Bob Peck is a local artist that has had quite of an interesting life in his 30 years in Cleveland, Peck currently has found his stride with abstract art. I've never been much of an abstract art connoisseur and even remember looking at it as a kid and thinking "I could do that!", though when I've seen the abstract work that Bob has been showing the last couple years the first thing that comes to mind is "WOW, I could never do that!". I seriously though of buying one of those pieces a couple months ago but then quickly realized his abstracts would be way too classy for my humble abode.
Bob started his love for art as a teenager and quickly became enamored with graffiti & aerosol art, the most excepting of the art world for a "outsider". I recently just read some rough draft excerpts of a bio that Bob has been working on and have placed those excerpts below.
Remember these are in the draft stage, I'm excited to read the final product that Bob has told me should be out soon. -LM
"This place was the meeting ground for every major gang in the city. Laotian Bloods, East Side Crips, Folks, Vicelords and every 'round the way street gang you could name all under one roof. Gang tags were scrawled around the outside of the building, students were crouched into outside corners smoking weed. Inside was no better, the main halls had riot gates that could be slammed shut by the school guards when the time called for it, which I'm guessing was quite often. Broken windows adorned the halls while mangled desks from classroom fights were propped up outside of dingy room doors."
***"The scary part was that I couldn't picture anything after the day I was living in though, I couldn't fathom what life would be like in the years down the road. Sometimes I even wondered if I would still be alive. The way my life was at this point I pictured myself being dead or in jail by eighteen."
**"I still had no graffiti name to tag or write so at first I just used my first name, “Bob”. Not a good idea, soon enough I had store owners chasing me down and yelling at me to stop writing my name on their properties at every corner."
***"The only class I really looked forward to in tenth grade was Art and I didn't even have it as a real class on my schedule. I had asked for Art the year before but it was full so I got Industrial Arts instead, which was a glorified name for wood shop. It wasn't bad but it wasn't art. So when tenth grade came along, I went right to the Principal and asked for art again. What did I get? Industrial Arts 2. I guess art class was full again this year. This was Kinda' feeling like when you'd ask for a cd player for Christmas and you'd end up with a cassette deck. Finally, I took it into my own hands and started skipping study hall and just showing up in Art class. Full? It wasn't full, there were plenty of seats so one day I walked in and I took one."
"I hit the Rapid station and waited patiently for the train to take me to the other side of town. The great part about this new daily commute was that I got to see almost every inch of the red line route every day. This meant I got to see all the graffiti that went up and I could keep current on what spots to go after. The train ride there was almost a half an hour of pure bliss for me. I ignored the half awake businessmen and burger flippers."
**"Even when the others weren't around I was going out almost every night on solo missions. I was determined to have my name up more than any other writer in the city. Soon enough though going out alone painting would almost cost me my life."
***"I can't lie though, after a few minutes the rush of getting away with all of those things kicked in and I remembered why I played this crazy game."
