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A colorful weekend

The Hernando County Art, Craft and Music Festival promises to be as lively as a Fred Mannarino painting.

By LOGAN NEILL
Published May 27, 2005

SPRING HILL - For Fred Mannarino, inspiration to create art comes at a moment's notice. Such was the case a few weeks ago when he read in the newspaper about a carnival ride called Tornado that was going to be at the Hernando County Fair. So, on a sunny afternoon he stopped by to see it himself. As the huge machine whirled its human cargo through the air, Mannarino took snapshots and made notes of the elements he wanted to depict on his canvas.

Now about two-thirds completed, the painting rests on an easel in Mannarino's tiny home studio. A pallet of oil paints rests nearby, evidence that the creator is still thinking about the colors he wants to use.

"That's probably why I'm not very prolific," says Mannarino with a laugh. "I'm never quite sure when a painting is finished. I might come back a few days later and rethink the whole thing."

Anyone gazing at one of Mannarino's creations is apt to be taken back by his bold use of color, which he likens to a kindergartener grabbing his first box of crayons. It might be a painting of the New York skyline, which Mannarino explodes into a vivid garden of pastel shades. Or it might be a French village scene in northern France, where buildings of bright reds, greens and yellows rake the pastoral blue sky.

"For me, the emotion of a painting always lies within the colors," said Mannarino. "Once I see the hues and contrasts blending together, it's magic. It all seems to come to life."

The jovial 74-year-old artist, who enjoys collecting miniature lighthouses and listening to opera on his vintage 8-track tape player, will be among the exhibitors at the Hernando Fine Arts Council's Art, Craft and Music Festival this weekend in Brooksville. Mannarino plans to bring the unfinished fair painting with him in the hopes of giving fairgoers a behind-the-scenes look into the creative process.

"People are naturally curious about how artists work," he said. "I don't mind showing my technique."

Mannarino's love for the creative end of a paint brush ever has been an integral part of his life since he was a boy growing up Brooklyn, N.Y. As a lad, he was enamoured of the styles of modern art masters such as Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Cezanne, and spent hours trying to unravel the mysteries of the cubist and abstract elements found in his heroes' visions.

As a student at New York University's renowned art studies program, Mannarino mastered the techniques of painting and sculpture. Afterward, he studied privately with artist Dick Ralph, and exhibited his fledgling works on the streets of Greenwich Village.

Though it was his original desire to become a sculptor, economic factors forced Mannarino to change his plans.

"I had a family and I needed something a little more consistent," he recalls. He went to work as a commercial artist specializing in creating lifelike props of household products for use in TV commercials, a job he held for more than 30 years.

During the mid 1960s, Mannarino attended a New York museum where Andy Warhol's latest works were being exhibited. Seeing Warhol's replications of tomato juice boxes, soup cans and the like, Mannarino came away unimpressed.

"I had been doing pretty much the same thing for almost 10 years," he said. "The sad thing was nobody was paying me $5,000 for a soup can."

In his spare time, he continued to dabble in his own creations and earned awards in major Northeast art festivals. In 1989, he retired to Spring Hill with his wife, Catherine, and concentrated on building his repertoire of works for gallery exhibits.

In recent years, Mannarino has expanded into modern clay sculpture and wood assemblages, three-dimensional creations that combine objects and painted surfaces.

Due to his growing renown, Mannarino has been seeing more and more art collectors embracing his work, which is being exhibited regularly in galleries in Central Florida.

"Anyone who creates gets a certain amount of satisfaction from the process itself," Mannarino said. "But there is another aspect of it that I like just as well, and that's the pleasure I get knowing people find joy from something I've created. That's the joy I live for."

[Last modified May 27, 2005, 00:40:18]