Q&A: Photography, Hip Hop and Making Art in the Ohio Valley

In addition to musical artists, a recent Wheeling event — Hip Hop: A Black Tie Affair — featured visual artists such as photographer Rebecca Kiger. Kiger photographed members of the hip hop community including the artist Joshua Lamar Pethtel — also known as Poetic Peth.  Kiger and Pethtel sat down to talk about creating art in the Ohio Valley, and how a photographer and a rap artist collaborate.

Rebecca Kiger: I really loved it because what I found in working with other artists is that there was synergy that’s different than working with people who aren’t used to creative flow basically. That’s something these guys are adept at, they’re really good at, except they do it with words.

Glynis Board: The resulting images — were they what you expected?

Joshua Lamar Pethtel: It exceeded my expectations to be honest with you. I thought I was just going to take a couple pics in like a suit and that was that, but we got this one cool image where I’m wearing some sort of cloth. It’s like around my face and there’s like these glowing red lights in front of me, and I’m hitting a jewel or whatever. And there’s like smoke everywhere. It definitely exceeded my expectations for sure. And it was an honor to be honest.

Rebecca Kiger: The reason it worked is because I felt like I was in a space to play. I mean, basically we just had to play and you were …

Joshua Lamar Pethtel: I was open to it!

Listen to hear the rest of this conversation between artists about realities of making art in the Ohio Valley.

Credit Rebecca Kiger

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Credit Rebecca Kiger

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Credit Rebecca Kiger

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Credit Rebecca Kiger

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Credit Rebecca Kiger

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Credit Rebecca Kiger

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Credit Rebecca Kiger

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