Adam J Carriuolo

Fine Art Silkscreen Prints

Narragansett Times, Thursday September 14, 2006 - Timeout section

Local artist pays tribute to RI architecture - by Kim Iemma

NARRAGANSETT - Adam Carriuolo is an artist living in Rehoboth, Massachusetts with his wife Karen and two young children. Timeout recently caught up with him after a trip to Block Island where he was taking photographs for the current series of posters he's creating, each commemorating the work of esteemed architects McKim, Mead, and White. (The writer may be a little confused here. There are no MMW designed buildings on Block Island that I'm aware of-AC)

Timeout: What work have you completed in the series, and what's to come?

A.C.: I've completed three of the four posters in the "McKim, Mead, and White in Rhode Island" series. I'm just starting on the poster of the Rhode Island State House, and expect to have the series completed around Thanksgiving. After the MMW series is complete, I'll be moving on to a couple of Block Island works done in a vintage travel poster format. Those pieces will feature the Spring House and the Southeast Lighthouse.

Timeout: How would you describe the style of art you're working in?

A.C.: It's really a mishmash of style, subject, and presentation. The style can almost be considered comic book, or animation cel, or pop art (as a stretch). It's extremely bold, simple, and graphic. It's really typical of the medium of silkscreen. The subject matter is distinctly vintage. I pay homage to historical architecture and the visionaries responsible for its presence and impact in our culture. The presentation so far has been a contrivance of sorts. It reads as if there were a seminar on the subject somewhere. Actually it's meant as a tribute, to proclaim the historical context of these architectural works and their creators. Other works may be more similar to vintage travel posters.

Timeout: What is the step-by-step process of creating a poster?

A.C.: My workflow is pretty straightforward with the occasional variance. Normally I'll go take pictures of the building, create a small freehand pencil sketch using the photos as a reference, scan the sketch into the Adobe Illustrator computer drawing program, and trace it. After a little tweaking of the line weights I start to play with color. That's when the process is the most fun. After I settle on the colors, I print out each color separation to a film positive, which is just clear film with black ink where the color is supposed to print. I then expose that film onto a silkscreen frame that's been treated with an emulsion. After exposure I wash out the unexposed areas and I have my stencil. I do this for each color, and in the case of the MMW prints that's either five or six. Then I print the posters one color at a time by pushing ink through the stencil with a squeegee. I can usually print one color per hour onto fifty posters.

Timeout: What brought you to focus on McKim, Mead, and White architecture?

A.C.: I first got the idea on a trip to Newport a few years ago. I had brought my camera and wanted to take some pictures of the mansions and the Casino. I took some pictures of the Bell House, the Casino, Kingscote, etc. It wasn't until later on that I started to connect the dots between these buildings and the State House, Rosecliff, Narragansett Pier Casino, and more. All these impressive spaces, so critical to Rhode Island's image of itself, all so distinct from each other, had been designed by the same firm, during the same time period. McKim, Mead, and White's work, and others, had begun to emerge from the shadows for me, all the while having been in plain sight.

Timeout: There's sure to be local interest in the MMW series, have you started selling the completed posters?

A.C.: I have sold a few pieces on eBay, one on Gigposters.com

Timeout: Going forward, will you continue in the same medium?

A.C.: For the longest time as an artist, I feared I had nothing to say. I also felt that were I able to find something to say I would lack the language to communicate it. If you ask my wife, she'll tell you that I had the hardest time completing creative projects. My drawer if full of unfinished drawings, watercolors... I carried a huge acrylic painting around for ten years from apartment-to-apartment and house-to-house while it remained three quarters finished. Finally last year at about the time I was finishing up the Narragansett print, I pulled the canvas off its frame, folded it up, and tossed it in the trash, and I have never looked back. I feel as if I have found that medium and that message. Someone once quoted Andrew Wyeth as telling a young artist, "If you're going to go somewhere, go deep." I'm going deep.