Watercolor portrait of my son, Dan, wearing FuBu hat, done about 1996

Watercolor

You might like these four works…you might not. I myself am undecided. JA

This is one of my first paintings done in 1986. It is of an antique clarinet found at a flea market

This is another 1986 painting done in my basement workshop/art studio
in Wayne

This is a landscape done for my mother during her last year with us (1987), to commemorate a trip we took to Italy together in 1983 along with my Dad, Dave, Lauren and Johnny Jr.

Pencil portrait, lovingly rendered back in 1995, of Elsa Lanchester in her role as The Bride of Frankenstein in James Whale’s 1935 cinema classic of the same name.

This 1986 painting started off as a tribute to Giorgio De Chirico, because it is as close as I ever get to “surrealism.” What it is, really, is a look at the issue of “time.”

By request of my biggest fan and best promoter, son John Jr., I am posting a thumbnail-size image of my popular painting, “Spires and Steeples” a.k.a. a portrait of the city of PATERSON. This painting was a long-time ambition of mine. When my kids Lauren, John Jr. and Danny were growing up we spent countless hours in and around Paterson, at the famous Passaic Great Falls, at clubs and a cafe in the Italian section on 21st Avenue, at the Paterson Museum and—above all— in a wonderful park on Garret Mountain from whose lofty heights one could take in a vast panorama of the once-great city, now in a state of decay. At the foot of Garret Mountain is Route 80 which runs all the way from California to the George Washington Bridge. It was the view from Route 80 that provided the best view of Paterson with its smokestacks, church steeples, and many towers—truly an architectural treasure, oddly unique and out of character for a decrepit post-industrial example of urban north Jersey.

The actual painting is 24″ X 36″. A limited, numbered series of 100 signed prints, 12″ X 18″, in an inexpensive black frame are sold for $49 each, and were quite popular when they first became available, and a few are still remaining for those interested.

My two wood sculptures are now installed on the entrance wall leading to The Orthopedic Institute and The Surgical Institute located on the 5th floor of St. Joseph’s Medical Center since September 2007, and this Novemeber issue of the hospital’s periodical, “The Awl” has a feature on them as seen in this posting. The text is by St. Joe’s public relations.

If you’re interested, here’s how the project started. Shown here is a 4 foot X 4 inch slab of basswood aquired from a Pennsylvania “exotic wood” lumber yard. That’s me holding it upright before going to work on it.

First I cut in half, into two 2-foot X 4 -inch slabs under the watchful eye of carpenter and all around skilled craftsman, Frankie Petrillo.

Frankie took measurements.

And then carefully divided them with a saw them into two halves


I wound up with four pieces, 2-inches thick and 2-feet tall, but only 91/2-inches wide. They obviously had to be glued together side-to-side, which required the assistance of cabinet-maker Massimo who generously pitched in.

I had made cut-outs of rough drawings and laid them on the joined slabs so I could trace my designs on to the wood.

And eventually began carving

Ending up at last with the deep-relief plaques you see pictured here