Charles Fazzino has been creating his 3D pop art for over 50 years. In celebration of his work, we would like to take everyone down memory lane and join Charles as he gives us all a deeper dive into his life as an artist and reminisces on his achievements and exciting stories from the past. Stay tuned as we embark on this journey!
A Timeline of Artwork
Watch the evolution of Charles and his artwork through the years since the beginning in 1971.
20 Questions with Charles
Take a walk through Charles Fazzino’s New Rochelle studio and find out why Charles became an artist, what a day of creating looks like, meet the folks that help in the studio, and so much more.
Let’s roll through the questions:
- Where are we currently? My studio is in New Rochelle, New York!
- Is anything special about the building? Very special! The building is a very old building from the 1920s and I’ve been here since school, I guess since the 90s. It’s the old or part of the old Terry tune Studios you know where they [created] Heckle and Jeckle and Mighty Mouse and produced a lot of old animation. So, yes the building has a lot of history here in New Rochelle
- How long have you been in the building? I’ve been in here since the late 1980s, early 90s. Hannah Barbara started here!
- Do you have any special memories in the building? Well many things we’ve had many people, stars (celebrities), baseball players. So many people have come here to the studio through the years because I’ve been here a long time and it’s just a very special place and it’s very homey.
- Can you tell us about one of the celebrities that came here? Yes, we have had Mariano Rivera came and knocked on the door once and was interested in my artwork and wanted to see some artwork and just decided to pop over since he was living in the area. We also had Reggie Jackson and so many other celebrities have been here.
- You’re celebrating 50 years of creating artwork, what does that mean to you? It means a lot. It means longevity. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve been able to produce a beautiful body of work through the years and I’ve been very proud of what I’ve produced a beautiful body of work through the years and I’ve been very proud of what I’ve produced.
- Can you give us a tour of your building/ studio? Sure, if you’d like, yeah!
- So what room are we coming into now? This is our Shipping Department. A lot of people will always ask me how the artwork gets shipped and sent overseas to different countries and if is it framed ahead of time. How does it get there because it looks fragile? So that’s always been a question and… “How are you doing Peter?” “Doing good, hey Charles!” Peter is packing some of the boxes of the artwork is three-dimensional, as everybody knows and it gets packed in a special way so it travels all over the world and I’ve been we’ve been very lucky that we’ve through the years have figured out a way to ship the artwork that it doesn’t get damaged.
- How’s your work/life balance, Charles? I get it up, not at the crack of dawn every morning but at a time that uh comfortable for me and I work usually until 6:30 – 7 o’clock at night. I have a great team of artists that work with me so much so it makes my job so much easier. I have so many helping hands.
- What about all the travel that you do? The travel interrupts my painting and drawing schedule but on the other hand, why I like doing it because it’s so important for me to see new things to experience new places, and then when I have to sit down to draw it makes it a lot easier.
- What is your favorite time of day to create? I don’t really have a specific time um it’s important that sometimes when I come in that I feel creative so I try to do business things when I’m not feeling creative and do creative things when I’m feeling creative.
- How do you make sure you have enough time to create? I don’t always it’s not always an easy thing sometimes I’m very productive and then other times even though I feel I’m creative I’m not getting a lot done. And there are a lot of things when doing art that sometimes it isn’t always productive.
- Can you name some of your favorite places to travel to? I’d love to travel to a place that I’ve been going to for many years and I’m very familiar with and the people really love my work. I love either the food or the geography of the place. One of my favorite places is Switzerland and Germany and of course, the different areas of France are wonderful. I like Japan and Korea they’re also very different and very excited.
- You wanted to be an artist, Charles? I did my parents were both artists my father was a shoe designer and my mother was a very creative person in her time of sculpting and doing tent crafts and so I felt that there was nothing else I could really do and do it well though I knew that I would become a good artist because that’s what I was doing the best in school.
- Charles is there any place you’re still wanting to go? Yes, there are many places um I’ve been to Italy many times but I haven’t been to a lot of cities uh in Italy that are off the road so many areas of Italy I’d like to go to um there are places in the Middle East that I haven’t been to and my work doesn’t sell in South America and I would love to have the opportunity to go to South America to do some shows and get my work known down there.
- Charles, is this your personal studio? This is! This is where all the creativity happens or at least most of the time.
- How many years have you been working here? For many years, as long as I have been in the building. I’ve been in this room and it’s changed over the years it’s kind of cluttered and messy but this is where I do create everything and always to music.
- What’s your favorite thing in the studio? In the whole studio? Probably my father’s desk. People come from meetings sometimes and say to me wow you’ve got this really old desk and I was like you know my father made it it’s made out of I think Walnut or Chestnut Wood and he created [this] for his Studio which used to also be here in New Rochelle and I’ve kept it as a memory and it’s brought me good luck.
- Who are your artistic inspirations? As you can see on the walls I love Red Grooms and of course, I love Picasso and Andy Warhol and many different artists and I collect many different artists’ work.
- What is your favorite medium to work in here in your studio? Well, it’s a medium that doesn’t get a lot of accolades, sometimes. Everybody is painting, uses watercolors, acrylics, and oils. Actually, what I really like to do is draw. Using just a normal pencil and every painting that I create always starts off with a pencil drawing.
Follow Fazzino on his social @fazzinopopart as his journey continues, and sign up for our Collector’s Club to stay up-to-date on Fazzino events.
