05.10.2024
Phone call

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Pete "Eyez" Wollaeger is a St. Louis based mural artist, who had contributed work to the City Museum.

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Daniil:

Can you recall when you found out about Cementland for the first time?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

Yeah, I can tell you that exactly. There was this artist, Swoon, who was in town from New York. She was actually floating a ship she made down the Mississippi River. And my sons and I went up to about where Cementland was because they actually had crashed their boat. And Swoon's a world-famous street artist. I had met her once before in San Francisco and knew she was doing this project—I can't remember what it was called, but it's probably googleable. She had an exhibit where she built a ship out of the remnants from the show. And then, they actually floated on the Mississippi River with the intention of making it all the way to New Orleans with it.

But for some reason, it crashed very close to Cementland. So I was up there trying to find them. There's a bike path there, and we were out on the path. I was with my boys. And all of a sudden, I saw Bob Cassilly by the side of the river. And I think he was looking for these people too. And I knew who he was, and I think he vaguely knew some of my work. And we introduced ourselves to each other. And that was my first time meeting Bob and then also seeing Cementland. It was a great meeting.

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Daniil:

Did you guys make it to the crash site?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

I think he did. I had my sons with me. They were younger at that time, so we ended up leaving. But Bob was heading up that way to aid them. I couldn't wait around. I think we waited around an hour together, and it was a good opportunity to actually talk to him. But you know how Bob was: he was very soft-spoken, didn't talk too much.

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Daniil:

Did you get to go inside and see Cementland right then?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

No, I did not. But he explained, talking something about a water park and that he had gotten a bunch of TVs from when they switched over from analog to digital, and how he was going to make a target or something like that and was going to drop them off from the top of the tower. And I was like, "That sounds crazy." I'd already known his work from the City Museum. 

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Daniil:

Did you go back there while Bob was still alive?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

I did one time, but it was very brief. I was doing some canoe thing up there and had briefly walked in. But no, most of the time I had spent in there was after he had passed, and that was only two different occasions. The first occasion was when I went to his funeral there after his passing, and then they put his ashes in the river there, which was pretty special. I'm glad I got to go there. And they did kind of like a Burning Man burn. They had this big sculpture they burned. I think Bill Chrisman had built that.

They did the services over at The Sheldon music venue, by the Contemporary Art Museum and the Fox Theatre. Then after The Sheldon was over, I think they did something small at the City Museum. And then, ultimately, we all went up to Cementland, and pretty much hung out on that bridge out there. And then a bunch of people and Mike, who does all the canoe tours out there, all got in a canoe, I think with his son and daughter. And the they dropped the ashes in the Mississippi River.

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Daniil:

And that's the bridge hanging over the waterfront, not behind the walls of Cementland? Across Riverview drive by the river, right?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

Yep.

And then, I had a friend who actually runs Riot Fest in Chicago; he was a good friend of mine. This was years after Bob passed away, and I think I had talked to Giovanna at that time about letting us in. So she let us in, and she wasn't there, but there was this couple who was watching the place. I think her name was maybe Brittany? She said that we could walk around. Well, this guy who ran Riot Fest in Chicago was a multi-millionaire, and he had visions of maybe buying some of that land and turning it into a music venue. And the tragedy with Sean is that he actually died of a stroke, probably a month after our visit to Cementland. So that obviously never happened.

He passed away, but honestly, if he would've bought it, it would've been truly amazing. He would've made it into something like Red Rocks in Colorado. Sean McKeough is his name. He was on the Board of Trade when I met him years ago when I lived in Chicago. And when he retired at 38 or something, he started Riot Fest—mostly just to bring back bands that he wanted to see play together. He'd get the Misfits, and he'd bring them together for the first time. Or he'd get Wu Tang and get everyone up there for Wu Tang. So he had the financial backing to make this thing really awesome. And he had talked to me too about curating some murals out there. I thought, "Well, wow, we got all this great property. That's what I do. I know a lot of muralists." And my plan was actually to bring a bunch of murals to Cementland.

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Daniil:

Do you know if they were planning on using the existing built-out structures in Cementland for the music venue? Or was the idea to redo it?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

It was a little bit of both. After Sean and I had toured that day, we decided that maybe we'd first start out by building a stage near the entrance of Cementland and getting things started there. And then, slowly after the venue was opened, we would let more people go throughout Cementland. So the original vision was to just get people in there and start getting some money made. He was great with money and it made a lot of sense. And then, after the place was profitable, start expanding what Bob had already started.

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Daniil:

And do you recall around what year that was?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

It was either 2017 or '16. It's a little blurry, but I could probably find that out fairly easily.

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Daniil:

And at the time, Giovanna Cassilly was the owner of that site?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

She was.

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Daniil:

Do you know how far the negotiations with her went?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

Very, very little. It was more like Sean and I talking. I think I had talked to Giovanna a little bit about it, like, "I think I got the guy." Because obviously, I wanted to preserve what Bob started. He was very much a big influence on my work, and I always was a big fan of what he did with City Museum. And it was obviously a tragedy to see him go and not finish his... I always make the reference that City Museum would've been like Disneyland, and Cementland was Bob's Disney World.

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Daniil:

And do you remember what state Cementland was in 2016–2017 when you went?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

It was on the cusp of either nature taking over, or let's do something soon. And I was the one bringing Sean there to show him this and be like, "Hey, this thing has been abandoned for a few years. It's starting to..." You know the castle that Bob built out of the cobblestone that he got off of Washington Avenue? It was already getting tagged up, and I was just like, "This is horrible. I can't believe it." Obviously, if I was going to bring murals there, we wouldn't paint those structures, but those were the things that were already starting to get tagged up. I think it was probably 2016. I think there was a big fire out there when a lot of his molds and stuff got burned up, and I remember it was before that fire. 

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Daniil:

You mentioned that you feel like Bob Cassilly's work was an inspiration for your own.

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

Absolutely.

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Daniil:

In what ways was it an inspiration for you?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

Have you ever seen Escape from New York, the movie?

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Daniil:

Yes.

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

That movie was filmed in downtown St. Louis, because it looked like apocalyptic New York City. And they filmed a portion, I think where the Air Force One crashes, in the lot of the City Museum. Before Bob came in there, St. Louis looked like apocalyptic New York. And then you get an artist like that to do what he did with City Museum, and it obviously sparked a lot of creativity. I lived in Chicago at that time, but I remember coming back here for a holiday and seeing it. The first time I toured there, there was this guy Metalsmith Mike that did a lot of the metal work. He passed away a few years before Bob did, but he did all the welding and stuff, and him and Bob gave me a tour. They were just starting to build the seven-story slide. So I remember Bob actually gave me a tour of that, and I got to see them doing that.

And then, I think around their 10th anniversary, Rick Erwin, who was the manager at that time, actually asked me to do a portrait of Bob Cassilly. Bob was still living then, and I was honored. He was like, "Will you do a portrait of Bob Cassilly?" And so I did this image. And at the time, I was doing a lot of portraits. For instance, I had done a portrait of Steve Jobs, but I had a Macintosh computer coming out of his head. At this stage of my art career, I wasn't really doing eyes yet. It was mostly portraits. And they said, "Well, why don't you want to do one of Bob?" 

So, I did one of Bob, and they wanted me to paint it live at the 10th anniversary party. And the wild part about it is that within my image, I actually had his head open and had all his sculptural work coming out of it. But the weird thing is that there was a crack in his head. And I put a crack in his head—this was before he passed away—to represent that he works in cement. So I painted that at their 10th anniversary party up in the Skateless Park in City Museum. And I guess over the years, a lot of kids' feet had scratched it up. And one week before Bob passed away, he actually painted over his portrait in there with the intention that I'd come back and repaint it, because they wanted to get a fresh coat of paint up. But in the meantime, a week had passed since they painted over it, and he passed away. He died. And a month or so after, I was talking to Rick Erwin about immortalizing Bob and painting that image on one of the water towers there at the City Museum. And I remember Max was very opposed to it. He saw the image, and he was like, "What the hell, man? You made a portrait of my dad with a crack in it." And I was like, "Max, I made that before he passed away. That was never my intention."

So I actually redrew the whole image with hopes of maybe being able to do that on the water towers. And I think it took me about a year or so to be friendly with Max again; he was really not too happy about the image. Him and I actually got in a band together maybe two or three years after Bob passed away, and we made peace obviously. And we're cool now, but at the time, that was a big part of not doing it. I'd love to see that portrait go up on one of those water towers, because now that they have new owners at the City Museum,I feel like a lot of Bob's spirit is not there as much. And I don't think a lot of people even realize who Bob Cassilly is. 

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Daniil:

Gotcha. So when you were there, was there already a lot of graffiti?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

Yes. Yeah, there was a lot of graffiti and there was still a lot of stuff visible. I think there was a big fire out there, and I remember it was before that fire. So, whenever that fire that was out there that, I guess a lot of his molds and stuff got burned up, I was there before that at least. So, that would kind of date it.

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Daniil:

What do you think about people going to write at Cementland?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

I personally am not a graffiti artist. I use spray paint. I rarely ever paint over raw brick. If I do something semi-illegal, it's usually on a boarded up building. My motivation is to beautify, not to vandalize. But I do appreciate graffiti. I've always liked it. People going and tagging over his castle that he built—that's bullshit. But other things in there probably could have been cool with some graffiti. But ultimately, I wanted to actually see murals out there. I'm a muralist: I do murals, and I know a lot of muralists that I would've loved to do a mural project there, because I feel like that would've also been a really great enhancement to Cementland.

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Daniil:

If you could do a mural at Cementland or curate a few muralists, are there any ideas that come to mind?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

I would love to bring Shepard Fairey. I've gotten to know him a little bit over the years. He's the artist that did the Barack Obama “Hope” poster. Another artist by the name of Ron English, who was well-known for doing the big fat Ronald McDonalds that were in the Super Size Me movies, amongst many other things. I know people that would've had their minds blown once they got there to see what this thing was and would love to have been a part of it. But we never really got that far.

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Like I said, my friend Sean passed away. I think I discussed a little bit with Schlafly and 4 Hands Brewery about coming out there and taking over those spaces, because I've done a lot of work for both of those breweries. And I think Kevin Lemp had some interest in it, but nothing ever happened with that, obviously.

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Daniil:

Just to clarify, you were talking to 4 Hands and Schlafly about doing something at Cementland?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

Possibly. I think it was Schlafly. I was talking to Dan Kopman, when he was there. I was like, "You guys ever think about maybe moving Schlafly to Cementland?" Because ultimately, I wanted to try to save Bob's thing and maybe make it finished, help aid in that. So I had talked to Schlafly very, very briefly about them possibly moving there, turning it into a brewery.

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Daniil:

So their brewery operations would be hosted in the former cement factory building, and then Bob's art would be preserved around it?

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Peat "Eyez" Wollaeger:

Totally. It might've been right before they built their facilities in Maplewood.

Wouldn't that have been cool? He thought it was great, but I think everyone realized: one, it's kind of a weird location. It's up north. Two, what it would take to get that thing revamped. There wasn't a lot of discussion about it. I think it was more of me putting bugs in people's ears.