My Evening With Peter Max: A Rare Visit From Pop Art Royalty

It was a cold night in November and I made plans to go see Peter Max speak at the Jewish Book Fair at JCC, (the Jewish Community Center) in West Bloomfield, MI. I came from an intense art school background and Max came from the long instilled teachings of my background. His name synonymous with The Beatles, Andy Warhol and the 1960’s. Seeing  him up close would be a rarity so I made plans to be there early and get in line. His loud expressionistic colors splashed across pop art posters and canvases around the globe. They screamed with universal messages of love and peace with such a volume that it shattered the senses.

I was surprised that he was still active since I hadn’t heard his name spoken in my art circles in decades. I nearly fell over when I saw his name on a postcard of upcoming events in a local Caribou Coffee house in West Bloomfield, MI. That’s usually where I run into things…. You know, randomly on the street. I made doubly sure that I wasn’t going to miss out on this one and safely tucked the postcard away with my notes.

Now I was standing in line before anybody else. Oddly, I was one of the youngest people in the audience. Surely there must be other people my age that cared about this artistic genius. He created large pop colored jets with his art work painted all over the sides and made International news headlines. Max also created these amazing giant colorful beach balls that rained down during soccer games. Well, at least that’s the way I remembered it. I had seen a video of his work in a retrospective a good ten years earlier but there was never a mention of his current whereabouts. Now, behind the door in front of me I was about to get as close as I could to an artistic icon.

My ticket wasn’t as close to the stage as I had hoped. I was sitting in the second seating section of the theater. That’s okay I told myself at least I am in the same room with the guy. The lights dimmed and Peter Max was introduced and then he quietly walked onto the stage under the lights. There was no introduction music to pump up the crowd and yet the audience went wild. My first thoughts were, “He really looks a lot smaller than I thought he would be…” and my second thoughts were, “Wow, that’s actually Peter Max !!”

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