Meeting Charles Fazzino

Last week I met with the incredibly talented and renowned artist Charles Fazzino in New Rochelle, New York.

I’m preparing for a series of workshops I am going to run in 2012 and went specifically to NY to interview Charles Fazzino, Milton Glaser and Mirko Illic.

Back in October I had asked Charles to create a cover for Diplomat magazine celebrating Taiwan’s 100th year. I first met Charles in 2009 at the Affordable Art fair in London, loved his style and his warmth from our very first meeting. After two years of asking Charles and his wonderful Director of Business Affairs, Julie Maner for a cover they finally relented and Charles created the most fantastic cover for us on Taiwan. The Taiwanese were thrilled with the cover, wanting posters for the Taipei Representative Office in the U.K.

Charles said he was proud to have been asked to create the cover and particularly excited about doing the cover for the Taiwan issue as Taiwan was the first Asian country he ever visited.

Charles is one of the most popular and highly-collected pop artists of all time. During his more-than-thirty years as a pop artist, he has inserted his unique, detailed, vibrant, and three-dimensional style of artwork into the very fabric of popular culture. Fazzino’s artworks are exhibited in 600 fine pop art galleries in more than twenty different countries.

Charles’s studio is a 30 minute train ride from New York’s Grand Central Station, two police men and a ten minute walk later I was greeted by the fabulous Julie Maner.

I was fortunate to have my own personal tour of all the different departments, I saw rough concept sketches of Charles’s new London Olympic print and examples of new exquisite Fazzino heart Christmas decorations, that will be in production next year.

Julie introduced me to the fabulous team of roughly 10 people around Charles, most of whom have been with him for years. I had no idea about the amount of patience, effort and skill that goes into the process of a Fazzino creation. After Charles creates a new piece of art there is the whole process of coloring and printing, cutting out the different sections, gluing and packaging and posting the 3D masterpieces.

Julie asked if I would like to try using the infamous industrial strength glue, which helps create the 3D effect on Charles’s art (Charles and his team use 30 thousand tubes per year.) I chose a pre-cut ace of hearts playing card segment and gently squeezed a 2 inch ice-cream cone shape glob of glue onto the flat masterpiece, then very very gently placed the ace of hearts onto the glue… my very own 3D Fazzino creation! The amount of glue applied effects the height of the pre-cut segments which in turn effects the movement and 3Dness of the work.

Making a Fazzino

With a constant stream of never ending ideas, from hand painted guitars to custom made luggage, Charles and his fantastic team are kept very very busy. His schedule is also packed with touring and Charles is a huge advocate for promoting art education in schools and teaches a few master class workshops a year, one of his favorite classes being the The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Summer Camp for children which Charles has run 4 times.

Before I departed New Rochelle, Julie presented me with Now Playing on Broadway, Charles signed it, ‘to my dear friend from London’ and without asking he proceeded to create me my very own personalized Fazzino masterpiece in his trademark style.

Many thanks to Charles Fazzino and Julie Maner for letting me glimpse inside their wonderful world.

Charles Fazzino’s favourite project