Fine Art Blog
Grosse Pointe News “Our Rivers, Our Lakes”
See "Thirst"
Three Consecutive Awards
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 4, 2021 Contact: Robert Maniscalco, author [email protected] mobile: 313-689-2993 NewsFlash: Beacon of Hope has won the "Charleston Award" at the Coastal Carolina Fair in the Fine Arts Exhibition, bringing his competition wins...
Zero Sum Game
I say the answer to the above is 10. But my math-wiz-friend, Chuck Greenia, says it’s "kind of a trick. In formal mathematics, multiplication and division are done before addition and subtraction, making the answer -80." Sheesh! Formal mathematics sounds even...
Single Stories
I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a while who asked me where my hat was. I stammered, “what hat?” He said, “c'mon, you always wear a hat!” It is true that I sometimes wear hats; the sun can be murderous on bald heads. I was struck, however, that his experience with...
Working Through Pain
A Brave Front Most people know me as a go getter, whatever that is. I'm a doer. I am always trying to make something happen, always hustling. But years of negative messaging from myself and others, in the form of CSA and verbal trauma, and the resulting anxiety and...
Rudolf Nureyev
Excerpts of a letter Rudolf Nureyev wrote, to the dance community about his own life as a dancer, while dying of AIDS. His words remind me of why I paint or act or write. Not for the glory but for the shear joy of doing, the simple thrill of exploring my curiosities,...
The Art Market
The following is a frank assessment of the current art market, from this artist's perspective. As most of you know, I have an extensive catalogue of available artwork. It happens when you've been doing art for forty years. I've spent some time recently adjusting each...
Essential Still Life
What is an Essential Still Life? View Custom Still Lives Robert has Done for Others In addition to my oil portraits I can create a very personal still life, perhaps celebrating a bride’s wedding, or other monumental event, with an “essential still life” remembering "a...
Seeing What We Want to See
Inattentional Blindness - Falling for the Trick We've all seen them on the internet. I'm talking about those amazing chalk drawings on sidewalks that look 3-D. Or those optical illusions that make things appear differently than they really are. These are examples of...
Drawing vs Copying
Looking Deeper I sometimes comment in FB groups, offering my humble critique, when asked. Here’s what I offered for this drawing on the left. Honestly, there is a huge difference between drawing and copying a photo. So much of what I see in this group is copying....









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“The Handoff” captures the exact moment when one generation places the fragile world into the hands of the next. Suspended in a cosmic cloud of light and stardust, the small Earth glows between older, protective hands and younger, open palms.
“The Handoff” will be featured in my exhibition at Park Circle Gallery, opening Good Friday 5-7 pm. Thru April.
Two sets of #hands reach toward a small, luminous Earth, held tenderly against a swirling #cosmos. The older hands cradle the #planet with care; the younger hands open to receive it. Between them hangs a silent question: What are we really passing on?
“The Handoff” is a #meditation on stewardship across generations—the moment when responsibility for our fragile world shifts from those who have carried it to those who will shape what comes next. It’s a piece for anyone who feels both the weight and the hope of that exchange: parents, teachers, mentors, spiritual leaders, and quiet guardians of the future.
Hung in a living room, office, or gathering space, this painting becomes a daily reminder to live—and lead—with the next generation in mind.
It’s a painting about trust, responsibility, and the quiet courage it takes to let go—and to receive. It asks: What are we really giving to those who follow us? A burden? A blessing? A chance to do better? In this suspended second, everything is still possible.
"The Handoff" is for people who feel they’re standing between generations—parents, teachers, mentors, spiritual leaders, even environmental advocates—anyone who feels the weight of what we’re handing to those coming after us. It’s a visual reminder that the Earth, and the future, are something we pass on, not just something we use. ... See MoreSee Less
The figures in "A Walk in the Park" are the inner cast you carry everywhere—the fool who leaps, the doubter who drags his feet, the dreamer who stares past the horizon, the judge with crossed arms, the child who still believes. They bicker, whisper, revolt and reconcile, but together they make the one you call “I.” We are all onstage at once, caught in the thin light between meaning and emptiness—a reminder that your chaos is not a flaw, but the chorus through which your true voice finally emerges. ... See MoreSee Less
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted."Identity and Self"
Opening Reception and Exhibition at
Park Circle Art Gallery
4820 Jenkins Ave.
North Charleston, SC 29405
The Exhibition runs through April 26
Gallery Hours: W-F 10:30-5:30, Sat 12-4
The collection will center on how identity interferes with our true self, our true freedom, which is a central value for an artist, as well as any self-actualized individual. For instance, when I draw my idea of a thing, rather than opening myself up to the full potential contained in the thing itself, I am limiting my creative potential.
So, who are we at our core, after we strip away the names we call ourselves, the parties with whom we affiliate, the causes for which we are fighting? After all, these are all inventions of the ego, which separate us from God and the infinite. Existence consists of light on form. Light is my medium as an artist. I am a painter of the self. I am looking always for something deeper than the surface representations in my subjects. It is the true self I am looking for when I paint, whether it is an orange, a sky or a judge. ... See MoreSee Less