What can I say about Peder? He was a natural magnet for our love. We adored him because he was so completely himself. And he was an artist. As I said to Ackley, I can still smell the memory I have of his oil paints. I loved watching him work, talk about his work, the work itself. His enthusiasm was a drug for me. He was the first real artist I ever knew, and thinking about it now, I realize that he helped me find the courage to go the route I went.
He's the first of our group to go - that group that connected at UNH in 1960. Or at least when I connected. There is no more important and formative time in my life than those few years when we were reinventing everything from art and music to political protest. The stand Peder, Norman and I took against ROTC is one of the proudest moments of my life. And one of the loneliest. I remember Peder's weird, barking laugh when he told up that a posse of jocks and fraternity neanderthals were hunting us that Thursday night after we picketed the afternoon drill. I still don't know if that was true, but I definitely shared Peder’s sense of drama and totally went with it.
I miss him. I look at his magnificent canvas of the west side of Manhattan looking south from the George Washington Bridge every day, and I always imagine his focused, self-contained artist energy working on that pedestrian-inaccessible part of the bridge for 2 weeks during a hot August in 1986 to get the first draft of the paintings and I always wonder how the passing motorists experienced his mumbling, cackling, physically active self-absorption. I know that I wouldn't have been able to take my eyes off him.
I miss him, but I've always missed him. Just as I miss all of you. I'm sorry I'm not there today. We don't see enough of each other. I love Peder, I love his memory, and I love the community that you have created to celebrate his memory.
Thanks, Andy Robinson
August l6, 2008
"Portrait of the Artist," Etching, UNH
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