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Culture Conversations: Music
Making Wood Sing
The artistic patience of Peter Prier
by Cindy Grigg | photos by Gerry Johnson
Walking into master violin maker Peter Prier’s downtown shop for a conversation is a particularly charming experience: someone cleverly rigged a violin up above the front door, the strings strumming in every new entrant.
I reflect on the unassuming approach from 300 East 200 South, where an enormous Old World mural of violin-making acclimated me to this morning’s adventure.|0| I, like many locals, have passed by and wondered over it, then turned the corner to awe in crescendo over embryonic carvings in capacious windows, passing finally by the statue of a luthier toiling in front of the shop.
But today, fantastically, I have actually wondered myself inside.
First I meet Prier’s son Daniel, who shows off a pochette, or pocket violin. He explains that in addition to it being a colloquial performance instrument, conductors once used it to set a pitch for the rest of the orchestra. When Prier joins us, he is a contrast to the gathering bustle of the shop.|1| Impressed by his patient demeanor, I fall fully into intrigue for what brought him to Salt Lake City and how his shop came about.
It started in Bavaria, with a discarded violin in a World War II bomb crater. Prier’s grandfather discovered it, refurbished it, and bestowed it upon the grateful 7-year-old. “I saw in it neck, shoulders, waist—just missing a head and legs.” His corporal interpretation at once reveals the life this artist first saw and still sees in the instruments.
It also begins to explain why Prier became not only a violinist but a --Sculptor? Carver? Prier and his son Daniel assure me that a being a luthier is similar to both. “But with one difference,” Prier specifies. “This is not exactly like making a wood bench, because it has to sing!“
“And variances are so exact,” his son Daniel adds. “Three-fourths of an inch is a mile for a luthier.” That precision was part of the draw for the young Prier. At 14, he had completed high school and was interested in working with his hands. A radio show featuring the nearby Mittenwald Violin Making School aired in sync with his ambitions. “Thirty minutes later, I was convinced.” After studying there, he immigrated to Salt Lake City to work at Pearce Music Company, arriving so late at night that only in the morning did he see his mountain views. He made up his mind to never leave. Beginning in 1965, he performed with the Utah Symphony. He opened his first shop the same year, and seven years later founded The Violin Making School of America (VMSA).|2-3|
Today, the school averages 22 students, who, 3.5 years, 7 violins, 1 cello, and a thesis later, emerge among the best-trained in the world.|4| Charles Woolf now owns the school, and Prier serves as Director Emeritus. “I go over there and show them antiques, you know,” he says as he opens a case and presents a Giuseppe Guarneri violin owned by collector Ferni, and played by Paganini himself.|5| Ferni’s daughters, the authenticated story goes, took turns practicing on it day and night. He is particular to direct my attention to how well this instrument has been preserved, and describes the exterior’s finish in terms of reds and purples. Originally, varnish was mixed by apothecaries to achieve hues now revered, similar to the mystique surrounding ‘the Stradivari Secret’ (Guarneri and Stradivari are considered the world’s greatest violin makers in history). Odd it may be, but pregnant beetles harvested from a cactus in South America form the base of the traditional recipe, which is still used today.
It is the luthier’s attention to craft that makes the artform so unique, and so sought after. For Prier, varnishing constitutes the most challenging step in his artistry. By contrast, most luthiers find the beautiful scrolls and F-holes near the middle of the instrument are the biggest challenge. But Prier discovered his knack for these artistic elements early on, and in fact paid his way as a young artist producing those very components for shops. As for designing the ribs, tailpiece, and a whole gamut of other steps, he tells me simply that although it does get complex, the goal is musicality. An even sound must be achieved from the E to G strings; the pitch of the violin cannot be shrill and the instrument must blithely elicit a tone. I smile because he is holding the antique violin as he describes all this, bow in hand, and I know it will be difficult for him not to play something.
The spontaneous performance is gorgeously proximal, both due to the size of the room and my closer, more quantified awareness of the patience both instrument and performer represent. “You see, I love to play. That’s the thing,” he smiles. “It gives me an idea how it could be made better. There is no such thing as good enough. I could make a violin today and improve upon my last one.”
Prier can recount his creations with business-meeting precision: 170 violins, 17 violas, 40 cellos, 2.5 basses (he outsourced the other half of that last bass, and laughs, calling it his ‘Mount Rushmore Project’), and 3 guitars. As stand-alone pieces, each instrument is a feat, taking about a month for a master such as himself to complete. Recently, however, he finished a body of work at yet another level entirely: a quartet comprised of two violins, one viola, and one cello. “To make it sound like they all love each other is a difficult thing. The first violin is brilliant and makes the biggest sound—it is the soloist. The second violin must be very close to it. The viola will be closest in sound to the cello, so you see the difficulty.” Utah Symphony players will be performing on Prier's quartet instruments October 20, 2012 at the Salt Lake Recital Hall, a venue he also founded and which sits adjacent to the main shop.
My final question regards which trait violin-making has most demanded of him. The answer is in harmony with all I have seen today: “Patience. One has to be less aggressive to others, and to the violin structures themselves, or it just doesn’t work.”
As I leave my conversation with the engaging Peter Prier, it is a reluctant exit, though the strum of the door reminds me of how rare the whole experience has been. I pass the statue, school windows, and mural in a kind of rewind accompanied by a new perspective, such that I find myself mentally listing a few of my own projects that could use more artistic patience.
To learn more about the Violin Making School of America visit http://www.vmsa.net.
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also on this page: Irene Rampton
Exhibition Preview: Salt Lake City
The Breakfast Club
A group of artists brought together by camaraderie, critiques and waffles
by Sue Martin | photos by Gerry Johnson
No one in the group of artists can remember exactly how long they have been meeting every Friday morning for breakfast. At least 25 years seems to be the consensus. It all started when the original four – Dottie Miles, Jossy Lownes, Carol Evans and Woody Renzetti – decided to breakfast at the Olympia Diner on 700 East before going to the Friday morning figure drawing session at Kings Academy just down the street. It became habit, and over the years they invited others to join them.
On a recent Friday morning, the group, now numbering nine or ten, met at the Lazy Day Café on 3300 South in the Millcreek area of Salt Lake City. Lownes has moved to Arizona, and Miles was out of town, but Evans and Renzetti were there representing the founders. On this particular morning the group also included Marion Dunn, Sue Valentine, Judy Maryon, Nancy Droubay, and Steve Sheffield. Duke Picard, a retired professor of geology, now poet, also joins them. Over the years, the group has included such well-known artists as Lee Deffebach and Bevan Chipman.
Over breakfast the conversation includes stories of group escapades to art shows, workshops, and plein air painting trips. There was the time a bunch of them traveled to Santa Fe for a workshop taught by Polly Hammett. Their rental car turned out to be a huge yellow Cadillac, hard to miss in the rural outskirts of Santa Fe. But then they got lost returning it to the Albuquerque airport. There were laughs all around at this and many other stories.
In addition to travel, the group has collaborated on many group shows over the years – at Patrick Moore Gallery, the Park Café and Rocky Mountain Grill in Sugarhouse. Some of them were also part of the Local Colors Gallery when it first opened in Trolley Square. This month they’ll be showing together at 15th Street Gallery.
After breakfast, they gather around Steve Sheffield’s car in the parking lot and each artist sets out a few paintings for their “parking lot critique.” Three of the artists are also art instructors, but everyone is encouraged to offer comments and suggestions. Over the years, they’ve developed the kind of trust and camaraderie that makes it easier to be frank and helpful.
“This is like another family,” says Sue Valentine. Indeed, they’ve shared much of each other’s lives over the years – painting, studying, traveling, and sharing rooms. Even Sheffield has been welcomed to bunk with the ladies, sometimes posing as son or husband.
For their group show at 15th Street Gallery, each will take a bunch of paintings and let gallery owner Glenda Bradley and her staff select the ones that will hang. There will be a good variety – from Judy Maryon’s watercolor landscapes to Marion Dunn’s whimsical figures to Steve Sheffield’s abstracts.
But what to call the show? When asked if the breakfast group has a name, I hear hesitation, confusion, and finally a few suggestions. The Waffle and Porridge Group, suggests one. The Art Breakfast Group, suggests another. “I just call it Breakfast with the Painting Ladies,” says Sheffield.
According to staff at 15th Street Gallery, they plan to call the show “The Breakfast Club,” so that settles it. To find out what paintings end up looking like when critiqued by good friends after breakfast, see the show.
15th Street Gallery in Sugar House opens The Breakfast Club during the Salt Lake Gallery Stroll, October 19, 6-9 pm. The show continues through November 3. Off the Map, a group show at Art Access through October 13, was curated by Breakfast Club member Steve Sheffield.
Exhibition Review: Salt Lake City
Irene Rampton's Visual Meanderings
A figurative painter takes an abstract detour at Patrick Moore Gallery
by Sue Martin
Normally a figurative painter, Irene Rampton wondered what would happen if she let her mind and paint brush meander. The results can be seen at Salt Lake’s Patrick Moore Gallery.
Rampton started small with her experimental pieces. On 12-inch square pieces of gesso-coated watercolor paper, she used acrylic paint and bits of collage paper in a generally circular, meandering compositional structure. She first chose yellow as her predominant color, then switched to blue, and finally to red.
As she worked she began to see orbital patterns and decided to group them into the solar (yellow) series, lunar (blue) series, and mars (red) series. Ranging in size from 6 x 9 inches to 22 x 28, and framed similarly in simple, classy frames, her show looks beautiful hanging on the white walls of Patrick Moore’s main gallery.
Through October 12, visitors can stand in the middle and let the sun, moon, and mars orbit around them, becoming the center of Rampton’s colorful universe.
Patrick Moore Gallery is at 2233 S 700 E, Salt Lake City, UT. Call for hours (801-484-6641). You can view the artist’s figurative paintings at her website: www.ireneramptonart.com.
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