By Bret McCabe (Baltimore City Paper, 6/14/2006)
To the many local artists, musicians, and writers who call Peter Zahorecz a friend, he was an irreplaceable force of nature. To anybody who doesn’t recognize the name, you’ll probably recognize the face as one of the most genuinely friendly people you ever had the pleasure of coming across at concerts, art openings, events at the 14 Karat Cabaret, or just out and about. The slim, easily approachable man somehow magically retained his disarming, boyish good looks through his years, charms surpassed by his gracious demeanor and omnivorous intellect. The creative output of Zahorecz, who passed away June 4 from head-related trauma following a skateboarding accident in England, hid just as quietly in plain sight. He was 41 years old, an accomplished artist, illustrator, curator, writer, musician, general repository for aesthetic knowledge—but an even better friend, step-father to his wife DeeDee Taylor’s daughter Chelsea, and human being.
Zahorecz and Taylor were visiting London in preparation to move overseas. “It was a kind of injury that’s really rare and it was just so severe that from the beginning there was just no way,” Taylor says over the phone after returning to Baltimore June 10. “For me, it’s really important for people to know that he was so happy for weeks. Peter’s been skateboarding for 30 years. We went [to England] last year as a vacation, and this time before we went he decided he wanted to skate over there, so for weeks he was looking up all these skateboard parks. And we had gotten in on Thursday, but it was actually our first full day in England. So first thing in the morning, it’s the first thing we did.”
That impish spirit and unconditional love for doing what he wanted to do is one of the many blithe qualities that his friends, colleagues, and collaborators remember most.
Continue reading “Peter Zahorecz” at the Baltimore City Paper.
