Harper’s Valley PSA (Post-Sculpture Art)

Peter Harper’s grandparents were musicians. They owned Folk Music Center in Claremont, which sold and repaired instruments and served as something of a gathering place for many people back in the day, and served as a pseudo daycare center for Peter when he was growing up. His mother, Ellen, is also a music lover, one who eventually became a recording artist herself. And then there’s his brother, Ben, by far the best-known of the bunch, of course, he of the two dozen albums, two Grammys and a legion of devoted fans.

So when it came time for Peter to choose a career, there was no question he would become… a sculptor.

“Everyone in the family did music,” Harper explained the other day. “Grew up in the folk music life. My grandmother could play anything with strings, my mother is terrific, and of course my brother. I’m very artistically minded, but I wanted to try something different, cut my own path.”

So after studying political science close to home at Pitzer College, Harper headed across the country to pursue a master’s degree in Fine Arts at New York University. It was during a year abroad that he delved deeply into sculpture and found his calling.

“It turns out I had a knack for it, much more so than with drawing or painting,” Harper recalled. “I could sit with a pencil for hours and not come up with anything that looked three-dimensional. But with sculpture, getting an object to look like what I could see in my imagination came pretty easily to me.”

Harper attributes that talent to his early days at the Folk Music Center when he spent every school day afternoon and most Saturdays working with his family, eventually later learning how to repair instruments, starting with 100 broken drum sets cluttering up the store’s back room.

“I got used to being very physical with my heads, and when I started sculpting, it was a method of expression for me. There’s a story in a piece of artwork. I was able to communicate clearly through the medium, and for a while it seemed like people were seeing what I was trying to evoke.”

But by his mid-30s, Harper discovered that the message was getting muddied, that a tangible three-dimensional object was actually too limiting. “People were seeing sculpture on a surface level, but not diving in to get the message. Even after trying to do things that were more interactive, I felt like it didn’t break through the barrier. So I decided to switch mediums to see what might happen.”

Naturally, the family business beckoned. It wasn’t long before Harper realized that his largely long-dormant musical talent could be his expressive salvation. But after counting sculpture clients as famous as Meg Griffin, he was a bit reticent to enter the public arena right away, choosing instead to play mostly for family members and friends.

“But everybody who heard me said that I had something there, and that I had to put it out in the world,” Harper recalled. “I was the one in my family that hadn’t focused on music, so I wasn’t sure.”

The turning point came when he was playing his song “Make Me Weak” at Ben’s house while his brother was making dinner. “Ben stopped cooking and asked me if I wrote it, and then said it was really good. This is a guy who I know writes great songs. It was really encouraging, and helped me to keep going.”

Once he got serious about songwriting, the flood gates opened, Harper recalled. “People really related, understood, and connected with what I was trying to say. It was incredible.” 

Harper said the songs come from the same inner place that used to spark his sculpture. “When I think creatively, there’s a space where it feels like it’s coming from the back of my head. The medium doesn’t matter, maybe only in the sense that it determines how the viewer will see it. But the sentiment all comes from the same pool. I could just as quickly draw something as write a song.”

In fact, Harper said, the music involves a similar process of molding, but it’s landing more directly. “What I’m doing, literally, in my songs, is translating concepts and emotions into sound waves, shaping them, and basically making invisible sculptures to send to people‘s ears. The message that was missing in viewing the sculpture, they’re now catching in the audio, as long as I shape it correctly.”

On his most recent album, 2017’s Break the Cycle, Harper appears to be offering aural expressions of his belief in unity and the connections between humans from both the personal and societal points of view via songs that are filled with moments of empathy and compassion.

“That’s exactly right! That’s what the whole thing is for me,” Harper said. “Especially right now, in these exceptionally polarized times, with people so far apart, it’s really a time to focus on all that we have in common. [With modern technology], the ability to connect and share information is insanely abundant. But here we are fighting over the most trivial things, like should we have a (border) wall or not. It’s insane. Not that I have all the answers. But we’re not actually communicating. And when we take the time to truly do that, it’s the best experience we can have.”

That’s why, Harper said, he has one main goal for his concerts: “When people leave the show, I want them to feel ecstatic in a way they never might have expected.”

Locals will have that opportunity when the singer-songwriter-guitarist, who played SOhO as a solo act four years ago and again last fall, returns to the club with a full band for a 6 pm show on Saturday, January 19. The prospect of performing as a quartet with lead guitarist Joti Rockwell, bassist Ethan “Pops” Chiampas, and drummer Ray McNamara has him giddy, he said.

“I love those intimate concerts with just you and the listener interacting. But with the band it’s more high energy, so many more level of sounds, a lot more frequencies. That brings a whole different experience of joy.”