Phillip Krivenko

By DAWN ZERA For Times Leader

W hen Phillip Krivenko was a child, his grandfather Phillip told him one day the young boy would become an artist.

“However, back then in a blue-collar coal town, to say ‘you should be an artist' – well, it was something. There were no jobs out there that say ‘artist wanted,'” Krivenko said.

So for most of his life, art was a hobby for Krivenko. His main job was as nightclub owner. He owned The Gallery, later called the Cosmic Train discothèque, in the Gateway Shopping Center, Edwardsville, from 1969 until it closed in 1985.

“The Gallery originally was to sell art. I put it on the walls, but that didn't work out so well. I drank and talked to girls. I consider those the lost years and have some regret,” Krivenko said.

He got married in the 1980s but lost his first wife to cancer in 1991. In 2002, he remarried a long-time girlfriend, Kathy, and considers himself blessed to have stepchildren from both marriages. His last business was a pack-and-mail store, and the support of his wife gave him the confidence he needed to pursue art as more than a sideline. He always kept a studio in his home but during the past few years has been spending more time in the studio on the top floor of his Kingston home, fearlessly tackling all kinds of art.

In his studio are several paintings in different stages of completeness. First, he sketches an idea, then uses it as a guide for the larger painting. Some pieces take several weeks to finish, and he often works on multiple paintings at once.

The range of his talent is notable. A sampling on his living-room wall reveals Krivenko's accomplished scope. One acrylic-layered piece, which took him about four months to complete, is titled “A Nickel Tour of Lancaster County' and depicts storefronts and Amish scenes one might come across in Lancaster. Prints of the work are sold in Kitchen Kettle Village.

Another painting, in stark contrast to the first, depicts a sunset scene in Key West. He and his wife are in the painting, enjoying dinner on a restaurant patio, while their two dogs, Nemo and Pepsi, hang out on a boat docked nearby. Titled ‘Wharf Rats' the painting is done in vivid blues and purples, with streaks of red and orange depicting the sunset; it is a painting one might find done by artists who reside in Florida.

Also on the living-room wall is a painting titled ‘Unwelcomed Guests.' Soft pinks and greens are the palette for the scene of a gaggle of geese waddling past a home.

Sometimes, when he wants to experiment with a style of art he considers way out of his comfort zone, what Krivenko calls whimsical, he uses the name AltaVilla, in honor of his grandfather Phillip Altavilla, who had such confidence in his art talent.

Some of the paintings Krivenko does are entirely from his imagination. Others reveal hints of places he has traveled. As an art instructor for A.C. Moore and Michael's, Krivenko has traveled throughout the Northeast. He teaches classes in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland in addition to Pennsylvania.

With a laugh, Krivenko says that often, when he travels to teach classes, he is asked for his biography so the stores can publicize his visit. He has no official artist's biography, he said. There is no fine-arts school degree to put on his resume.

But that's OK; he finally is pursuing his true calling full time, thanks, he said, in part to the support of a wife who works outside the home full time.

Krivenko said the Japanese have a philosophy that once the kids have grown and the career years are over, it's time to figure out one's true meaning.

“It's the time to follow your dream and do what you want to do before you run out of time,” Krivenko said. “I've had the opportunity to pursue a couple of different fortunes in life, but this is my true meaning.”