In Retrospect …part 1
September 24, 2019
“Let yourself be silently drawn by
the strange pull of what you really love.
It will not lead you astray.”
-Rumi
How does a dream become a reality? When does the seed of a dream get planted?
Without proper watering, can a dream be realized?
Who or what needs to manifest in life to fulfill a dream?
I was born October 20th, 1968 on an air force base in Plattsburgh, NY near the U.S.-Canadian border, where my father was stationed. I was told that my fiery red hair was the first thing that came into existence, with my stubbornness and autonomy a close second. By age three, we had moved to my parents’ hometown of Binghamton, NY, and I had started throwing myself down the stairs. Why? This is a question to which I can honestly say, I have no answer.
Right: Myself in the Plattsburgh hospital after an operation, with my father, circa 1969. Left: My father, mother, older brother Ron and myself, circa 1969.
Apparently I was a “handful,” but found a release in creating art. After spending hours looking over my mother’s shoulder as she diligently drew and painted in her art room, it became evident that the time spent creating art was very calming for me. The bond shared between us was a nonverbal truce. By age four, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I would fastidiously copy the comics, most notably “Peanuts,” created by Charles M. Schulz.
Letter and drawings from Charles M. Schulz, 1977.
I wrote to Mr. Schulz when I was seven and included some of my drawings. To my surprise, he responded back. I used this correspondence to impress a girl in my third grade class during show and tell. It worked! Soon, I was trading my drawings at lunchtime for cupcakes and cookies. My mother’s coworkers also requested drawings, which in turn led to bigger bounties of art supplies and toys. I would spend the next decade training my hand-eye coordination by copying comics in my desire to be a famous cartoonist.
Picture that I took of Chuck Close next to his painting Fannie/Fingerpainting, 8’6” x 7,’ at his show in Soho, 1985, during my 10th grade field trip.
However, a fateful day in tenth grade slightly altered that direction. On this pivotal day, my high school art teacher brought us to New York City for a fieldtrip, where we visited a gallery in SoHo. It was on this day that I first encountered paintings by Chuck Close. The nine-foot tall portraits done with his thumbprint and stamp pad ink enthralled me. The bonus was meeting him that day. He described his process and obliged me with a photograph in front of one his paintings. My future path now revealed, I would spend the rest of high school and college perfecting my technique and vision. Close’s work ultimately led me to the Photorealism movement and Louis K. Meisel’s book “Photorealism Since 1980.” This book became my artistic bible, bringing forth a new dream to one day be in a future volume.
Paintings i created in the style of Chuck Close, circa 1988-1992. Left: My father Ronald Brunelli next to a painting of him. Center: Myself next to an in-progress painting of my ex-wife’s grandfather Bob Travis, aka “Grandpa Bob.”. Right: Myself next to a painting of my friend Fred Seymour.
That day became a palpable realization in March of 1993. Since I had finished my coursework for my BFA from Binghamton University in December, I was taking extra credit classes for a teaching certificate until my formal graduation in May. My brother John asked if I wanted to go to NYC on a group bus trip with his college class. I thought it might be a nice time to show slides of my work to a handful of galleries. Louis K. Meisel Gallery was on that list.
In New York, I received encouraging feedback from dealers at a few uptown galleries. Coincidentally, they also all said, “You should head down to SoHo and see Louie Meisel.” This was music to my ears, as Meisel Gallery was my top choice, but I procrastinated the visit to suspend any possible discouraging news. While I had been training for this moment since I was four years old, I never truly imagined it would manifest this soon.
Color Rack Card I presented to Susan Meisel, showcasing my painting Park Diner (1991).
Upon walking into Meisel Gallery on this auspicious day, I encountered a dark-haired woman at the desk who noticed my nervousness and asked, “Are you an artist?”
A nod.
“Do you want to show us your work?”
I proceeded to approach the desk to give her a couple of 4”x 5” slide negatives and a color rack card that had an image of my painting, Park Diner on the front and a brief bio on the back. She enthusiastically took them and examined them closely. She then asked, “Have you ever seen the movie The Last Picture Show?”
Before I could answer she quickly said, “Let me show this to my husband, Louis. He’s in the back office.”
Not realizing I had been talking with Susan Meisel the whole time, I was in shock as she walked away. After what seemed like an eternity, but was in reality only a few minutes, Susan came back and said, “We are very interested in seeing originals.”
I was numb, and probably started to stutter, but managed to say, “Can you give me a month to bring them down?”
Myself, left, and classmate Steve Boreman, right, in front of my painting Chenango River (1993), at my first show at Louis K. Meisel Gallery in 1995.
The most recent painting I was working on, Chenango River, was not complete, but was turning out to be my best painting to date. I realistically needed three months to finish it, but that did not stop me from taking a leave of absence from all of my part time jobs to work night and day to complete it.
As I was walking out of the door of the Meisel Gallery that day, Susan asked one more question, “Did we make your day today?” My reply was an emphatic, “YES!” Her reply was, “Well, you made ours.” From that day, and for the last twenty-five plus years, I can only describe my life as a dream come true.
Louis and Susan Meisel at NOLA Museum exhibit “Photorealism: The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Collection,” New Orleans, LA, November 2014.
“This is the subtle truth, whatever you love you are.”
-Rumi
-Anthony Brunelli