.::SETTEMBRE 2005::.

The Playful and Profitable Art of Paul Pugliese

by LinAnn Lo Schiavo

Leonardo had his muse in Mona Lisa.  Whistler had his museum-worthy mother.  Paul Pugliese has his monolithic ice cream cones, his maximized Italian hero, and his mammoth pizza slice on display in The Garden State.  Since 1970, the Long Branch, New Jersey resident has put his talents to work on a parallel track. When he's in his fine arts mode, Pugliese has parked his paintings, photography, and sculpture in various exhibitions, for example, at the Artists Alliance of Monmouth County, Freehold Public Library, New Jersey Center for the Healing Arts [Red Bank], Burlington County College [Pemberton, NJ], Monmouth Museum [Lincroft, NJ], "A Taste of Red Bank" Art Show and Auction presented by Meridian Health Care System, at the Mid-State Arts Resource Team (mART) "Sharks for the Arts" Benefit, as well as other events and venues too numerous to list.  He has shown and sold work in a dozen states, Bermuda, Japan, and online. When Pugliese is in his commercial realm, his gigantic mouth-watering installations are also on view -- perhaps at a lunch counter a few miles from your house.  For instance, anytime you visit one of the Windmill Restaurants in New Jersey, you'll see costumes he created for the six-foot Hot Dog Man, Mr. Big Ed (a double cheeseburger), and Ms. Cheezy Fry (a fried potato slice topped with cheese).  For beachside diners he has whipped up whimsical food sculptures: a three-foot pretzel, a five-foot high wall-mounted cherry-topped sundae, and other treats. Hiding in plain sight are several of his murals.  His tall, tapering geometric graphics in teal, turquoise, red, and burnt sienna muscle some energy into an otherwise sleepy vanilla-painted cafeteria at Ocean County's Administration Offices in Tom’s River.  A sunny wall treatment called "Day Care Graphics," depicting the familiar figures of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, brightens a waiting room inside Trenton's Charles Miller Health Care Center.  "Clown Face," decorating a pair of swinging doors cheers up a pediatric floor at Monmouth Medical Center, as if a magician's wand slipped past a nodding porter. He's no wallflower himself, though.  Entertainment agencies in The Garden State have employed the personable freelancer to do caricatures at corporate events. Companies who have hired Pugliese's talents are Exxon, Gucci America, NEC, and HBO. And if anyone craves a Halloween costume that would suit a non-conformist soul, Paul Pugliese might be able to make those dreams visible before October 31st rolls around.  He's fashioned tinmen, tall buildings, and assorted rascals ready for a parade or masquerade ball.

Occasionally, this emperor of ice cream will employ his artwork as a conscience.  He once showed up at a political rally inside a homemade wooden barrel wearing only suspenders, and has donated his handiwork for "Hands Across New Jersey" for use in political rallies.  The media photographed his "Loan Shark," a predator that helped scare up funds for a new arts center in New Jersey's bay-shore region.  He sketched Bill Clinton as his comment on "Wag the Dog." [That film, released in 2000, starred Robert DeNiro as a political consultant trying to rescue a damaged president before an election via a wild scheme about a war against Albania.]  Pugliese has gently poked fun at tax-collectors, windbags, and legislators in his cartoons published in Coaster Newspaper [in Asbury Park] and Jersey Mirror [in Woodbridge]. In the same way that da Vinci explored the realms of the painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist, and musician, Paul Pugliese began as a musician who mastered sound system design.  He then immersed himself in building web sites; the inner workings of being an electrician and a welder; skills such as carpentry and plumbing; and model-making, graphic design, drafting, drawing, caricatures, murals, painting, sculpture, and photography. Many galleries and museums are hung with masterworks that are instructive --providing vigorous exercise for the thinking eye-- and everyone knows where to find those high-minded canvasses.  But if you plan to drive through New Jersey, watch for a smile opportunity waiting high up across a billboard.  It may be wearing mustard.