Moria Dailey
Published: September 28, 2005
Allan Peterson, chairman of PJC’s Visual Arts Department, plans to retire in December 2005, after a 31-year career at PJC.
Peterson was hired by PJC in 1974 after he worked at the University of New York in Geneseo. He both directed the Exhibition Gallery there and was head of the drawing program.
“It was cold and slushy [in New York] when I came down for my interview,” Peterson said, “It was 85 degrees when I landed, and part of my interview was at The Tiki on Pensacola Beach. I just remember thinking ‘the water is beautiful.”
As the director of the Visual Arts Gallery, Peterson has since overseen and been an integral force behind the growth of the Visual Arts Department, both in size of building and size of student body. There are now more than 300 art majors at PJC, and the building has grown greatly.
“It was much smaller,” Peterson explained about the art department when he first arrived at PJC, “But it was still a great department.”
The growth of the department was made greatly possible by a gift from the Switzer and Riley families, which went to fund the building of what is now the Anna Lamar Switzer Center for Visual Arts.
The most satisfying things about all of his years at PJC, Peterson said, have been “the best group of people I’ve ever worked with, as well as the number of great student relationships.”
Marzia Accardo, a current PJC art student, said, “Allan has been very inspiring to me and many other students. The art department isn’t going to be the same. He has done and continues to do so much.”
Peterson, who is equally well known for his written word as well as his visual art, has been writing poetry his entire life, though he has had no formal training. He says that since art school, writing and visual art have held equally important places to him.
“People sometimes refer to art as a ‘visual language’. If it is, it’s a strange one, because no one can be sure what’s being talked about – it’s not communicative in the way language is. Poetry, however, is direct and expressive in a visual art is not. It’s always seemed important to use them both.”
Peterson’s work at PJC has reached far beyond his department. Peterson served as co-editor of the precursor of PJC’s current literary magazine ‘The Hurricane Review’, ‘Half-Tones to Jubilee’ from 1984-1994. A creative writing class taught by Walter Sparra, wanted to publish a literary journal to commemorate their class. Unfortunately, they had no publishing experience, which is where Peterson stepped in.
Marian Wernicke said, “I think English Department is grateful to him for having the vision to start what is really an international literary magazine. It’s his renaissance creativity that we’re really going to miss.”
As well as editing, Peterson was also influential in the journal being nationally advertised, which gave PJC students the opportunity to be published alongside nationally acclaimed writers. He also helped begin a contest at PJC, giving its students an ever better chance of being published, which he describes as a chance every student should want to have.
Not only has Peterson been published in Half-tones to Jubilee, as well as the journal’s other incarnations, but he has received national acclaim for his poetry. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry in 1992, as well as many other awards for his writing. He currently publishes an average of 30 poems a year in national literary journals.
Peterson has also won awards for his visual art, and has been featured in numerous national exhibitions as well as solo or invitational exhibitions, including two done with his wife, Frances Dunham, a well known environmental activist as well as the designer of PJC’s logo.
Peterson is a self-proclaimed environmentalist. He spoke at the first Earth Day in 1970, and explains that, as this was during the “Nixon years”, there was an FBI agent in the crowd during every speaker’s speech, watching for signs of dissent.
As for his future plans, Peterson said, “I’m going home. I’m going to devote myself to my art. I’m not handy; I don’t do yard work. And my wife is the same way.”
Throughout his career, Peterson said he has been able to balance his professional art life with his school life, but he is looking forward to being able to devote all of his time just to hisart.