STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
As head Nordic coach at Burke Mountain Academy, Pete Phillips was all about speed.
His world was a blur as he coached racers with Sun Valley’s Nordic team, the New York Ski Educational Foundation, Dartmouth College, Black Mountain in Rumford, Maine, and the U.S. Junior Team competing in the Scandinavian Cup in Norway,
But a heart attack a few years ago brought that world to a momentary standstill. And, as his world slowed down, he began to see things he hadn’t noticed when he was focused on beating the clock.
Phillips began to see, for instance, cattle grazing the stubble in the Bellevue Triangle. And “tree bones” along Trail Creek during an early November snowstorm.
He began recording what he saw in watercolor and oil. And he is sharing some of those paintings with Wood Valley residents at the Leadville Espresso House at 4th and Leadville streets in Ketchum.
A reception for Phillips and his work will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 12, at the coffee house.
“The magic in things around us, things small and vast, things wild and gentle, is easy to miss. Painting is trying to catch it for a moment,” said Phillips.
Phillips’ foray into art did not come out of the blue. He studied art for a year at Montana State University in Bozeman before heading off to coach Nordic skiers during winter and captain a fishing boat in Alaska during summer.
He used to draw cartoons of elephants in the 1970s and ‘80s for The Elephant Perch.
“My father was an accomplished painter so art takes me back to my roots,” said Phillips, who grew up in Seattle and served as headmaster of The Community School in its infancy.
One of his chief inspirations is on off-the-grid ranch near Magic Reservoir where he sometimes house sits for a co-worker at The Elephant’s Perch. It’s leant itself to several paintings, including one titled “August Wind in the Timmerman Hills.”
“It’s a dramatic place with wonderful light, dramatic views of the mountains. It just sucks you right in,” he said.
He’ll get no argument from Betsy Shanklin, who owns Leadville Espresso House.
“I love his paintings,” she said. “They do draw you in. And the prices are very reasonable, as well.”
Phillips often sketches what he sees on site, sometimes coloring what he sees with pastels before finishing it at home.
The kitchen of his home in Elkhorn boasts a couple tables and an easel so he can work on three pieces at a time.
“I have to spread my canvases when I want to prepare something to eat,” he said, using his hands to push aside imaginary paint supplies. “I’m a fan of it all, but watercolor is tricky. Lots of skill involved to do it well.”
Phillips, who moved to Sun Valley for the first time in 1978, left to coach from 2000 to 2014.
“It was time to return,” he said. “We have arguably the best Nordic trails in the country, partly because our terrain is so good. It’s rolling and more open—we’re not dealing with the dense forest they have back East. And the weather is not as good in New England.”
Here, he’s made the transition from painting glass floats in tide pools and coastal sand marshes to paintings of a last bike ride amidst early November snow, mud and ice, an Idaho super moon, camp shadows and the bridge at Baker Creek.
“I love them,” said coffee house owner Betsy Shanklin. “They draw you in. And the prices are very reasonable, as well.”
“Go Away I’m not Dead Yet,” features a Magpie, but it might just sum up Phillips’ attitude toward life.
“I just take things as they come,” Phillips said. “I found art a great thing to do in the process of slowing down. You see things when you slow down that elicit a response. And painting is challenging enough, intellectually interesting enough to keep me occupied.”