Well-Fed Artist Press
This is my publishing imprint. I think it's important for artists to create opportunities for themselves and others, even as we exhibit in commercial galleries and institutional venues. Well-Fed Artist Press has to date produced seven--soon to be eight--publications: a full-length memoir, five exhibition catalogs, and a volume celebrating the 10-year anniversary of one series, Silk Road.
Just published!
Italianità: Contemporary Art Inspired by the Italian Immigrant Experience
Fifty-nine artists—most Italian American, others from throughout the diaspora—have contributed to this anthology, sharing through stories how italianità, Italianness, informs our art, which is reproduced in full-page, full-color images. Although we do not identify as "Italian American artists," preferring to focus on genre, aesthetic, or medium, our ethnicity does inform us. We are painters and sculptors, as well as photographers, printmakers, filmmakers, and mixed-media artists. Born here, for the most part, and fully of our time, we are nevertheless inspired personally and creatively by an intimate connection to the language and traditions of our immigrant forebears.
Italianità is 300 pages, hardcover bound, with a Foreword by the scholar Joseph Sciorra and an illustrated essay by the book's editor, Joanne Mattera.
For a peek into some pages, click here
To buy, click here
The book is also available on Amazon
Tutto and Related Works
Tutto, a new series begun in 2022, continues the formal themes I have been working with for the past several years: a divided field, strong emphasis on the horizontal, and saturated color.
In the early days of the pandemic I worked mainly on paper, producing the Mezza and Riz series in gouache and oil stick respectively. Tutto flowed from them, painted in acrylic on canvas or encaustic on panel. Working on paper is different from working on canvas or panel; painting large is different from painting small; and tube paint—oil or acrylic—is different from velvety gouache, luscious oil stick, or the luminous wax of encaustic. I have employed all of these methods and materials for many years, but always separately. With Tutto—Italian for everything—I have chosen to explore my ideas using all of them.
The catalog is available to view at no cost or to purchase for $18.
Looking Sharp: A Retrospective of Chromatic Geometries
Looking Sharp: A Retrospective of Chromatic Geometries is a survey of paintings and works on paper in which I have taken taken the grid in an angular and diagonal direction. The newly published catalog (May 2022) accompanies my solo exhibition at Miller White Fine Arts, which will take place in August 2022. The 40-page volume includes images of work from the Chromatic Geometry, Diamond Life and Soie series, which span the past decade, 2012 to the present. It is available to view at no cost or to purchase for $15.
The designer for this and other Well-Fed Artist Press publications is the painter Karen Freedman.
Vita: A Memoir
Subtitled Growing Up Italian, Coming Out, and Making a Life in Art, my 208-page memoir, published by Well-Fed Artist Press, recounts my Italian-American childhood in the Fifties, coming of age in the Sixties, coming out as gay in the Seventies, and my ongoing life as an artist. The volume, available in hard copy and as a PDF volume, can be purchased here.
Read Sharon Butler's Two Coats of Paint review here.
Hue & Me
Published in 2020, this 44-page catalog accompanies my first solo exhibition at Addington Gallery, Chicago, which took place September 12-October 31, 2020. The volume includes an "interview" of me by Hue and features an essay by Dan Addington, owner/director of the gallery. It is available to view at no cost or to order for $18.
From Dawn to Dusk
Published in 2019, this 36-page catalog, with an essay by Ellen Hackl Fagan, accompanies my solo exhibition of the same name, which took place at ODETTA Gallery in New York City, October 15-November 16, 2019. The volume is available to view at no cost or to order for $18.
Fifty/Fifty
Published in 2018, this 30-page catalog, with essays by Carol Pelletier and Zola Solamente, accompanies my solo show, Fifty/Fifty at Arden Gallery, Boston. The volume is available to view at no cost or to order for $12.
Silk Road: Excerpts from an Ongoing Series
Published in 2016 by Well-Fed Artist Press, the 54-page volume marks 10 years of my involvement with one series. While my studio practices embraces a range of reductive color fields and geometric abstraction in a variety of mediums, Silk Road, the series, now numbers over 350 small and mid-size paintings in encaustic. The second edition of this soft-bound book is available to view at no cost or to order for $18.
Also by the artist:
The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax
Published in 2001 by Watson-Guptill, it remains the standard reference for artists working in the medium of wax and encaustic. I do not sell the book myself. Indeed, when I need additional copies, I buy them from Amazon.