Every aesthetic decision is a moral decision.
In the early 1980s, I developed an interest in Art Povera. The work of Merz, Penone, Pistoletto felt right to me. In the early 1990’s I made my pilgrimage to Torino and Castello di Rivolli. Aside from expressing the political climate of Torino and the student movements of the time, the use of materials in Art Povera felt ingenious, provocative and importantly charming. To me, it did something interesting with how meaning is created. That push/pull between materially and reference interested me as did its wit, Merda d'Artista.
My first work after art school was a collection of approx 25x 8 1/2 x 11 copy paper drawings. I used black pen or marker, mounted them to stretched matching-size canvases, and exhibited them adjacent to each other like dominos. It was a long series of actions/reactions. The work, "Drawings on a Domino Motif," was exhibited at UC Davis, and in hindsight the work feels prophetic of my lifelong interests as an artist.
In the 1990s, throughout my professional art career, I focused chiefly on drawings and works on paper, in my interest in cartoons and the small intimate moments of an artist’s life. There were a few high relief wall sculptures in bright colors, and just like a a good amount of my work at the time. They were labor intensive.
Despite this body of exhibited, in my New York City studio, I still explored small “poor objects.” These objects, made out of scrap plastic, foam, wire, fabric, found wood, shared with the drawings an approachability, but were much lighter. They had a sprezzatura. At the time, however, I did not feel confident of their value. This is now the work I am focusing now.
Los Angeles, CA
Some themes & ideas:
Ordinary materials.
Beauty as good manners.
Where to start.
Doing what’s next.
The figure in everything.
The talking line.
Improvisation.
The gesture.
Doodle as drawing.
A feminine man.
Joy in the mundane.
Weight and whimsy
Some materials:
Graphite & Color Pencils
Gouache
Acrylic & Gel
Letter size 8.5 x 11 paper
Cardboard
Pre-silkscreened Color paper
Salvaged wood
Plywood
Plaster
Wire hangers
Wire & Thread
Felted fabrics
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My father was born in 1913, a first generation Italian-American who came of age in New York during the Great Depression. He never finished high-school. He was hardworking, affable, street-smart, and spoke fluent Yiddish. He worked in construction his whole life, and become a General Contractor, managing large corporate projects for Johnson & Johnson. In the basement of our house in New Jersey, my father kept a workshop full of tools. It was rarely used, but in perfect order, with each metal sheet cutter or wrench wrapped in oil cloth. It was his place to imagine projects, to create and to fix, but he did very little there.
In January of 2005, he passed away at the age of 92. A few months later, I moved from San Francisco to Kansas City Missouri. It was a decisive end to my earlier art career and the beginning of a career as a corporate creative director. Each time I moved cross country, my father’s tools, still in their 80’s packing, moved with me.
Fast forward to now… I am living in Los Angeles and am making art again. While I haven’t fundamentally changed, my approach has evolved. Years of creating brand imagery has left me with a renewed love of the tactile and for sculpture, which was actually my major at Rhode Island School of Design.
The new work is in some ways a continuation of old values and interests, but it is more physical. This work is about building, and its construction is part of its meaning, and this need to build has brought me to finally unwrapping and using some of my father’s tools.
Thanks for reading.