Ferdinand Nazario, Leanne “Chi” Peacey, Garrett Prince, Wendy Converse, Erik Nassinnyk, Jeremy Sinkus, fujichia-Jacob Berendes and Michael “Penny” Leslie, and Josh Swalec.

By Cherie Ronayne, Christine R. Walsh, and Sasha Hnatkovich

Terri Priest, Steven DiRado, Kim Cutler, Peter Wise, Matthew Mattus, Mari Seder, Timothy Johnson, John O’Reilly ~ these names are synonymous with Worcester’s remarkable and diverse art community. The various tools, techniques, and resources used by these and other gifted local artists to create their impressive and unique bodies of work are familiar to us all as well: wood, ink, cameras, canvas, paint, charcoal, brushes. These talented individuals and their artistic visions are and will remain respected and influential cornerstones of Central Massachusetts’ art scene and beyond. And now there is a new breed of artist on the horizon ~ costume designer, aerosol artist, blacksmith, computer animator, silk screener, glass designer and more ~ commanding our attention and blazing new artistic trails. Using materials from software to iron and fire to building facades to fabric and everything in between, they bring fresh perspectives and styles to our increasingly vibrant and ever-evolving art community. The Pulse is proud to present The Next Generation of Local Artists.

Ferdinand Nazario
Aerosol Artist
By Cherie Ronayne

Meet Worcester’s Ferdinand Nazario, 28, a large-scale “Aerosol Artist.” His works include the remarkable ~ and yes legal ~ mural on the Java Hut building in Webster Square as well as others in the downtown area, easily recognizable by his unique style and personal font. Ferdinand is a completely self-taught artist, proud of the fact that his art education is derived from a combination of asking questions, practicing his art, and reading. He wants to make it clear that he is not a vandal; he is an artist whose goal is to take an ugly building and beautify it. So serious about the integrity of his work is Fernando that he goes to great lengths to find and purchase special European spray-paint, the only kind he considers of a high enough quality to stand up to larger-format artwork. His art is no way connected to the graffiti/gang-tagging that can be seen around the city. In fact, the Java Hut mural is just about as far from anything gang-related as possible ~ it is of Ferdinand’s son, based on a black and white photo that Ferdinand had with him. As a creative soul himself and as a mentor to other artists, Ferdinand is frustrated by how resistant Worcester is to his (and others’) form of respectful, expressive, beautifying painting, viewing it as defacement and not the art that it is. Fernando continues to approach local businesses in hopes that, as the Java Hut did, they will pay less attention to the stigma attached to spray painting and more attention to the beauty it can impart and give him permission to work on their buildings.

 

Leanne “Chi” Peacey
Illustrator and Clothing Designer
By Christine R. Walsh

Her illustrations jump with lives of their own. Her website features Zombie fashions in all their dark, gothic glory. She just finished her first post-graduate one-man gallery show at The Java Hut. “She” is the artist Chi.

Born Leanne Peacey 23 years ago, Chi first became interested in art while riding in the back seat of her mother’s car. “When I was growing up, our family was constantly moving,” Chi said. “So to keep us happy in the car, my mother used to stock up on sketchbooks and anything that would keep us happily distracted.” Little did her mother know that she was cultivating a future illustrator and fashion designer.

After high school, Chi followed her heart to art school. “I really had no other interests in regards to other careers or paths of study other than an irrational fear of all things algebra,” said Chi. “Art and sewing were the only two things I wanted to do.”

Chi runs her own website, www.chistudios.com, where one can find her dramatic garments and sketches. The 23-year-old can usually be found hunched over a sewing machine, stitching her latest creation. But as every artist knows, sometimes beautiful creations just don’t pay the bills. Chi has picked up a number of odd jobs along the way to support her art. “[I’ve done] everything from being a photographer, to unloading MACK trucks, to working in an art gallery. The life of a starving artist is all about filling in the gaps until the artwork really starts to support itself, “said Chi. “Which hopefully will be sometime in this lifetime.”
In the future, Chi would like to make a living from art and try her hand at costume design. But until that time, she’d be happy with a clean bedroom. “Every so often the creative clutter of my mind takes over unbeknownst to me,” said Chi, “and I only realize this after my room has imploded in upon itself and oozed out into the rest of the house and managed to consume either my iPod, my cell phone, or my chocolate.”
Check out Chi’s art and fashion at www.chistudios.com.

 

Garrett Prince
Computer Animator
By Cherie Ronayne

Garrett Prince, a 20-year-old aspiring Computer Animator from Shrewsbury, didn’t start out thinking about animation; his passion was originally for sculpture. Early on, he started molding clay on top of his action figures, then quickly moved on to sculpting free- form characters with incredibly minute details, some on sculptures only 2” high. The intensity of his sculpture comes from the different personalities and styles he’s able to convey with nothing but clay. Garrett comes from a long line of artists but feels his inspiration and talent is his own. He considers himself mostly self-taught but was fortunate enough to attend a private vocational school with a very well-developed art program during his middle school years. He also took private sculpting lessons but found that he had difficulty learning someone else’s style as he was well on the way to cementing his own at the time.

He currently attends the Digital Media Arts College in Boca Raton, FL, where he is majoring in Computer Animation. Since the relationship between clay sculpture and animation is a close one even with today’s advanced animation processes (which still use sculptures as models from which wire frames are constructed for the computer, graphing out the different points which first become 3-dimensional and finally animated on-screen), Garrett was able to combine his “low-tech” art with modern technology and bring his creativity to a new level. He finds animation to be simply “sculpting on the computer,” and, as he masters more and more animation programs and techniques, has discovered that he can “…turn out a character model as fast as I could on clay.” For Garrett, the only question now is whether he’ll start his own animation business right out of college, head back to the Milton

Bradley company, who loved his work, or sign on to be the next big name at Pixar Studios!

 

 

Wendy Converse
Printmaker, Sculptor
By Christine R. Walsh

Wendy Converse, 27, is an artist who delights in print making. But those who are seeking gentle artistic interpretations of life can look elsewhere. Converse uses bold, dark, passion to direct her through the creation process. “My work may not be the same beautiful landscape that my neighbor paints,” Converse said. “It may not be pretty or joyful. But yet, it makes you think. For better or worse, you react. And…whether you wish it or not, your reactions are what make my work what it is.”

Converse spent most her childhood traveling. Her father was in the Air Force and the lifestyle allowed her to experience communities across the United States as well as in Germany. Even after her exploration of the world, Converse decided to settle down in Worcester.

“I could remember family vacations we’d spent in Sturbridge and Mystic Seaport and all of the historic significance of the area,” Converse said. “It seemed like a nice place to start out on the next part of my life.”

Living in the Worcester area has changed the way in which Converse views the world around her. She loves both the rich history of the area and the architecture and is currently creating a collection of works that depicts her personal view of the diverse Worcester landscape. Still, print making is her true love.

“Inspiration can come from anywhere,” said Converse. “A dream from the previous night; an interesting bit of architecture I saw on my way to work. It could be as simple as the pattern in the carpet when the light shines on it. I don’t limit myself to one particular subject, but I do find that almost all of my works focus on the figure and its interaction with space.”

Anyone interested in contacting Wendy for more information about her work or to set up a private viewing can contact her at conversecreations@hotmail.com. Wendy also has a website coming soon: www.conversecreations.com

 

 

Erik Nassinnyk
Multi-media Artist
By Christine R. Walsh

Erik Nassinnyk can be found spending time with friends at a favorite pub in Kelly Square on weekend nights. It’s well-deserved downtime for this artist. After all, his work weeks are filled with multi-media design, movie production, and designing shoes for Chuck Taylor. Nassinnyk grew up in Millbury, MA, spending his summers at the Arts and Crafts Center and taking classes at the Worcester Art Museum. Even in his youth, he could hear art calling to him. “My earliest memories are of wandering through art museums across the country. I was drawn immediately to the Modern Arts section,” said Nassinnyk. I didn’t understand much, but that didn’t matter.”

After studying Studio Art at Skidmore College, Nassinnyk launched into a whirlwind of creation and art. His work can best be described as an inspired combination of color and photography. But Nassinnyk always adds something ~ a special touch ~ that could be as simple as a sticker he found while walking. “I can never imagine what the final product will look like, but I know when a piece is finished. It just clicks,” said Nassinnyk.

Nassinnyk keeps busy by maintaining an eBay Artist Collective he founded called Erasoul Artists Online. He was recently commissioned to create an “Artist Model” Chuck Taylor and he is eagerly awaiting the DVD summer release of “A Wormtown Gimmick,” an independent film he shot in Worcester, edited and directed. “Without a budget, we were able to shoot in many Worcester landmarks including the Art Museum and The Worcester T&G. In other large cities, this just would not have been possible. The overall approachability of the city really shined through and allowed us to complete the project,” said Nassinnyk.

Erik’s work can be found at www.erasoul.com

 

Jeremy Sinkus
Glass Artist
By Christine R. Walsh

Few artists would go to the lengths that Jeremy Sinkus, a 30 year old Worcester native, has gone to in the name of glass art. He creates treasures of color and light that aren’t meant to be contained in frames. But in order to create them, he sometimes finds himself at the bottom of dark mines.

“For a time,” said Sinkus, “I supported myself by mining crystals and fossils and cutting, polishing, wire-wrapping or setting them in silver to make a complete piece of jewelry.”

Sinkus dabbled in a number of artistic mediums before deciding to make glass art his main focus. With torch in hand, Sinkus can turn simple rods of colored glass into delicate beads, bold pieces of jewelry, or daring glass sculptures. His works, usually inspired by sea life, are sold in establishments throughout the world, from Hawaii to Singapore.

Sinkus has found much artistic support within the Worcester community.

“Living here has impacted my life by being able to drive a few hours in any direction to be in Maine, Connecticut, Cape Cod or the mountains to help inspire me,” said Sinkus. “This area does cater to the artist, by the artist.”

Sinkus views his art as an opportunity to share beauty with others. He also acknowledges that with each completed piece, his personal happiness and satisfaction grows.

“If I can’t be fishing, mining crystals, scuba diving, and physically enjoying nature every day due to economic and geological reasons, I will create my own ornamental artistic replications of things with a hope to bring me a little closer to my bliss.”

For more information on Jeremy Sinkus and his work, visit www.holderofthestone.com

fujichia
Jacob Berendes and Michael “Penny” Leslie
Everything Artists
By Sasha Hnatkovich

Five years ago, twenty-something Worcester native Jacob Berendes began fujichia as a record label. Recently, it has become “…more like an umbrella company under which I do all the dumb stuff I do,” explains Berendes. Fujichia, now run by Berendes and associate Michael “Penny” Leslie, is “…a more serious catalog,” selling “weird homemade crafty anti-market zines, CDs, clothes and bad ideas.” Fujichia is expanding, with Berendes overworking his first intern and looking to hire someone to do the “mail order stuff” that he says he always messes up royally.

Berendes and Leslie have been raising money to open a store called “happy birthday mike leslie” this spring. “It’s going to be a junk shop with original junk that will also function as a public arts studio for myself and a bunch of guest artists from outside Worcester. There will be CDs and zines and messed-up clothes and a planetarium and a fortune teller and piñatas and a service where you bring in a pizza and we decorate it with Twizzlers and Matchbox Cars and a million other bad ideas that haven’t even been thought up yet. I’m really excited about this ~ I can’t wait to fail spectacularly,” explains Berendes.

Berendes specializes in CD-Rs, T-shirts, zines, stickers, freight trains, pins, sewn objects, Internet, sketchbooks and interviews. “I’m just another part of the T-shirt based economy,” he says. You’ve probably seen his “Paris of the Eighties” bootlegs (still for sale at That’s Entertainment on Park Ave) or the shirts he’s screened for Downhill Battle (www.downhillbattle.org) and a number of other nonprofits and local bands. His next big project? This summer, look for an 80 band 7” record of ten-second songs about things that are green (on green vinyl!) ~ the first entry in the fujichia color wheel series.

Leslie, also from Worcester, is the “the King of Unprofessional” (his custom skateboard company) and the “Prince of fujichia.” A skater since childhood ~ once making videos for Concrete Wave on Goldstar Blvd., he now cuts and paints skateboard decks. Leslie, also an illustrator, has designed album covers for a number of local punk bands including Drunken Boat, In Thar, Puzzled Panther, and his own band for which he plays bass, The Terribles. “I usually write postcards or go skateboarding,” says Leslie. He has a one-man show coming up at Orchard, a skate shop in Boston.

Check out www.fujichia.com.

 

Josh Swalec
Blacksmith
By Christine Walsh

Historically, a blacksmith was a type of “uber-craftsman,” according to 25 year old Worcester blacksmith Josh Swalec. One blacksmith could be responsible for creating and repairing the tools of an entire village. Today, blacksmithing isn’t a societal necessity, but it is certainly experiencing a rebirth as an art form. And Swalec couldn’t be happier.

Swalec started his creative path with jewelry making, sacred geometry, and paper mache. He began reading about blacksmithing during his senior year of high school and has been designing pieces of beauty made from iron ever since.

“I liked how [the blacksmith] used all four elements,” said Swalec about the art form. “Fire, air, earth, and water ~ all in the working of iron.”

This blacksmith has certainly found support within the Worcester community. When he’s not working with iron, he spends much of his time rebuilding antique furniture or embarking upon landscaping projects. No matter where he is, though, or what he’s doing, Swalec’s heart is always with his blacksmithing.

Swalec’s iron creations are visible throughout the Worcester area.

“People can see my spider web gate and Golden Proportion fence on Highland Street, between the Boynton and the Bean Counter,” Swalec said. “[It’s also] at Tammany Hall and Club Red 1888. I made the lighted sign behind the stage at Tammany Hall. At Red, I made all of the custom light fixtures, mostly in shades of red and orange and some in blue and white on the second floor. They are between 4 and 6 feet in diameter, made of steel and colored paper, and mounted to the ceiling.”

Swalec encourages people to visit establishments like Club Red 1888 to see his work, but said that the best way to get the real blacksmithing experience is to by his shop at 97 Webster Street, Worcester.

“Visiting a blacksmith’s shop is an experience not to be equaled.”