Page 41 - The Hunt - Summer 2023

The Art of Being
PETER WILLARD
The Kennett Square painter refuses to conform to expectations about what an artist should be.
BY ROGER MORRIS | PHOTOS BY JIM GRAHAM
Peter Willard doesn’t mind it if you think ihis methodology is a little unusual, perhaps even a little weird. “I don’t use an easel,” the artist says as he walks around Trover Nine, his small studio and gallery on South Broad Street
in Kennett Square.
There are tubes of paint, brushes, and framed and unframed paintings everywhere—and nothing that could be mistaken for an easel. What does he do when he goes out to paint his English-style landscapes? “Oh, I don’t do plein air, and I don’t use photographs,” he says. “Everything is in my head.”
Willard often smiles when he discusses his more than 20 years of work as a professional painter. He confesses to being somewhat hyperactive. He’s unable, it seems,
to remain seated for more than a few minutes before jumping up to retrieve a book or make a point with
one of his watercolors. “I just sit at the desk over there and paint whatever comes into my head,” says Willard, grinning. “If it’s a large painting, I get down on the floor.”
Willard is determined to shoot down all the ready- made conceptions you might have about painters, their work habits, selling one’s work ... everything. He wants to avoid any expectations of what it means to be a painter
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