Around Campus – Winter 2021
St. Pius X Theater presented Alice in Wonderland this fall. Choir, band and orchestra students earn All-State Honors.
Peter O'Boyle: Art in the Praise of God
Speaking on “Art in the Praise of God” at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Waldport, Ore., Peter O’Boyle ’61 discussed with an engaged audience that, “Art is anything made by a human and called Art by that human.”
“Whether the artist thinks so or not, there is divine influence — God influences the art whether we want to accept it or not.” O’Boyle said during a November 2021 interview. “I believe in a personal God around me and in me all the time. I say our regular prayers, but I also pray my own prayers as I go about my day. God can’t not influence what I’m doing.”
O’Boyle taught studio art and art history as a professor from 1965 to 1992 at the University of Arizona, Wright State University in Ohio, California State – Long Beach, and Eastern Oregon State University. He later spent almost 10 years in not-for-profit administration.
“I came to Oregon when I was 15 and told my parents this was where I was going to live — I’m back forever now,” he said.
Now retired on the Oregon coast, he continues to create art and show in local galleries. He took about 30 of his pieces to the presentation at St. Anthony’s. He works in watercolor, sculpture, and multimedia sculpture using glass, wood and wire from things thrown away. Many of his paintings reflect the Southwest’s landscapes and colors. Some of his sculpture pieces are very large and look like they should do something. “I try to get people to think when they look at my stuff,” he said. “People ask, ‘What does it do?’ Nothing, but got you thinking.”
O’Boyle grew up in Albuquerque attending Holy Ghost Catholic School. He is a member of St. Pius X High School’s second graduating class, starting high school in the basement of St. Charles School before the Louisiana campus was built. He earned a bachelor’s degree in art education at the University of New Mexico and his master’s degree and PhD at the University of Oregon
“The academic standards were so much higher at St. Pius,” he said. “When I got to UNM, I had a jump on everybody because I’d learned so much more and had so much diversity of learning.”
