Nick Mancuso is one of my all time favorite actors. He was Ray in an 80's show called "Stingray" that Stephen J. Cannell produced. Ray is right there with MacGyver in the "try-to-save-the-world-one-person/situation-at-a-time" hero category. Truth, justice and the personal way brings home the lesson that we are all our brothers' keepers. And the car is just plain smokin'!!!
Besides acting, Nick Mancuso plies many trades. Back in May or April he had a gallery opening in NYC to show case his paintings. Yes... the fastest way into my heart is to be a fellow creative type. The paintings are very organic, emerging from somewhere deep inside. I have to admit, it one were to attempt to critique them with traditional art as an institution jargon, I couldn't do it.
I react first to his use of color, then the main image and then the movement in the paintings. I am certain that the symbols I can't immediately classify mean something to Nick on a personal level. I don't know that they mean to me the same as they would mean to anyone else. His style is a little like Chagall but the view is more focused and not the panoramic scope of Chagall. That is about as coherent as I can be with the jargon. I just want to stare at them all day long, drink in the monochromatic paintings in pinks or green and swim in the blues.
I feel shifts in my energy patterns when I look at the monochromatic series. Some of the others are energetically jarring, like he was at war within himself as he was working on some of them. I can't look long at those. Some of the paintings make me feel angry, but mostly they remind me of the things I used to be interested in... the places I could get lost in for long Summer days as long as I had access to my encyclopedias.
Some might call it primitive abstraction. Some might be derisive and call them junk. And the most jaded would maybe say "Well what else is a retired (God I hope he isn't) actor gonna do?" I admit there are a few I don't get... I can't get a beat on what he might have been experiencing at the time of the painting. But I still think that this work is exceptional. My heart has hurt so much in the last six years or so that I wondered if anything other than the dark operatic styling of Carl Orff could touch me, make me feel. But Nicks work makes me feel. I feel it in my heart. I feel it when the corners of my mouth lift a little. And I feel Lake Michigan lapping at my toes with a light southern breeze skipping across the water even when I am miles from the lake. Anyone who can make me feel that is indeed my greatest hero.
And, now some of his paintings are silk screened on wearables. They are available at his website Nick-Mancuso.com. It isn't his site, it's a fan site that he frequently encourages like RDAnderson does his. So now you guys know what to get me for Christmas/Birthday/Thanks for Being a Friend/Get Well gifts.
A link? I could, if I knew exactly what I was doing. How about I just put him on a blog list?
Okay. He's on a blog list.
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