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Paul Rizzo

    ART THERAPY

    Paul Rizzo Is Searching for His Dream House

    A new show explores the personal geography of memory

    By

    Here is a partial list of Paul Rizzo’s obsessions, in no particular order, based on a visual inventory of the works in progress (all his works are almost always “in progress”) currently displayed around his studio at the Provincetown Commons:

    Iced coffee. Kermit the Frog. Gay erotica, particularly magazines from the 1970s and ’80s. Old houses. Tube socks. Plaid shirts. To-do lists. Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and films from Hollywood’s golden age. Making out. Cheese and crackers. Provincetown. Red hearts. Rainbows. (And that’s just what’s on the walls; there’s no telling what lurks in the boxes and buckets of material scattered and stacked around his workspace.)

    Paul Rizzo, The Martin House Meets Mermaid Lane. (Photo by Gaston Lacombe)

    All artists reveal something of themselves in their work, but Rizzo’s art is uncommonly personal: while some painters paint what they see, Rizzo paints who he is. His new show at Four Eleven Gallery, “35 (Rainbows in the Dark),” continues in the strong autobiographical vein that has characterized his practice since he moved to Provincetown 10 years ago. (The title refers to both his current age and the prevalence of rainbows in his work, though he admits “there might be more or less than 35 actual rainbows in the show; I haven’t counted.”) But it also reveals a more mature and technically accomplished side than he’s shown in the past.

    Rizzo’s peripatetic approach extends to the variety of formats in which he works. While most of the pieces in his new show are paintings on canvas, there are also drawings on paper, mixed-media collages on panel, and decorated found objects. He says his side job at Ruthie’s Boutique on Bradford Street has been a prolific source of material: cut up fragments from a floral print blanket are collaged into several paintings, and he’s been reworking a Bicentennial-themed commemorative serving plate from its inventory into … something else. (Like much of his art, it will likely end up being more about experimentation and process than a finished object.) Every component of Rizzo’s work has a story behind it, down to the smallest scrap of paper or piece of string.

    Rizzo with some of the materials he uses for his mixed-media pieces on paper, canvas, and panel. (Photo by John D’Addario)

    Of all the objects in Rizzo’s appealingly cluttered universe, his sketchbooks offer the most insight into his artistic process. Some are so full of layered ephemera that they bulge open like paper accordions instead of lying flat. All are offered for public perusal whenever he exhibits his work.

    Despite the open invitation, thumbing through them feels almost illicit, like snooping into someone’s private diaries. The pages contain everything from sketched self-portraits and beefcake pin-ups to shopping lists, ticket stubs, and affirmations like “Trying to Manifest a Live/Work Art Studio.” (It apparently worked, at least partially: Rizzo says he’s found a new place to make art when his residency at the Commons ends later this month. He’s still working on the housing part.)

    Photographs of buildings in Provincetown are the basis for Rizzo’s reconstructed views of the town. (Photo by John D’Addario)

    That spirit of unfiltered sharing also permeates the paintings and drawings that explicitly address Rizzo’s reckoning with his own mental health. Overwhelmed by Everything is rendered in shadowed drop caps against a pulsating bullseye of bright colors. Another painting broadcasts I Come On Too Strong amidst an agitated field of irregularly shaped daubs of blue paint, like a cloudy sky about to break into a storm.

    Rizzo describes such work as “art therapy,” which has become a form of self-care. “I’ve always had attention deficit disorder, and it’s made organizing things and following through with projects really difficult for me,” he says. “So, writing down my insecurities, or making my calendars or to-do lists into art, are ways of both calming myself and putting things into some kind of order so I can keep track of them.”

    The walls of Rizzo’s studio at Provincetown Commons are full of works in progress along with the source materials he uses to compose them. (Photo by John D’Addario)

    But another set of themes emerges in his newer works: what it means to live in Provincetown, and his personal relationship with and affection for its built environment. Many of his “dream houses,” as Rizzo calls them, are based on photographs of buildings that catch his eye. (He points to a drawing of a cottage at the intersection of Commercial Street and the minuscule Mermaid Avenue in the far East End as a current favorite.) While he has been making and showing his house drawings for years, they have a particular prominence in his current show. The strongest ones, like The Martin House Meets Mermaid Lane, combine studies of different buildings on the same canvas, interspersed with floral studies, landscape fragments, and patches of texture and pattern.

    The buildings are keenly observed, down to the texture of their shutters and patterns of their brickwork. Rizzo’s command of line in these details can be traced to an architectural drawing class in high school, which he barely passed. “My teacher was kind enough to give me a C, even though I never could draw straight lines or use a T-square,” he says. “Instead, I kept drawing all these fantasy buildings with lots of curves in them, ones that would be impossible to build in real life.”

    As part of his art therapy practice, Rizzo makes his personal calendars and to-do lists into pieces that he exhibits. (Photo by John D’Addario)

    Many of the houses Rizzo depicts are instantly recognizable, like the fanciful Second Empire mansard roof of 220 Commercial St., or the more prosaic façade of 112 Commercial St. where it bends at Tremont Street. But he often adjusts their actual locations and spatial relationships to one another to create a sort of Provincetown of the imagination. Some are even hybrid structures combining elements from different houses. The views may not exist in reality, but they’re somehow more evocative of a personal lived experience than mere “reality” could ever be.

    That tension between the real and the imaginary gives Rizzo’s house drawings a particularly potent charm. Their dream quality isn’t aspirational in the real estate sense. Instead, it’s descriptive of how all of us build our own “dream houses” and internal geographies through experience and memory, filtered through nostalgia.

    A few of the sketchbooks that Rizzo offers for perusal in his exhibitions. (Photo by John D’Addario)

    One of Rizzo’s most emblematic works is I’m Always Chasing Rainbows, using an additional word for emphasis. It’s the perfect summary of his world view: colorful, a little naughty, ultimately optimistic, and inspired by something that beautifully remains a little out of reach.

    36 (Rainbows in the Dark)

    The event: An exhibition of new work by Paul Rizzo
    The time: Through Sept. 29
    The place: Four Eleven Gallery, 411 Commercial St., Provincetown
    The cost: Free

    SIDE HUSTLES

    Don’t Quit Your Day Job

    Outer Cape artists juggle oyster harvests and dog walks to make a living

    By

    Naya Bricher grew up around creative people. Her father is an artist and graphic designer who freelanced — he worked when he could, and he had a kind of freedom. Her mother is an artist, too, but she worked a nine-to-five job and had the luxury of a routine. When Bricher left South Kent, Conn. for a job in Provincetown, she knew she’d found her own way to balance her creative life with something steadying.

    Pink Aide is a 50-by-60-inch oil on canvas by Naya Bricher. Her paintings are inspired by “an object-filled life within a content-rich world.” (Photo courtesy Naya Bricher)

    Bricher is a painter, the administrative director at the Fine Arts Work Center, and a Zumba instructor.

    The Zumba classes — she teaches at Tula Studio in Eastham and at the Provincetown Gym — are her antidote to stress. They “help bring in all those good endorphins and boost my mood.”

    Teaching Zumba classes helps Naya Bricher relieve stress. (Photo courtesy Naya Bricher)

    She’s not the only artist on the Outer Cape who has a side hustle or two. Andy Jacob, a painter and Wellfleet oysterman, finds that his harvest affords him creative freedom.

    Oystering brings in income that helps him support his family, he says. And that has allowed him to think about the value of his paintings differently. He used to underprice his work, he says, feeling the pressure to sell no matter what. Now he can be more patient, selling paintings for what he thinks they’re truly worth.

    Andy Jacob shucking some of his oyster harvest. (Photo courtesy Andy Jacob)

    And working out on the flats provides a break from the intensity of his art projects, Jacob says. “It’s a great balance to be in the studio, then outside in the elements,” he says. “Especially in the winter. If it’s windy, snowy, and freezing,” Jacob says, “you go on a little adventure.”

    Jacob grew up in Salem and was in middle school when he started painting. He and his friends used to sneak through chain-link fences to spray paint parked train cars. Jacob still works with spray paint, though now he coats more wood panels and canvases than locomotives.

    He’s also an avid surfer. The waves are one reason he moved to the Outer Cape full-time in the early 2000s. They are also one of his favorite subjects to paint.

    Some of Jacob’s otherworldly waves. (Photo courtesy Andy Jacob)

    In his waders, harvesting oysters, Jacob says he feels firmly rooted on planet Earth. But in the studio, he lets his mind wander to Carl Sagan’s theory that, in a universe with countless stars, some must inevitably shine on other planets, and some of those planets must surely support life. Often, Jacob imagines what waves might look like in oceans across the universe.

    Polly Burnell, who displays her expressionistic landscape paintings at the Berta Walker Gallery, tunes her life to the seasons. In winter, she hunkers down to spend most of her time painting. During the summer, she’s a full-time manager at the Watermark Inn in Provincetown.

    She likes the casual friendliness of the busy season. “You go to an art opening here and meet people that you’d be meeting in New York with sand on their legs, fresh off the beach,” she says.

    Paul Rizzo knows how to work every position in a bar. He is also a painter. And when he’s not manning Four Eleven Gallery, where he shows his work, or painting in his studio space at the Commons, he walks dogs around the side streets of Provincetown.

    Rizzo came to Provincetown in 2011, captivated by its queer history and quaint architecture. Dog walks provided a quiet contrast to his work at the Atlantic House and the Boatslip. They also became sources of inspiration. Rizzo says he finds himself noticing different views and taking reference photos when he walks dogs.

    Paul Rizzo’s One of My Favorites (Dreamhouse). (Photo courtesy Paul Rizzo)

    One particular house in the East End kept catching his eye last year. One of My Favorites (Dreamhouse) hung in Rizzo’s solo show at Four Eleven last September and found a home with his Commons studio-mate Donna Pomponio. His portraits of houses on Cudworth, Commercial, and Bradford streets can be seen at Four Eleven.

    Liz Carney, the owner of Four Eleven Gallery, knows that cobbling together jobs is a reality for many artists. She says she has dreamed of putting together a show called “Day Jobs” in which she would show works such as the ink drawings that abstract painter Janine Evers made on Post-it notes while she worked as a secretary.

    “Everybody’s doing what they can,” says Carney. But here at the far end of the Cape, no one has to do it alone. “There’s a sense of collective spirit,” she says. “People help each other find jobs. We’re a really good artist community in that way.”

    Paul Rizzo, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’

    By

    The Four Eleven Gallery at 411 Commercial St. in Provincetown will present a show of new work by Provincetown painter Paul Rizzo, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” opening Friday, September 18th, through September 24th. According to the gallery announcement, Rizzo “works with and from the local landscape, images from ’70s porn and old Hollywood, portraiture, abstraction, and text.” The gallery is open Thursday to Monday from 11 a.m, by appointment, or online at fourelevengallery.com.

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