3-D Detail from ‘The Creation of Adam’ Wins a ‘Best of Show’ Award

By Donald H. Harrison

DEL MAR, California – The hand of God animating Adam just by a touch is not how Adam’s creation is described in the Torah. Genesis 2:6 reads: “And Hashem God formed the man of dust from the ground, and He blew into his nostrils the soul of life; and man became a living being.”

However, the divine touch is the way that the great medieval Italian artist Michelangelo imagined the “Creation of Adam” and that image is the best known of his paintings gracing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

Artist Joseph Pisano won First Place and a Best of Show Award in the Miscellaneous Three-Dimensional Art category at this year’s San Diego County Fair for replicating a detail of Michelangelo’s work. He utilized between 3,000 and 4,000 drywall screws to depict the hands of God and Adam about to touch.

Having never visited the Sistine Chapel personally –though “it’s on my bucket list” – Pisano, a U.S. Navy chief with 22 ½ years of service, worked from photographs of the chapel’s ceiling as well as from pictures of his own hands.

The photos of his own hands were “to get the dimensional perspective in terms of the relief,” Pisano told San Diego Jewish World. He put his cell phone on an easel and took several shots of his hands in the same positions as those in Michelangelo’s painting.

He calls his artwork Il Tocco – Italian for “The Touch” – and says it “is dedicated to anyone in your life who has ever touched you in such an everlasting, positive way like obviously my parents who adopted me are part of that touch. I’ve had educators throughout my life who have had significant impact.  Some of my sailors have had an impact.  That really to me is what it is dedicated to.”

One might assume by Pisano’s last name and the fact that he gave his work an Italian name that the 57-year-old artist is of Italian background.  And, he is, “well sort of ,,,. I was born in the Philippines, abandoned when I was a month old, and I ended up in an orphanage. My adoptive parents got stationed in the Philippines and apparently visited the orphanage that I was in and decided to adopt me.”

So Filipino by ethnicity, Italian-American by upbringing, “I tell people I have more marinara sauce in my blood than rice in my belly.”

Pisano, whose Pisano Artistry studio at Liberty Station studio is located at 2590 Truxton Road, said that he has been drawing for most of his life, but in 2018 he was inspired by the work of Andrew Myers, whose three-dimensional art can be found on the Internet.

Pisano had taken many photos of the U.S. flag rippling in the wind—each image a little different from the other – and wondered if there were three-dimensional techniques that he could learn to make a planned drawing of Old Glory seem like it was also rippling.  Using Google to search the term “three-dimensional art,” he found Myers’ art represented.  Pisano was quite taken with it.

So, in 2018, he made his first piece using screws as a medium.  He created a flag with approximately 4,300 drywall screws and put a matte and a frame around it.

“When you’re in the military, if you retire, or go to a different command, a lot of times the command will give you a photo of the command and then they matte it so that the personnel from the particular unit or command can sign it for a going-away present.  So, I replicated that idea, with the only difference being that I had veterans sign it from all branches of the service—from the World War all the way to the Global War on Terrorism.” He currently has 600 signatures on the piece, representing a spectrum of military units.

To construct his three-dimensional pieces, “I transfer the image to the panel, which is basically plywood.  I draw it out and I drill pilot holes on the image.  Once that is done, I paint the background and in some cases the image itself. Then I start installing the screws.  Once they are installed, I start manipulating them, or what I call ‘massaging’ the work.  Once I get the feel of the three-dimensional aspect, I start painting it.  The painting and the manipulation may go several rounds before I get the desired effect.”

After the holes are placed, he uses a battery-operated power driver to insert the screws, “but when it comes to manipulating them, I will use a regular screwdriver,” he said. At some point, his grip can feel very sore; “It’s not like wielding a paint brush.”

The screws are placed approximately 3/8^th of an inch from each other. “I have two different types of screws: the regular drywall screws, and then trim screws, which are just a little bit smaller.”  When he describes the technique to computer-literate people, he suggests they think in terms of lining up pixels.

Pisano submitted three pieces to the San Diego County Fair’s three-dimensional art competition.  This piece and a portrait of Jesus were accepted.  The religiously themed art pieces were a departure for Pisano, who up to then had focused on creating military-inspired pieces.  For example, across from the Liberty Station command center, he had an installation immortalizing military heroes from WWI all the way to the current War on Terrorism. His largest piece is ‘The Divinity Among Heroes’ which is a 9/11 tribute piece that is 12 feet in height. “I replicated the towers, which are 10 feet in height, and there are 30,000 screws in that one. That one took about five months to finish.”

In comparison, Il Tocco took about one month to complete, he said.

Now, he’s working on a project in conjunction with the Resurrecting Lives Foundation, based in Ohio, which focuses on helping veterans with Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI’s).  He is replicating in screws the state flag of Ohio, which he and the group’s executive director, Chrisanne Gordon, hope to showcase around the state and get veterans there to add their signatures.

Over a period of years, Pisano said, he hopes to recreate the flags of all 50 states to bring attention to veterans.

Another project he has in mind is to create three-dimensional images from various religions including Judaism and Hinduism.  He said he is on the lookout for iconic images from which to work.

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Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com