Brain Child

A funny thing happened on the way through an enlarging process. Something went wrong and wow, an effect that couldn't have been foreseen, many fold more interesting than what was originally anticipated.

 For More click HERE  and HERE

Abstract Scrap

This was an interesting experiment that ended up going off into a completely unexpected direction. I was in the process of roughing out a 40’ long dragon for a scene shop that was doing a Mythical Beast exhibit for the American Museum of Natural History. I had a week to knock this monster out, so the carving approach was enormously aggressive.

Most of the rough out was done with a “Bow Wire”. The bow has a deep throat and is able to take very large bites out of the foam in a single stroke. As I made my way through the carving, I noticed that the beauty of the scrap, in certain ways, exceeded the beauty of the object that I was trying to create.

For the full series click HERE

Giant Gummy Bear

Behold the Giant Golden Gummy Bear in all of his automotive, metallic, clear coated splendor! This blog  entry is dedicated to the process of redesigning an existing icon as a 3d model so that it could be robotically carved and rapid prototyped into actual physical objects in a variety of different sizes. For the "GummyKing's" design history, please click HERE. If you want one or many of these monuments to the great gods of gummalishesness or, it you are in need of a high tech Gummy replacement for your oh so yesterday rubber duck bath toy, check out Jellio.com. For another Jellio project that I had the pleasure of working on, please click HERE. 

For the full New York Times article please click HERE

Rags-A-GoGo

A site that I built for one of my favorite people on the planet and an hillarious FOX 5 News feature on her fabulous store.

Ron English Portrait for FLUSH magazine

During one of Ron English's SoHo pop up shows, we had spoken about the prospect of creating a sculptural version of his XRay Guernica. I was very inspired by the notion and created a study of what the paintings subject matter would look like freed from it's background. A human figure always helps to establish a sense of scale. Ron was the only choice but, there is little full figure reference of him on line so, the Ron you see here is actually cobbled together from 4 different photos. The illustration was actually the result of have done the animation study. Long story short, Flush magazine was doing an article on Ron and Ron suggested the use of the illustration. Thank you Ron and thank you Flush.

For the Flush article on Ron please click HERE.

Conceptualization of the illustration in the Warhol Museum of Souel Korea.

Eric Krupnik Death Mask and Portrait

Eric seemed to touch and change everyone he met whithin his all too short life. He certainly had his hand in changing me. For the tale of his last days on planet earth and how this cast came to be after his passing, click HERE

There we were, Eric and I. For the very last time I would spend with this dear, dear friend. I stoked his cheek and kissed his forehead and told him that this would be beautiful. I told him it wouldn’t take very long and that I promised not to fuck it up. I knelt down beside his box to unpack the kit and started to cry out loud. My heart was pounding like a Koto drum. I could feel the stress spreading across my chest and shoulders. I could feel the tension traveling down my arms and tingle in my finger tips. My eyes were swelling shut as tears were splashing onto the inside of my glasses. I could feel the weight and motion of those tears dangling from the bottom edges of my lenses and see the splintered light and reflections dancing within them but, I didn’t skip a beat or loose my rhythm. I was determined to run this as if it were just another casting, to not let the torrent of tears and tidal waves of emotion stand in the way of professionalism or methodology. I rose from the unpacked kit, took off my glasses to shake the tears from them, wiped my eyes on my forearm and, went to get a pail of water. When I returned I stood over Eric and noticed that there was dried mucus around his nose and mouth. At first I was dismayed that the hospital would let him be delivered in such a state but, quickly realized that hospitals only do what they have to and that preparing a body is somebody else’s business. I cleaned him up while explaining to him what I was doing and what the steps of the process would be as if he were alive and could hear me. Then I shut his eyes. They closed so easily. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and to my amazement, when shut, they seamed to rise in the corners just like his smile. As his closed eyes smiled back at me, I marveled at how a fluke of geometry can mirror the essence of ones soul. I asked his permission to turn his head because I couldn’t get to his left ear in his current position and could almost hear him say “Mike, my good friend, my head is in your hands.” I reached into the box and placed my hands on either side of his head. With the heels of my hands at his jaw, my thumbs on his cheek bones, his ears between my fore and middle fingers and my pinky and ring fingers at the sides of his neck, I tried to move his head but it didn’t budge. This was my first encounter with rigamortice since elementary school biology. A fetal pig’s leg as it turns out is considerably less resistant than the head and neck of a human being. I said “Eric, man, your not making this any easier for me are you?” He said “come on you mighty beast, give it a little horse power” I took deep breath and applied lateral force incrementally. My arms were starting to shake. I didn’t know if I could do it. I broke out in a soaking sweat and felt waves of nausea and tears sweep over me. I was twisted with the gut wrenching fear that I was going to break his neck. My head swam backward to a time when I broke a mans nose in a fight and could feel the bones crackle and collapse beneath my knuckles. I could taste vomit in the back of my throat as tears began spilling from my eyes, landing on his chest and soaking into his faded hospital gown. I had visions of his vertebra shattering. I had visions of his head coming off in my hands. I was a fraction of a second away from giving up and then I heard him say “Come on you big pussy cat, we’re almost there. You can do it Mike. I’m not going to break. You’re the man.” I gulped another deep breath, applied more force and suddenly his head was free and moved with the silken smoothness of a well greased ball bearing. I was drenched as if I had just run a marathon and my knees were seriously weak. I may have fallen over if I weren’t hanging on so tightly to his head. I straightened myself up and breathed for the first time in what felt like ages. I could hear him say “That wasn’t so bad was it?” I replied in a very loving tone “Eric, fuck you.” I laughed out loud and he just kept on smiling that beautiful smile of his. The hardest part was over. I untied his string necklaces and placed then on his chest. I rolled a towel in a plastic bag and placed it behind his head to act as a catch or, dam. I mixed the alginate and started the mold. It seemed as if I were done in no time. I cleaned up my mess and I cleaned up Eric and put his necklaces back on him. I placed the mold, packed in wet paper towel, back into the same plastic bag that I had brought the kit in. With my hand on his chest, above his still heart, I gave him a last kiss and bid him his final farewell knowing I was the last person to ever spend time with him. I zipped closed the bag and shut the cardboard box and let my self out of the building as if I had never been there. As I hit the street the air felt crisp and welcoming in my lungs. The first taxi I hailed stopped for me and I was back on St. Marks before I knew it. With the mold of Eric’s head still in the bag beneath my arm, I entered Dojo’s to have a drink with Bette and Peppy and who ever else was still there from the memorial. I had a few drinks but, barely spoke of what had just transpired. I said my goodnights and made my way home. I walked in through my door and found that my sister Alisa had left hot soup on my stove and a box of Kleenex on my coffee table waiting for me, a lovely gesture of comfort and condolence. Contrary to my exhausted state, I only found sleep in fleeting winks. This had been as tough and trying a day as ever I had known.

Where The Wild Things Are, a signed first edition

A tale of a wonderful art odyssey with one of the most influential artists all time and, how this rare and valuable artifact came to be. For more, click HERE

This last video brought tears to my eyes not because he’s gone but, because it brought me back to him and the experience of having worked with him and our funny phone calls after I had left Macy’s.
To have worked in the presence of his mighty working spirit is something that changed me as an artist forever. I’ve had the opportunity to have worked with many brilliant and historically significant artists through out my career some, perhaps genius.

Maurice was on a different level all together. He possessed a brutal clarity between his  aesthetic sensibilities and his core convictions but, through that brutality stood an exquisite balance of refinement and naked honesty. He was his work, more so than any artist I would ever meet.
Maurice was a beauty, a magnificent creature, the likes of which humanity has known but a handful of times.

He left me with an experience that I will hold among my highest till it’s my turn for time to take me.

Mike Fontana virtual gallery and museum tour

I think that it's a fair guess that most artist have walked through galleries and great museums and wondered what their work would look like hanging there in stead. Though I've spent the majority of my career doing very representational, commercial works, I've spent a considerable amount of time in the museum trade and, have created meticulously detailed pieces for fine artist's exhibits in major galleries and museums as well. I've always had a deep interest and love for fine art, especially abstraction. For some time now, I've had the thought of building a virtual museum in Sketchup and populating it with my works. I would then render an animation of a virtual walk through, each gallery within the museum representing a different facet of my work.

Though I'm in love with my tiny apartment in which every wall is covered from floor to ceiling, I lust for the sprawling simplicities and elegance in which a large wall in an heroically proportioned room is dedicated to a singular focus thus commanding the wall, and presenting itself as a key component in the creation of a unique environment.

For these studies, I went on line, looking for the best shots of galleries and museums that I could find and swapped the art therein with mine. In this I set out to hang 50 pieces in 20 galleries.

Almost all photos distort a painting or mural by means of perspective and lens angle. All of the replacement art must accurately mimic the afore mentioned distortion in order to be convincing.

People within the shots lend greater credence to the illusion and immediately illustrate scale and captivated interaction. In a few of these shots the original art work was reflected in the floor. For those photos, the reflections were replaced and further the authenticity of the effect.

I found this to be an enormously inspiring and liberating exercise on a number of levels. My abstractions have till now only been seen within the context of my computer screen and a few moderately sized prints. With an investment of very little time this experiment allowed me to visualize my recent works in a way that my reality couldn't currently afford.

As a proof of concept, this study has given me the confidence to move forward on the construction of a 3d model of a small museum and populate it with my work. It has also reacquainted me with the spacial demands that works of a certain scale require in order to be in harmony with the room, it's audience and it's accompanying pieces.

When the model is complete it will be brought into an architectural rendering program that is similar to certain gaming engines. This will allow the viewer to enjoy an interactive virtual walk through and see the works form any angle, perspective or, sequence they choose.

In the end, it is my hope that this will serve as an interactive reel. A reel that is not so much played form beginning to end but, played with in any way the viewer wishes.

Clay Prototypes

For a noted gift and home accessory manufacturer. It had been a long time since I'd sculpted so small and generally most of the sculpting I've done has been highly finished. In this series or works the client
needed rough textures and spatula marks. It's also always fun to work with animal subject mater.

All of these pieces were eventually cast in brass or nickle plated zinc.

The Shape of Things

My dear and lovely friend, Emilly Tuckman recently starred in a production of Neil LaBute's play "The Shape of Things" at the Producers Club Theater on west 44th Street in NYC. She asked me if I could contribute a little design work and a prop or two. I was more than glad to. Love you Em!

I lent the play 3 of my carved foam Sculpture Chairs, my living room carpet, a bit of photography and made a very funny prop, a free standing cutout of Michaelangelo's David with Patrick Andrew Jones's head Photoshoped over David's. It's a print from Kinko's spray mounted to Luan.

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my new website

The new website is just about done. Gee Wiz, these things take time and never seem finished. The following illustrations are mostly examples of Zbrush renderings. Their realisim is due to the fact that the subjects are all 3d models, so most everything seen herein can also be printed as objects in real space.