Oral history interview with Peter Shire
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded as 13 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 8 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Shire, Peter
label: Interviewer
content: Lauria, Jo
label: Creator
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
label: Names
content: Chouinard Art Institute (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Students
label: Names
content: Los Angeles City College -- Students
label: Names
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
label: Names
content: Bennett, Garry Knox, 1934-
label: Names
content: Cibic, Aldo, 1955-
label: Names
content: Duran, Gonzalo
label: Names
content: Jiminez, Juanita
label: Names
content: Kashalek, Robert
label: Names
content: Maruyama, Wendy, 1952-
label: Names
content: Saxe, Adrian Anthony, 1943-
label: Names
content: Scaccia, Anthony
label: Names
content: Sheets, Millard, 1907-1989
label: Names
content: Thun, Matteo
label: Names
content: Westermann, H. C. (Horace Clifford), 1922-
label: Names
content: Zanini, Marco
topic: label: Topic
content: Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Decorative arts
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Shire, Peter
label: Interviewer
content: Lauria, Jo
label: Creator
content: Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Peter Shire (1947- ) is a sculptor from Los Angeles, California. Jo Lauria is a curator and arts writer also from Los Angeles, California.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 77 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2007 September 18-19
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.shire07
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Peter Shire conducted 2007 September 18-19, by Jo Lauria, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Shire's studio, in Los Angeles, California.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Shire speaks of being a native Californian; his childhood growing up in the Los Angeles community of Echo Park; his parents' socialist political ideas; memories of FBI surveillance of his home and parents; defining the term kitsch as "the substitution of spurious values for real ones," using plastic flowers as an example; the essence of the craft movement as the handmade, the real; attending Saturday classes at Chouinard Art Institute while in high school; clothing fashion in his neighborhood during the late 1960s; the influence of high school teacher Anthony Scaccia; attending Los Angeles City College for one semester; discovering Domus magazine in the school library; receiving his B.F.A. from Chouinard in 1970; teaching at InterPace; being inspired by H.C. Westermann's work; traveling to Milan, Italy and visiting Ettore Sottsass; his interest in a humanistic, personal expression in art; encountering resistance to his "art furniture"; his 2007 show at Frank Lloyd Gallery, "Peter Shire Chairs"; the desire to create a total spatial experience of his work by charging the everyday function of objects with an emotional impact; and his public art commissions. Shire also recalls Gonzalo Duran, Juanita Jiminez, Millard Sheets, Adrian Saxe, Wendy Maruyama, Gary Knox Bennett, Marco Zanini, Matteo Thun, Aldo Cibic, Robert Koshalek, and others.