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WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. -- On a recent afternoon, Charles Fazzino is apologizing for not being as animated as, say, his art.
His subdued demeanor is certainly excusable; he's fresh from a quickie trip to Japan. But then again, it'd be tough for anyone to appear as lively as his work: 3-D serigraphs of city scenes and sports stadiums that burst with all the colors of the psychedelic rainbow and which are collected by the likes of Paul McCartney and Bill Clinton.
Crammed with cartoonish people and boisterous billboards, the pictures have a frenetic Where's Waldo? -- er, Find Fazzino -- quality to them. And the artist himself can be difficult to track down, as he travels a couple of weekends a month. He's doing five shows in five days around Detroit to promote his Super Bowl XL collection. (He also has been the official artist for NASCAR, Major League Baseball's All-Star Game and the Country Music Association Awards.)
The globe-trotting schedule, more pop star than pop painter, is "extremely exhausting," says Fazzino, 50.
So when he's not on the road or in the air, he's here, in the 1908 three-story center hall colonial that he -- and his father -- grew up in. But Fazzino bought the house from his parents in 1991 for reasons that were far more sensible than sentimental. It's 2 1/2 miles from his studio in New Rochelle, N.Y., close to LaGuardia Airport and 18 minutes to Broadway, "if there's no traffic."
It took two years for Fazzino and his wife, Susan, to overhaul the 4,000-square-foot house, combining 13 smallish rooms into eight larger spaces, replacing parquet floors with narrow oak boards, and ripping out the "horrible green" ceiling and walls covered in that swirly decorative stucco so popular with an earlier generation.
In place of the hospital green are shades of white: white walls and, in the living room, sofas and chairs upholstered in creamy jacquard silk. (The exterior of the house is painted white, too.) A Fazzino-designed ash coffee table propped with ornately carved legs -- and stacked with Monet, Warhol and Fazzino books -- blends into the whitewashed floor.
It's the ideal setting for allowing Fazzino's work to, well, pop. (His 84-by-40-inch framed Broadway mural dominates the room.) Except the result is more by default than design. Fazzino lived in Florida for 18 winters and liked the Sunshine State's style.
"I wanted something that reflected the whole Floridian look, but more traditional than contemporary," he says. When it comes to deciding which of his works to display -- he creates 25 limited-edition pieces every year, in addition to his one-of-a-kind canvases -- "a lot of it has to do with my wife saying, 'We need a piece this big,'" Fazzino says, holding out his hands several feet apart.
In fact, considering his marble-tiled foyer, gilded frames and silk Persian rugs (he wants to pick up more when he heads to Dubai for a gallery opening in March), Fazzino's home is an example of how the whimsical and classical coexist and even complement each other. As long as the framing matches the surroundings, Fazzino says, his art will work amid any decor.
And amid any art. In the living room near his Broadway mural hang two Picasso drawings, a Matisse study and a Rembrandt print made from its original plate. But there also is a piece by Peter Max, who shows at some of the same galleries as Fazzino, and a Keith Haring triptych from 1978, when the '80s pop artist was a student at New York's School of Visual Arts, Fazzino's alma mater. Working with Haring's same teacher, Sue Coe, Fazzino sketched a similar series. "Mine doesn't look as good as that," Fazzino says.
He'd buy more art by his peers and mentors if he had appropriate space to display it. "It's not cool to hang something in your bathroom -- though I hear from customers that some of my work ends up in their bathroom: 'It's nice to have something to look at when you're on the john,'" Fazzino says, grimacing.
At his house, his own art also can be found tucked away, but in big black portfolios, like the one stashed between the china cabinet and the dining room wall. Fazzino unzips the folder to reveal simple pencil sketches on ordinary lined notebook paper and plain white scraps -- the genesis of the glittery and vibrant pieces he's known for.
Down the road, it's easy to envision that Fazzino fans will reverently gilt-frame and hang his scratches in their living rooms, Picasso-style.
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