Local Observation / LEGENDS
By Christina Oxenberg
When Peter Beard, an unusually handsome man, came to the office on 65th Street to meet with my boss, I didn’t notice he was handsome because in those days I still believed everyone was supposed to be good looking; my childhood was a hobbling of the mind. Still vivid was his buoyant energy and his radiance and his feral feet with claws on display in flip-flops.
My first job in NYC, fresh out of a Colorado high school, was as assistant to the secretary of a movie producer who produced nothing more than an air of importance. Daily he went for lunches and auditioned actresses in the private ‘other’ room where I often found pairs of earrings. I questioned nothing, I only observed.
I was eighteen and not directed in any particular direction. My understanding of the world was corrupted by greatly misleading fairy tales I still clung to.
My mother was stopping by to take me to lunch, instead she and Peter lolled in the hallway between my office and the office of my boss.
They went to lunch together, forgetting about their previous plans and they never returned. To this day they are still great friends. Through the years I’ve known Peter and he is impossible not to adore, and I’ve seen his work and it’s always moved me. I’ve admired it even though it took entering his studio for the full effect to sink in.
Like any real artist Peter Beard has persistently created. From his ranch in Kenya, where he scratched letters to my mother, using his own blood for ink as he’d run out and he wanted to tell her of a recent wild animal goring he’d survived. His letters look remarkably like his artwork, except miniature versions, with doodles and drawings and lots to say.
Yesterday I visited him at his fabled Montauk spread with its cliff views. I’ve taken him and his work for granted, such is the perversity of familiarity. Peter Beard is still handsome, and still extraordinary.
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