Mico Di Arpo
654 Swallow Avenue
Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
347-789-0039
MicoDiArpo@gmail.com
www.MicoDiArpo.com

Artist Career Narrative

My curriculum vitae spans twenty years as a professional artist and includes teaching, exhibiting, lectures, commissions and restorations. I am accomplished as a master in mural and fresco painting techniques and it all began when I encountered three small paintings.

I was with my mother, I was nine years old, and we entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. My mother loved the courtyard in the spring. She loved the massive four-story wall with its aged patina, and how the skylight allowed the space to be filled with beams of mystical light. She insisted that the flowers were more beautiful there because the waterfall was singing them a secret song that caused them to dance when no one was looking. I thought it would be a great home for a bunny.

It was my second trip to the museum and I had my own agenda. I knew right where to go, over the bumpy tiled floor to the end of the first corridor. Taking my first left, I could barely breathe-- are they still going to be there? Would I have to hunt for them? No, there they were, three of them in a row, two angels and the Madonna; three beautiful, luminous frescoes, three paintings that set me on my path that continues to today.

I would read about, study, and dream fresco. I would create drawings and make fresco cartoons. When I was 12 my father brought home a bag of lime and sand from the local hardware store and we made our own lime plaster and I created my first fresco.

At 18, I decided to forgo a traditional education to study with a master fresco artist just outside of Florence, Italy, in the town of Montaione; a Tuscan town, beautiful in its own right. I returned to the States in 1993, and in 1994 I jumped on the opportunity to spend two weeks under the tutorage of Stephen Dimitroff and Lucinda Bloch. For a fresco artist, a chance to study with Diego Rivera’s assistants and to hear the stories and songs that Lucinda and Frida Kahlo shared was incredible.

I opened a mural company called the Fresco Studio that same year, south of Boston in an old boot factory. In 1995 I worked as a visual merchandiser for Federated Department Stores in Boston. It was here that I learned how to merge creativity with business and how to successfully manage large projects with budgets, creative employees, and vendors. Although I excelled in the field and held a title as senior visual director I left the company in 2001 to continue my own artistic endeavors. By the end of 2002 I had moved myself and my successful mural studio to the Walter Baker Artists' Lofts in Dorchester, Mass.

A visit to upstate New York in 2004 preceded my decision to purchase a historic Greek revival house in downtown Troy. I divided my time between Boston and New York creating murals and frescoes for private clients. 2007 was a life-altering year personally and professionally: My fiancé was in a serious motorcycle accident that eventually took his life. This devastating event became a catalyst for change when a move to the warmer climate of southwest Florida became necessary for his wellbeing and medical care.

I immediately immersed myself in the local culture and opened the Mico Gallery in Englewood. Although this was a difficult time, I learned a lot about the business aspects of running a successful gallery. In 2011, after completing a fresco of Saint Sava for the Serbian Orthodox Church in North Port, FL., I chose to close the gallery and return to Boston and accept a large mural commission for a private client. My awareness of the precarious state of my beloved medium of buon fresco came into astounding clarity around this time.

My focus was shifting. I pushed myself into survival mode, as if my own existence depended on it. My artistic style was evolving, too. My love for the Renaissance art that had always influenced my own work was merging with my adoration for the contemporary representations of street artists. This new wave of artists and their modern compositions have developed sophistication and a realistic approach but still remain edgy and raw. I am drawn to this style because I find it visually exciting and also for the ease in which it transitions into the fresco medium.

I returned to upstate New York in 2013 after completing a fresco of the Madonna for Cardinal Sean O’Malley. I formed The Fresco Project in 2014 which received fiscal sponsorship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. The Fresco Project is repurposing a vacant historic building in which to paint the largest public fresco mural in history to be created by a woman. Its purpose is to advance awareness, access, and use of this ancient medium. I continue to create opportunities through lectures, exhibits, teaching and special projects to show how fresco is capable and worthy of being a viable and valued modern art form.