exhibition

00:52:47.789 --> 00:52:51.126
for the first time in the
history of American art.

00:52:52.544 --> 00:52:55.046
(music continues)

00:53:07.309 --> 00:53:08.977
I didn\'t know any female artists

00:53:08.977 --> 00:53:11.438
other than Virginia Jaramillo.

00:53:11.438 --> 00:53:12.439
She\'s good enough to be in there.

00:53:12.439 --> 00:53:15.150
She\'s the best female painter
in New York City at that time.

00:53:15.150 --> 00:53:17.277
I think that women
artists were discriminated

00:53:17.277 --> 00:53:19.154
at the same time, especially
if they were Black,

00:53:19.154 --> 00:53:21.907
they didn\'t account for anything.

00:53:23.909 --> 00:53:26.077
But, you know, I just dealt with the art.

00:53:26.077 --> 00:53:29.080
I didn\'t deal with the racial
politics involved in it.

00:53:29.998 --> 00:53:33.752
Me and Greenberg and Noland,
the three of us were there.

00:53:33.752 --> 00:53:36.171
This is when we were putting
the show together here.

00:53:36.171 --> 00:53:39.382
Both of us had just come from
New York City, the same plane.

00:53:39.382 --> 00:53:41.134
And he stole my cowboy hat.

00:53:41.134 --> 00:53:42.385
I said, \"Clem, I want my hat back.\"

00:53:42.385 --> 00:53:44.512
He said, \"Ah, I\'ll give it back.\"

00:53:44.512 --> 00:53:46.139
Never got it back.

00:53:46.848 --> 00:53:49.392
That\'s me and Noland putting it together.

00:53:49.392 --> 00:53:51.144
And that\'s Helen Winkler there.

00:53:51.144 --> 00:53:54.231
She worked for the de
Menil\'s, Helen Winkler.

00:53:54.231 --> 00:53:57.192
I didn\'t know I took my shirt off.

00:53:57.192 --> 00:53:58.610
It was very hard work

00:53:58.610 --> 00:54:00.487
and I was determined I
was gonna hang the show.

00:54:00.487 --> 00:54:01.780
And the Perls were furious

00:54:01.780 --> 00:54:04.866
because I was going back and
forth on weekends to Texas.

00:54:05.909 --> 00:54:09.287
I stayed in his mansion, a serious place.

00:54:09.287 --> 00:54:13.291
John de Menil left his house
and rented a hotel room

00:54:13.291 --> 00:54:14.876
because the Black guys
moved in from everywhere.

00:54:14.876 --> 00:54:17.212
They came from everywhere,
California, New York...

00:54:17.212 --> 00:54:19.589
And they all came in and
stayed there with me.

00:54:19.589 --> 00:54:22.842
They all moved in! It was pretty funny.

00:54:25.470 --> 00:54:30.058
My thing was to get the
entire community involved.

00:54:30.058 --> 00:54:32.060
I made a point that I wanted all the kids

00:54:32.060 --> 00:54:34.688
in the neighborhood to come see this show.

00:54:34.688 --> 00:54:36.690
I thought it was simple
enough for kids to understand,

00:54:36.690 --> 00:54:38.900
it\'s just color and movements and things

00:54:38.900 --> 00:54:41.236
and it looks like they could make it.

00:54:41.236 --> 00:54:44.280
I think kids\' eyes are the
best eyes in the world on art

00:54:44.280 --> 00:54:47.033
because kids can tell the truth.

00:54:47.033 --> 00:54:50.120
You know, grown ups will
lie, you know, all the time,

00:54:50.120 --> 00:54:51.579
to make themselves seem
important or whatever.

00:54:51.579 --> 00:54:53.081
They\'ll make a comment.

00:54:53.081 --> 00:54:55.959
And the richer you are, the
more important a comment is

00:54:55.959 --> 00:54:59.587
and the more damaging it
is to whoever hears it.

00:55:00.672 --> 00:55:03.758
(music ending)

00:55:04.676 --> 00:55:07.929
And this blue painting of mine vanished.

00:55:07.929 --> 00:55:10.974
Never been seen again.

00:55:10.974 --> 00:55:12.726
It was stolen.

00:55:14.853 --> 00:55:17.355
(somber music)

00:55:21.609 --> 00:55:23.653
Any of those paintings
that belong to me there,

00:55:23.653 --> 00:55:26.031
I have no idea what are at this day.

00:55:26.031 --> 00:55:27.782
They disappeared.

00:55:45.675 --> 00:55:49.512
1971 was an extremely
interesting year for me.

00:55:55.018 --> 00:55:57.645
Noland was showing with
André Emmerich at that time.

00:55:57.645 --> 00:55:59.647
André Emmerich was a premier gallery

00:55:59.647 --> 00:56:03.151
and major Color Field dealer
in Zurich Switzerland,

00:56:03.151 --> 00:56:05.278
downtown on West Broadway, New York City

00:56:05.278 --> 00:56:08.782
and 57th Street at Madison Avenue.

00:56:08.782 --> 00:56:10.658
He said, \"Look, I think you\'re gifted

00:56:10.658 --> 00:56:12.535
and I\'m gonna take you to Emmerich.\"

00:56:12.535 --> 00:56:14.829
He said, \"Peter\'s a great artist.\"

00:56:14.829 --> 00:56:16.289
And the next thing I know,

00:56:16.289 --> 00:56:17.916
I was showing André Emmerich.

00:56:17.916 --> 00:56:20.376
(jazzy music)

00:56:29.552 --> 00:56:33.306
1970\'s I was doing quite well financially.

00:56:33.306 --> 00:56:35.308
I had everything that I wanted,

00:56:35.308 --> 00:56:39.354
great houses, great art, money
in my pocket, great suits.

00:56:39.354 --> 00:56:41.523
I was not concerned about anything.

00:56:43.608 --> 00:56:46.486
I had a studio on Wooster
Street, outrageous space,

00:56:46.486 --> 00:56:48.822
I mean 20,000 square feet
or something like that,

00:56:48.822 --> 00:56:50.407
from one block to the next

00:56:50.407 --> 00:56:52.992
and skylights all the way through it.

00:56:52.992 --> 00:56:56.579
It\'s 30 foot tall where
the skylights were.

00:56:59.707 --> 00:57:03.128
I met Adger 50 years ago at least.

00:57:03.128 --> 00:57:07.715
And he photographed me a lot
and published me in his book.

00:57:07.715 --> 00:57:09.384
He\'s a good guy

00:57:09.384 --> 00:57:11.845
and he knows how to work
that camera to death.

00:57:11.845 --> 00:57:15.098
I think Adger\'s a terrific
artist, he always was.

00:57:15.098 --> 00:57:16.349
And a wonderful friend of mine

00:57:16.349 --> 00:57:19.102
for years and years and years.

00:57:19.102 --> 00:57:20.645
He likes what I do and
I like what he does.

00:57:20.645 --> 00:57:22.147
I don\'t have any of his photographs

00:57:22.147 --> 00:57:23.523
and he doesn\'t have any of my paintings,

00:57:23.523 --> 00:57:25.024
but that\'s the deal!

00:57:26.609 --> 00:57:28.945
And I worked with an
architect named Paul Heyer

00:57:28.945 --> 00:57:32.073
who designed all my
spaces in New York City.

00:57:32.073 --> 00:57:34.409
A great architect, I thought.

00:57:35.034 --> 00:57:36.995
That bathtub was designed by him.

00:57:36.995 --> 00:57:39.414
I said stainless steel,
but he designed the bathtub

00:57:39.414 --> 00:57:41.374
and it\'s been in every place I ever lived.

00:57:41.374 --> 00:57:42.709
I still have it.

00:57:46.796 --> 00:57:49.340
I can lay in there and think
about a lot of things, man.

00:57:49.340 --> 00:57:50.800
I tell you, that\'s what I do.

00:57:50.800 --> 00:57:53.845
I go sit in the bathtub and
look up through the ceiling

00:57:53.845 --> 00:57:55.388
and look at the flowers and stuff.

00:57:55.388 --> 00:57:57.557
I can get an idea about painting.

00:57:57.557 --> 00:58:00.059
(jazzy music swells)

00:58:13.823 --> 00:58:15.867
See that?

00:58:15.867 --> 00:58:17.368
See what he\'s done to it?

00:58:17.368 --> 00:58:19.078
He\'s decimated it.

00:58:19.078 --> 00:58:21.456
That\'s what it looks like when he leaves.

00:58:21.456 --> 00:58:23.458
Every day I cut \'em off.

00:58:24.626 --> 00:58:26.794
It\'s a good job for an old man.

00:58:26.794 --> 00:58:28.463
And the more you cut
it, the more it grows.

00:58:28.463 --> 00:58:30.715
The more water you put
on it, he more it grows.

00:58:30.715 --> 00:58:32.383
It\'s like painting pictures,

00:58:32.383 --> 00:58:34.761
the more water I put on the
paintings, the more they grow.

00:58:34.761 --> 00:58:37.514
(water spraying)

00:58:39.474 --> 00:58:40.808
Can\'t beat this.

00:58:44.938 --> 00:58:46.606
I like it like this,

00:58:46.606 --> 00:58:48.942
shiny and wet.

00:58:48.942 --> 00:58:51.361
See these circles here,
how they come alive

00:58:51.361 --> 00:58:53.029
once water\'s on \'em?

00:58:53.029 --> 00:58:56.532
They fly off and go different places.

00:58:56.532 --> 00:58:58.284
These are just complicated dreams.

00:58:58.284 --> 00:59:01.120
They have nothing to do
with reality, I don\'t think.

00:59:01.120 --> 00:59:03.539
When you have dreams, they
do this in your head...

00:59:04.582 --> 00:59:06.918
they fly away.

00:59:09.629 --> 00:59:12.131
(somber music)

00:59:16.552 --> 00:59:19.347
When I was in New York
City and was painting,

00:59:19.347 --> 00:59:20.974
of course there were white artists

00:59:20.974 --> 00:59:23.643
that despised Black people,

00:59:23.643 --> 00:59:25.812
and they really despised me.

00:59:30.692 --> 00:59:35.655
In 1972, I had my first one-man
exhibition on 57th Street.

00:59:36.155 --> 00:59:39.701
And white artists that
were known showed up,

00:59:39.701 --> 00:59:41.536
but they wouldn\'t come in the gallery,

00:59:41.536 --> 00:59:43.788
they stood in the hallway.

00:59:43.788 --> 00:59:45.665
They all stood outside in the lobby,

00:59:45.665 --> 00:59:47.875
and wouldn\'t come into the gallery?

00:59:47.875 --> 00:59:50.837
If that\'s not racist, you
tell me what the fuck it is.

00:59:50.837 --> 00:59:52.672
But they all pulled that off.

00:59:53.631 --> 00:59:56.426
I think the only one that
was cool in the whole deal

00:59:56.426 --> 01:00:00.013
was Larry Poons \'cause he
didn\'t have a blindfold on.

01:00:00.013 --> 01:00:02.140
Larry\'s a good guy.

01:00:02.140 --> 01:00:04.559
But I mean the racism
was just unbelievable

01:00:04.559 --> 01:00:08.354
in the art world, I mean, it
just, man, it was horrible.

01:00:09.897 --> 01:00:12.483
I didn\'t have a chance
to really confront it

01:00:12.483 --> 01:00:14.360
the way other Black artists did

01:00:14.360 --> 01:00:17.030
because they knew I worked at Perls

01:00:17.030 --> 01:00:19.991
and they knew that I had some
connection to real money.

01:00:23.119 --> 01:00:27.165
You know, I didn\'t know any
Black artists to be around.

01:00:27.165 --> 01:00:30.501
I was in downtown Manhattan,
I wasn\'t in Harlem.

01:00:30.501 --> 01:00:32.295
I wasn\'t sitting around in Black bars

01:00:32.295 --> 01:00:35.423
arguing about, you know, what
white people are doing to me.

01:00:35.423 --> 01:00:37.592
I was trying to paint, I was by myself.

01:00:37.592 --> 01:00:40.970
I\'d go into that loft after
working all day long at Perls,

01:00:40.970 --> 01:00:42.805
and went across the street
and got something to eat

01:00:42.805 --> 01:00:45.266
and came back and painted,
went back to work the next day.

01:00:46.726 --> 01:00:49.228
But I was disliked by a lot
of people on Madison Avenue,

01:00:49.228 --> 01:00:50.813
I knew that for a fact.

01:00:50.813 --> 01:00:53.399
They did not understand
how I could work at Perls.

01:00:54.859 --> 01:00:56.110
And this one guy,

01:00:56.110 --> 01:00:59.447
he refused to talk to a
Black person about art.

01:00:59.447 --> 01:01:00.490
And he got pissed off at me

01:01:00.490 --> 01:01:02.200
and wrote this long letter to the Perls

01:01:02.200 --> 01:01:03.618
about how much he hated me

01:01:03.618 --> 01:01:04.827
and how they were gonna get in trouble

01:01:04.827 --> 01:01:06.829
having me in the gallery.

01:01:06.829 --> 01:01:09.582
Perls\' wife went to his room in the hotel

01:01:09.582 --> 01:01:11.084
and laid it on him and
said, \"You don\'t know

01:01:11.084 --> 01:01:13.419
who you talking about
and what you talking to?\"

01:01:13.419 --> 01:01:15.505
She was a tough woman, Dolly Perls.

01:01:15.505 --> 01:01:18.341
She was a serious woman
and she wasn\'t a racist.

01:01:18.341 --> 01:01:20.843
>>Were other Black artists resentful

01:01:20.843 --> 01:01:22.178
of you?
>>Oh, yeah.

01:01:22.178 --> 01:01:24.222
Not one of \'em ever came to the gallery,

01:01:24.222 --> 01:01:25.473
none of the other Black artists,

01:01:25.473 --> 01:01:29.018
not a one in the world
came to say hello to me.

01:01:29.018 --> 01:01:33.481
I get caught by both sides of
the fence, white and Black.

01:01:33.481 --> 01:01:34.982
There\'s Black people that despise me

01:01:34.982 --> 01:01:37.026
and there\'s white people that despise me.

01:01:37.026 --> 01:01:40.446
I mean, my personality is not
accepted by a lot of people

01:01:40.446 --> 01:01:43.324
\'cause I\'m not your average Black boy.

01:01:43.324 --> 01:01:45.243
I\'ve been different places,
they don\'t like that.

01:01:45.243 --> 01:01:48.162
They want you to be a homeboy,
and I\'m not a homeboy.

01:01:48.162 --> 01:01:50.206
You know, I got some other
things going on in my life

01:01:50.206 --> 01:01:51.916
other than homeboy.

01:01:53.501 --> 01:01:55.962
This Black art talk, this white art talk,

01:01:55.962 --> 01:01:57.964
I\'m not interested in it.

01:01:57.964 --> 01:02:01.926
And I\'m not interested in political art.

01:02:01.926 --> 01:02:05.847
I\'m kind of a misfit in
the culture, I think.

01:02:05.847 --> 01:02:07.682
I really do.

01:02:08.266 --> 01:02:10.768
(slow music)

01:02:38.045 --> 01:02:39.755
After 10 years of working at Perls,

01:02:39.755 --> 01:02:43.676
I decided that I had to
leave the nine to five.

01:02:45.011 --> 01:02:46.304
I wanted to paint.

01:02:46.304 --> 01:02:48.014
I did not want to go to work every day

01:02:48.014 --> 01:02:50.641
and talk to famous people
and listen to their bullshit.

01:02:50.641 --> 01:02:52.143
I quit.

01:02:55.980 --> 01:02:57.607
My last exhibition with Emmerich

01:02:57.607 --> 01:03:00.651
was 1976 in Zurich, Switzerland.

01:03:01.944 --> 01:03:05.031
And no one else ever took me on.

01:03:06.741 --> 01:03:09.452
No other gallery in Manhattan
was gonna show a Black artist

01:03:09.452 --> 01:03:11.037
that was as big as Emmerich was.

01:03:11.037 --> 01:03:12.997
But nobody that I knew had a gallery then,

01:03:12.997 --> 01:03:14.832
white, Black, blue, green or gray.

01:03:14.832 --> 01:03:17.126
They weren\'t showing anybody.

01:03:17.126 --> 01:03:18.628
I think color field
painting got in trouble

01:03:18.628 --> 01:03:20.630
and it\'s still in trouble.

01:03:20.630 --> 01:03:24.008
It got in trouble after
Clement Greenberg died

01:03:24.008 --> 01:03:26.761
and then André Emmerich died.

01:03:26.761 --> 01:03:28.888
No one else was handling it.

01:03:28.888 --> 01:03:31.724
And then Noland died surprisingly,

01:03:31.724 --> 01:03:33.643
You know, which uh...

01:03:36.395 --> 01:03:40.149
Al Loving\'s dead, Noland\'s
dead, Olitski\'s dead...

01:03:41.651 --> 01:03:43.945
Like I don\'t know where it is now.

01:03:43.945 --> 01:03:47.365
The whole Color Field school of painting.

01:03:49.951 --> 01:03:52.787
I\'m still here.

01:03:52.787 --> 01:03:55.373
(Peter laughs)

01:04:01.128 --> 01:04:01.963
Whoo.

01:04:06.008 --> 01:04:09.720
That pile is 75 paintings
have to be cropped.

01:04:13.307 --> 01:04:15.518
That\'s from a huge painting.

01:04:15.518 --> 01:04:18.062
It\'s just a cut.

01:04:18.062 --> 01:04:20.147
It\'s very difficult to
get the entire painting

01:04:20.147 --> 01:04:21.983
to go all at once.

01:04:21.983 --> 01:04:25.361
And then sometimes the major
part of the painting fails,

01:04:25.361 --> 01:04:29.907
and I have to depend on looking
at certain sections of it

01:04:29.907 --> 01:04:32.034
that are working.

01:04:32.034 --> 01:04:33.661
I don\'t think this picture\'s successful

01:04:33.661 --> 01:04:35.913
because the color is not hooked up right,

01:04:35.913 --> 01:04:37.790
it has to be contained more.

01:04:37.790 --> 01:04:40.626
(tape rasping)

01:04:40.626 --> 01:04:42.336
That\'s pretty good.

01:04:42.336 --> 01:04:44.589
I could cut the top down some more.

01:04:44.589 --> 01:04:47.800
(tape rasping)

01:04:47.800 --> 01:04:49.302
That\'s a better picture now.

01:04:49.302 --> 01:04:50.887
You see it?

01:04:50.887 --> 01:04:52.096
When you get close to the painting,

01:04:52.096 --> 01:04:54.974
you tape it off and see
what you\'re looking at

01:04:54.974 --> 01:04:56.976
and then you walk away without
looking at the painting.

01:04:56.976 --> 01:04:58.603
Look at anything else without
looking at the painting,

01:04:58.603 --> 01:05:00.563
and then turn around and
look at it real quick.

01:05:00.563 --> 01:05:03.858
And that tells you
where the painting\'s at.

01:05:03.858 --> 01:05:05.359
It\'s not a bad picture now.

01:05:05.359 --> 01:05:07.987
Now it\'s becoming a painting.

01:05:07.987 --> 01:05:11.324
I think this picture is small.

01:05:13.034 --> 01:05:14.994
(tape rasping)

01:05:14.994 --> 01:05:18.706
In New York City is the main thing you do,

01:05:18.706 --> 01:05:21.334
smoke marijuana and do this.

01:05:21.334 --> 01:05:22.835
(tape rasping)

01:05:22.835 --> 01:05:25.046
I remember doing this for
hours at Greenberg and Noland.

01:05:25.046 --> 01:05:26.589
Just hours.

01:05:26.589 --> 01:05:28.007
Ay! Prick!

01:05:28.883 --> 01:05:31.385
Now here\'s where it really
gets good, watch this.

01:05:31.385 --> 01:05:32.803
This is the shot.

01:05:35.806 --> 01:05:37.266
There\'s two paintings.

01:05:37.266 --> 01:05:39.226
Nothing wrong with that, do
you know what I\'m saying?

01:05:39.226 --> 01:05:40.561
You don\'t need all that shit at the bottom

01:05:40.561 --> 01:05:43.147
and all that stuff, it\'s ridiculous.

01:05:43.147 --> 01:05:44.690
A lot of people think, \"Well,
I\'m gonna paint a picture.\"

01:05:44.690 --> 01:05:46.442
They paint a picture and
say, \"Well it\'s done.\"

01:05:46.442 --> 01:05:50.154
They think it\'s done. Well fuck,
it might just be getting started!

01:05:50.154 --> 01:05:50.988
You know?

01:05:50.988 --> 01:05:52.323
Because they\'re terrified to cut it

01:05:52.323 --> 01:05:53.824
or to edit anything out of it

01:05:53.824 --> 01:05:56.994
because they think that
they\'re the right all the time,

01:05:56.994 --> 01:05:59.163
the artist, and it\'s bullshit.

01:05:59.163 --> 01:06:01.165
You can paint a picture
and and find a picture.

01:06:01.165 --> 01:06:02.625
I\'m finding another picture
down in the bottom here.

01:06:02.625 --> 01:06:04.126
I\'ll show it to you.

01:06:04.126 --> 01:06:04.960
Yeah.

01:06:07.463 --> 01:06:09.423
It\'s a nice little picture.

01:06:09.423 --> 01:06:10.675
And there\'s a whole nother canvas

01:06:10.675 --> 01:06:13.344
I can paint on, at the bottom.

01:06:17.431 --> 01:06:19.433
This is a piece that\'s
never been thrown away

01:06:19.433 --> 01:06:22.228
from a picture that\'s been
painted God knows when,

01:06:22.228 --> 01:06:25.690
so I\'m gonna try to see if
I can bring it back to life.

01:06:27.358 --> 01:06:28.776
(stapler thudding)

01:06:28.776 --> 01:06:31.028
I\'m not gonna throw it away.

01:06:31.028 --> 01:06:34.198
\'Cause this shit costs a lot of money.

01:06:38.160 --> 01:06:41.163
I run out of money every day.

01:06:41.163 --> 01:06:44.458
I don\'t care how much money it
is, I\'m gonna run out of it.

01:06:45.668 --> 01:06:48.212
And I\'m just starting to
realize what that\'s about.

01:06:48.212 --> 01:06:51.090
Because we\'re relying on staying alive

01:06:51.090 --> 01:06:53.676
with this sale of my paintings.

01:06:55.010 --> 01:06:58.139
I\'ve never been under that
pressure in my life, ever.

01:07:00.599 --> 01:07:02.601
(door slamming)

01:07:02.601 --> 01:07:06.272
(birds calling softly)

01:07:06.272 --> 01:07:09.567
(wind blowing softly)

01:07:10.484 --> 01:07:13.738
(rain falling softly)

01:07:15.281 --> 01:07:18.200
(melancholy music)

01:07:29.253 --> 01:07:31.088
My mother died in 1980

01:07:31.088 --> 01:07:34.467
and it was very difficult
for me after that.

01:07:39.972 --> 01:07:44.477
The house was sold in
Connellsville and was torn down.

01:07:46.937 --> 01:07:49.356
It had been several
years since I quit Perls

01:07:49.356 --> 01:07:51.692
and had my last show with Emmerich.

01:07:51.692 --> 01:07:53.944
And to save rent,

01:07:53.944 --> 01:07:57.031
I moved my studio to an upper
floor of an old firehouse

01:07:57.031 --> 01:07:59.450
on Lafayette Street in Chinatown.

01:08:00.367 --> 01:08:02.161
It was still owned by the city,

01:08:02.161 --> 01:08:04.538
but I paid this Chinese guy $800 a month

01:08:04.538 --> 01:08:07.124
or something like that, I\'m not sure.

01:08:07.124 --> 01:08:10.878
And in 1985 the city transferred the lease

01:08:10.878 --> 01:08:13.798
on the firehouse to a new landlord.

01:08:14.799 --> 01:08:17.551
They wanted my floor and
tried all kinds of games

01:08:17.551 --> 01:08:19.095
to throw me in the street.

01:08:19.095 --> 01:08:22.807
I took it to court legally,
but it didn\'t work.

01:08:22.807 --> 01:08:26.018
I went through all the money
I had to try to defend myself,

01:08:26.018 --> 01:08:29.188
and the judge just gave it to him,
that\'s all.

01:08:30.022 --> 01:08:33.442
I put the things that I thought
were valuable into storage.

01:08:33.442 --> 01:08:34.944
I walked away from my paintings,

01:08:34.944 --> 01:08:37.029
\'cause I hadn\'t nowhere to take them

01:08:37.029 --> 01:08:39.532
and they\'re either stolen or thrown away.

01:08:39.532 --> 01:08:41.367
I don\'t know.

01:08:43.911 --> 01:08:47.373
After I lost a firehouse,
I drifted around.

01:08:47.373 --> 01:08:48.874
I stayed at different friends places

01:08:48.874 --> 01:08:51.794
for very short periods of time.

01:08:51.794 --> 01:08:53.754
But I also spent a lot of nights

01:08:53.754 --> 01:08:56.674
in doorways on the streets of Manhattan.

01:08:59.510 --> 01:09:01.011
And if you wanna get scared,

01:09:01.011 --> 01:09:02.471
you try to be in the streets of Manhattan

01:09:02.471 --> 01:09:04.265
by yourself at night.

01:09:04.265 --> 01:09:08.185
It\'s scary. With no place
to live, it is fucked up.

01:09:08.185 --> 01:09:10.354
That was the lowest point.

01:09:12.898 --> 01:09:14.483
I was embarrassed that I
was living in the streets

01:09:14.483 --> 01:09:15.568
and I knew rich people

01:09:15.568 --> 01:09:18.445
but I wasn\'t gonna go ask
them for money to help me out.

01:09:18.445 --> 01:09:20.239
What was they gonna do, you know?

01:09:20.239 --> 01:09:22.533
Say, \"You can move in with me.\"?

01:09:22.533 --> 01:09:25.661
I think I was homeless
about four to five months.

01:09:25.661 --> 01:09:29.039
I remember sleeping in abandoned cars

01:09:29.039 --> 01:09:33.419
and I remember spending
all night in crack houses

01:09:33.419 --> 01:09:36.755
just to have a place that was
warm enough to stay inside.

01:09:38.757 --> 01:09:41.260
I did a little crack.

01:09:41.260 --> 01:09:43.596
I got introduced to getting high on crack

01:09:43.596 --> 01:09:46.223
with this guy that lived on 10th Street.

01:09:46.223 --> 01:09:47.725
And I didn\'t know he was a crackhead.

01:09:47.725 --> 01:09:49.727
I didn\'t even know crack was.

01:09:49.727 --> 01:09:51.437
He said, \"Well try at hit, try a hit!\"

01:09:51.437 --> 01:09:53.105
And so I took a hit of it.

01:09:53.105 --> 01:09:55.232
I said, \"That\'s pretty interesting stuff.\"

01:09:55.232 --> 01:09:58.444
(melancholy music)

01:09:58.444 --> 01:10:00.404
And I didn\'t feel any
different when I was high,

01:10:00.404 --> 01:10:03.157
other than the fact that I
could escape being lonely

01:10:03.157 --> 01:10:04.909
and I could focus on the
people that were getting high.

01:10:04.909 --> 01:10:07.536
There\'s some very strange
people getting high.

01:10:07.536 --> 01:10:08.829
But when you\'re not high,

01:10:08.829 --> 01:10:10.289
you know, you\'re by yourself all the time

01:10:10.289 --> 01:10:13.083
sitting on a park bench
and that\'s bullshit.

01:10:13.083 --> 01:10:13.918
I said, \"This shit ain\'t for me.

01:10:13.918 --> 01:10:15.794
I\'m getting outta this.\"

01:10:15.794 --> 01:10:18.797
So I just quit, never touched it again.

01:10:18.797 --> 01:10:20.132
Well, I knew I had to paint

01:10:20.132 --> 01:10:22.259
and I couldn\'t paint if I was
gonna continue to do this.

01:10:23.177 --> 01:10:25.679
(jazzy music)

01:10:55.209 --> 01:10:58.545
(music continues)

01:11:10.641 --> 01:11:12.518
I painted the entire time, all my life.

01:11:12.518 --> 01:11:14.478
I don\'t know one year I didn\'t paint.

01:11:15.479 --> 01:11:17.356
But I\'ve never been aggressive

01:11:17.356 --> 01:11:18.857
about going to a galleries saying,

01:11:18.857 --> 01:11:20.401
\"You wanna show me, you wanna do this?\"

01:11:20.401 --> 01:11:21.735
I can\'t kiss ass.

01:11:21.735 --> 01:11:23.988
I can\'t be in someone\'s face all the time.

01:11:23.988 --> 01:11:28.033
So therefore I\'m not looked
at as being someone important.

01:11:28.951 --> 01:11:33.038
After Emmerich, I did several
shows with John Hersey

01:11:33.038 --> 01:11:34.748
and shows with somebody else.

01:11:34.748 --> 01:11:36.250
One show where the guy claims

01:11:36.250 --> 01:11:39.295
that he didn\'t sell any
paintings, so he burned them all.

01:11:40.671 --> 01:11:42.047
>>Burned your paintings?

01:11:42.047 --> 01:11:45.426
>>Yeah, he burned all of \'em
\'cause he didn\'t sell \'em.

01:11:45.426 --> 01:11:47.970
I went to some gallery in New York City

01:11:47.970 --> 01:11:52.266
and showed what I did and the
woman almost laughed at me.

01:11:52.266 --> 01:11:53.684
She almost laughed in my face,

01:11:53.684 --> 01:11:56.562
\"Ha ha, okay fine, see you later.\"

01:11:56.562 --> 01:11:58.480
So I just decided to
stay away from galleries

01:11:58.480 --> 01:12:00.691
and stay with people that
didn\'t like Black people

01:12:00.691 --> 01:12:03.986
one way or the other, and
got the hell out of there.

01:12:03.986 --> 01:12:06.113
So I came here and I got
a space to walk around in.

01:12:06.113 --> 01:12:09.324
I bought a container, I could paint there.

01:12:09.324 --> 01:12:12.619
That was the only way
I could see it go on.

01:12:14.580 --> 01:12:17.166
(file rasping)

01:12:26.091 --> 01:12:29.595
It\'s a hood mount from
a Rocket 88 Oldsmobile.

01:12:30.679 --> 01:12:35.142
Supposedly the Oldsmobile
belong to Clifford Brown.

01:12:35.142 --> 01:12:37.186
Back in the day, the
people that had a nightclub

01:12:37.186 --> 01:12:38.854
asked my mother for some money

01:12:38.854 --> 01:12:40.564
\'cause they wanted to bring
this great trumpet player

01:12:40.564 --> 01:12:43.442
to Pittsburgh, and he left Pittsburgh

01:12:43.442 --> 01:12:47.196
and was driving a brand
new Rocket 88 Oldsmobile.

01:12:47.196 --> 01:12:49.156
And he let the girl he
brought with him drive it,

01:12:49.156 --> 01:12:51.784
and of course she killed all of \'em.

01:12:51.784 --> 01:12:54.953
My mother said, \"I gave you
some money to bring him here.

01:12:54.953 --> 01:12:56.830
And he was going back to New York City

01:12:56.830 --> 01:12:58.916
and I didn\'t get a dime out of it.

01:12:58.916 --> 01:13:02.377
And my son wants the
hood mount off his car.\"

01:13:02.377 --> 01:13:04.588
I like it, always liked it.

01:13:04.588 --> 01:13:06.757
Of course l liked the airplanes, you know?

01:13:06.757 --> 01:13:08.592
It knocks me out that
you can get in something

01:13:08.592 --> 01:13:11.595
and go up in the air and
then you can look down.

01:13:11.595 --> 01:13:14.223
Once you look down you can see this maybe.

01:13:14.223 --> 01:13:15.099
I get the feeling of flying

01:13:15.099 --> 01:13:16.517
over top of some of these things.

01:13:16.517 --> 01:13:17.976
You know what I\'m saying?

01:13:17.976 --> 01:13:19.311
When you see them from the top,

01:13:19.311 --> 01:13:22.564
looking down on them like this here...

01:13:22.564 --> 01:13:24.274
I have strange fantasies.

01:13:24.274 --> 01:13:26.276
I have fantasies that one of these days

01:13:26.276 --> 01:13:27.444
we\'re gonna go outside

01:13:27.444 --> 01:13:29.738
and someone\'s gonna walk
out of some kind of ship

01:13:29.738 --> 01:13:31.156
and say, \"Well, they\'re all dead.

01:13:31.156 --> 01:13:32.324
We killed \'em all.

01:13:32.324 --> 01:13:34.451
This planet\'s ours now.\"

01:13:34.451 --> 01:13:37.788
And this feels the same kind of way

01:13:37.788 --> 01:13:40.958
of looking down at something that\'s...

01:13:40.958 --> 01:13:44.086
you don\'t know what\'s there,
but you\'re looking down on it.

01:13:44.086 --> 01:13:46.839
(spacey music)

01:13:47.840 --> 01:13:50.843
It\'s a strange feeling, it really is.

01:13:50.843 --> 01:13:52.511
It\'s hard to tell what you\'re looking at,

01:13:52.511 --> 01:13:56.014
you\'re looking at another world in itself.

01:13:57.182 --> 01:13:58.559
That can be deep space,

01:13:58.559 --> 01:14:00.811
that can be anywhere in the universe

01:14:00.811 --> 01:14:02.521
and you can do it with paint.

01:14:04.940 --> 01:14:07.317
Everyone wants to go to another world.

01:14:07.317 --> 01:14:10.737
I\'d like to be the first Black
person to go to deep space.

01:14:12.406 --> 01:14:14.449
I can\'t wait till they
find an intelligence source

01:14:14.449 --> 01:14:15.409
in deep space.

01:14:15.409 --> 01:14:16.702
They\'re gonna find it sooner or later

01:14:16.702 --> 01:14:20.456
if they haven\'t found it
already and not telling us.

01:14:20.456 --> 01:14:22.875
There\'s somebody out there
that\'s smarter than us.

01:14:22.875 --> 01:14:24.918
Believe me.

01:14:24.918 --> 01:14:27.212
>>FTS is armed for launch.

01:14:27.212 --> 01:14:29.047
>>They\'re getting ready to go.

01:14:29.047 --> 01:14:31.216
You know, I want them to go to a planet

01:14:31.216 --> 01:14:32.885
and everyone walks out
the door on the planet

01:14:32.885 --> 01:14:35.304
and they\'re all Black,
and end this bullshit!

01:14:35.304 --> 01:14:36.805
>>Ignition.

01:14:36.805 --> 01:14:38.140
Lift off!

01:14:38.140 --> 01:14:39.725
>>It\'s gone!

01:14:39.725 --> 01:14:43.187
Oh, boy, I should be flying that.

01:14:43.187 --> 01:14:46.273
We\'re going 29,000 miles an hour.

01:14:46.273 --> 01:14:47.900
Oh, shit!

01:14:47.900 --> 01:14:50.319
The fuel tank is empty.

01:14:51.570 --> 01:14:54.031
It\'s a strange machine to
fly, I\'ll tell you that.

01:14:54.031 --> 01:14:55.616
(Peter chuckles)

01:14:55.616 --> 01:14:57.951
Kids would like to sit in it
and play with it, I think.

01:14:57.951 --> 01:14:59.244
If I was a kid I\'d do it.

01:14:59.244 --> 01:15:01.455
I mean, I don\'t know about other kids.

01:15:01.455 --> 01:15:03.665
Safety switch is on.

01:15:03.665 --> 01:15:05.209
It takes a lot to put some oil on this

01:15:05.209 --> 01:15:07.294
to get it to fly, I think.

01:15:07.294 --> 01:15:09.963
Some 3-in-1 oil, I betcha
all this stuff works.

01:15:09.963 --> 01:15:11.423
You\'ll see.

01:15:12.758 --> 01:15:16.261
I paint and I make
sculpture at the same time.

01:15:16.261 --> 01:15:18.096
It\'s just a matter of
putting things together

01:15:18.096 --> 01:15:19.723
that feel right.

01:15:20.891 --> 01:15:22.976
It gives you a reason to stay alive,

01:15:22.976 --> 01:15:25.187
to wake up every morning to do that.

01:15:25.187 --> 01:15:26.605
\'Cause otherwise if you wake up

01:15:26.605 --> 01:15:29.024
what the fuck do you do, cut grass?

01:15:29.024 --> 01:15:31.610
(bright music)

01:15:36.073 --> 01:15:37.950
I can\'t wait to wake up

01:15:37.950 --> 01:15:39.576
because in the morning I wake up, BANG,

01:15:39.576 --> 01:15:42.454
all of a sudden I see
all this color around me.

01:15:44.331 --> 01:15:46.625
It\'s a great life I live,
I think it\'s terrific.

01:15:46.625 --> 01:15:50.462
I mean, I wouldn\'t exchange
it for anything in the world.

01:15:50.462 --> 01:15:51.880
But my mom predicted it, you know?

01:15:51.880 --> 01:15:53.840
She said, \"You got a great
life and a great career.

01:15:53.840 --> 01:15:55.008
Stay with it.\"

01:15:57.219 --> 01:16:00.931
I wish she was alive and
seeing what I\'m doing now.

01:16:00.931 --> 01:16:01.932
Watch this.

01:16:01.932 --> 01:16:04.518
(bright jazzy music)

01:16:09.856 --> 01:16:12.693
This is off of a famous submarine.

01:16:30.335 --> 01:16:33.755
(music continues)

01:16:46.310 --> 01:16:49.730
(music ending)

01:16:56.820 --> 01:17:00.490
Experimenting is fun. It really is.

01:17:00.490 --> 01:17:01.825
I like it.

01:17:05.662 --> 01:17:07.497
I like that too.

01:17:07.497 --> 01:17:10.042
I could put some musical notes in that.

01:17:10.042 --> 01:17:10.917
Right here.

01:17:10.917 --> 01:17:13.003
One, two, three lines.

01:17:13.003 --> 01:17:16.256
You could put B flat F minor.

01:17:16.256 --> 01:17:19.259
That\'s a B flat there, that\'s an F minor.

01:17:19.259 --> 01:17:20.927
Little tiny things, we
don\'t know what they are,

01:17:20.927 --> 01:17:22.220
what notes they are.

01:17:22.220 --> 01:17:24.139
(bird chirping)

01:17:24.139 --> 01:17:26.641
He\'s singing the song to it.

01:17:26.641 --> 01:17:28.226
He\'s in C minor.

01:17:28.226 --> 01:17:29.728
He\'ll do it again.

01:17:31.146 --> 01:17:33.231
(bird chirping)

01:17:33.231 --> 01:17:34.858
The bird!

01:17:34.858 --> 01:17:36.943
He\'s in C minor.

01:17:36.943 --> 01:17:39.154
He\'s not an F, he\'s not in G, he\'s a C!

01:17:39.154 --> 01:17:41.573
(Peter vocalizing)

01:17:41.573 --> 01:17:43.784
That\'s C minor.

01:17:43.784 --> 01:17:45.327
Ya know?

01:17:46.453 --> 01:17:48.538
(bird chirping)

01:17:48.538 --> 01:17:50.957
(Peter vocalizing)

01:17:50.957 --> 01:17:53.460
(soft piano music)

01:18:13.814 --> 01:18:15.941
When I was a kid, someone
80 years old, my God!

01:18:15.941 --> 01:18:18.777
That was the end of their
life, they were gone.

01:18:18.777 --> 01:18:21.029
But mine is starting at 80.

01:18:23.532 --> 01:18:24.908
Nothing stops me.

01:18:24.908 --> 01:18:26.410
What do you think?

01:18:28.912 --> 01:18:31.415
(music continues)

01:18:34.167 --> 01:18:35.502
This looks right now.

01:18:35.502 --> 01:18:37.462
It\'s getting there.

01:18:38.213 --> 01:18:39.589
I think I\'ve been one
of the luckiest people

01:18:39.589 --> 01:18:40.882
that ever lived.

01:18:40.882 --> 01:18:43.510
I was lucky enough to be
adopted by who adopted me

01:18:43.510 --> 01:18:47.097
and I was lucky enough to
marry three beautiful women

01:18:47.097 --> 01:18:51.143
that liked me better than I liked myself.

01:18:51.143 --> 01:18:55.480
Well, that\'s not true,
I like myself just fine.

01:18:56.982 --> 01:18:58.984
This is a self-portrait.

01:19:00.444 --> 01:19:02.779
I like that drawing.

01:19:02.779 --> 01:19:06.283
That\'s another self-portrait,
I like this one too.

01:19:09.035 --> 01:19:12.247
Kind of strange to see
it, but I know it\'s me.

01:19:12.247 --> 01:19:13.540
And Debra says that I painted these

01:19:13.540 --> 01:19:16.251
in the apartment in Manhattan.

01:19:16.251 --> 01:19:20.422
I don\'t know, as you know, my memory\'s bad

01:19:20.422 --> 01:19:22.757
about the past. And it\'s funny

01:19:22.757 --> 01:19:24.634
\'cause I didn\'t know my
memory was getting this bad

01:19:24.634 --> 01:19:27.345
until certain things would happen.

01:19:27.345 --> 01:19:29.931
And Debra\'d say,\"You just
asked that question, Peter,\"

01:19:29.931 --> 01:19:32.559
and I\'d get in a big argument
with her, \"I did not!\"

01:19:32.559 --> 01:19:35.562
And then someone else would
say, \"Peter, you just said so.\"

01:19:35.562 --> 01:19:38.899
Then I started seeing
I\'m losing my memory!

01:19:38.899 --> 01:19:40.942
That was really hard to figure out.

01:19:40.942 --> 01:19:42.194
But I don\'t care one day to the next,

01:19:42.194 --> 01:19:46.281
as long as I can get up
and do what I have to do.

01:19:47.741 --> 01:19:49.284
I can be like most artists

01:19:49.284 --> 01:19:51.286
and have no conversation at all

01:19:51.286 --> 01:19:52.287
just sit and look at you.

01:19:52.287 --> 01:19:54.623
Most of \'em don\'t talk about anything.

01:19:57.042 --> 01:20:00.962
The ones that are
successful, never say a word.

01:20:02.088 --> 01:20:05.592
The less I remember, the more I can paint!

01:20:06.718 --> 01:20:08.261
I don\'t have to talk to
anyone, I can just paint.

01:20:08.261 --> 01:20:10.722
This might be the last
interview I ever do.

01:20:10.722 --> 01:20:12.182
I think it might be.

01:20:12.182 --> 01:20:14.518
That\'s why it\'s so good,
you\'re making it good

01:20:14.518 --> 01:20:18.146
because I don\'t think I\'m gonna
talk to anyone else anymore.

01:20:21.191 --> 01:20:23.235
(jazzy music)

01:20:23.235 --> 01:20:24.486
It\'s coming up.

01:20:36.331 --> 01:20:37.457
Hmm.

01:20:41.878 --> 01:20:44.881
Who would paint something like that?

01:20:49.469 --> 01:20:50.303
I like it.

01:20:51.179 --> 01:20:52.889
I like the painting.

01:20:52.889 --> 01:20:54.349
Do you?

01:20:55.976 --> 01:21:00.063
I want to see how many things
I can paint while I\'m alive.

01:21:00.063 --> 01:21:04.109
I really gotta kick ass today, tomorrow...

01:21:04.109 --> 01:21:07.487
When you leave, I\'m going
back to work, that\'s it.

01:21:09.948 --> 01:21:12.450
(soft piano music)

01:21:49.946 --> 01:21:53.283
(music ends)

01:21:54.409 --> 01:21:55.952
All right, let\'s sit down,

01:21:55.952 --> 01:21:57.454
have a beer.

01:21:58.455 --> 01:22:00.957
(grandiose jazz music)

01:22:21.061 --> 01:22:23.146
I don\'t think we should have
so many beer cans in the film,

01:22:23.146 --> 01:22:24.606
don\'t you think?

01:22:24.606 --> 01:22:26.149
>>Probably not.

01:22:26.149 --> 01:22:27.525
>>But fuck \'em, they didn\'t pay for it,

01:22:27.525 --> 01:22:29.319
so they can kiss my Black ass.

01:22:33.073 --> 01:22:35.575
(jazzy music)

01:25:19.280 --> 01:25:20.448
(jazzy music ending)