Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Frank Bonanno. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Frank with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
My work ethic comes from my parents. I watched them both put in so much work and effort and sacrifice and I got to see the fruits of their labor as our quality of life continuously improved. People tell you all the time “If you just keep working for it you’ll get there but being able to have that tangible example growing up was really potent. Also, later in life I’ve learned that as New Yorkers, we are all sort of bred to be work horses. That’s not to say that other people from other places don’t have a strong work ethic as well but it’s cultural there. You HAVE to, or you can’t afford to exist.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m an artist. I think it’s important to say that because it permeates everything I do. The way I walk down the street, the way I choose to use language, everything. If there is a creative way to do something, I will find it. Not as a conscious thought but as a compulsion, something I do without doing. Like breathing. I don’t want this, this terrible gift. I feel *everything* at 100 and I NEED to be fulfilled by my life’s ins and outs or it drives me into a deep dark hole where no sunlight ever shines. But also, I love it. I wouldn’t want to live any other way, and believe me, I have tried. It’s a strange life, to be sure, a lot of the highs are SO high. Working along side Samuel L Jackson is a privilege that was afforded me due to my love and service to the arts. So too though are the lows so abysmally low, like when I was my being forced to live on a couch or in a staircase. I worked to make things for Star Wars, the Avengers and President Obama. I have movies and series on Amazon, Hallmark and youtube. Also I have trauma and I have scars both emotional and literal. I have friends- real friends spread all over the globe but I am alone. I have amassed countless skills, honed talents, learned trades and still have to have two jobs that are not art related to scrape by. My life as an artist has given me whiplash, made me both legend and loser, hero and coward. Enough talent to choke a rhino and nowhere to go, nothing to do with it all. “The business” continues to elude me and what’s more I’m not sure I care for the end result. I don’t want notoriety- not at all. I actually prefer anonymity- its why I wanted to work behind the camera instead of in front of it. You all have a favorite actor, how many of you can even name a production designer? I have never given up though, no matter how many twists and turns. Not through iron working or tattooing, not through Hollywood, or the scenic shops of Brooklyn. There have been gallery shows, street fairs, national tours, murals, specialty finish work, props, sculptures, websites, Etsy stores, classrooms in colleges, high schools and elementary schools and COMING SOON a children’s book. All of it serves toward the one thing I want, truly the one thing I value over everything else- Freedom. The freedom to come and go as I please, the freedom to set my own schedule and my own hours. The freedom to not have to answer to anyone else. These are my goals. I have tasted them several times in my life and lost them every time, watched it go up in flames before my very eyes. It has left me gun shy and unwilling to throw 100 percent of myself into it anymore, the fear of instability. Ironically though this half in half out approach means I’m not committing to whatever dull as thing I’m doing to keep the lights on either and so that too is not *really* all that stable. Why say all this? Is this really the prompt? I think so, because if you want to know what I’m doing it’s THAT. Always that. Only ever that. By any means necessary I will have my life. So if you see this and you are thinking to yourself, ” Hey I know how to help that guy/want to work with that guy/ know exactly what to do with that guy” then hit me up and let’s make something happen. I’m 41 now and the inclination would be to think that somehow I’m out of time, certainly I expect the uninitiated and the square to think so, to say that I’ve wasted enough time on these flights of fancy and it’s finally time to settle down into something safe and dependable and just ride out the rest of your life. Plan trips, get a pet, reproduce with some person you can mostly just tolerate cuz all the good ones got snapped up when you were all 25. Fit in. I say unto that though, no sir. I have walked through 57 different kinds of hell and like Eddison once said, “I have not failed, I have merely found 10 thousand ways that don’t work” and now, NOW I have the another 40 years ahead of me to get it right. The mission is my only goal, my only product, my only launch, and it will wear as many different faces as it needs to in order to become a reality. Van Gogh died broke, anonymous, insane and alone. I’m betting I can do better.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think the things that have helped me most are my capacity to learn new things quickly, which for those of you playing the home game- all it takes to get good at something, anything for that matter, is time, dedication and effort. if you apply those things you’ll master whatever you want. In “The Book of Five Rings” by Myamoto Musashi he says ” to know the way is to see it broadly in all things” which basically means once you know how to get good at something you can get good at anything because the way doesn’t change’
thing two- I am enthusiastic and (usually) optimistic. I am here to do whatever job needs to get done, I will volunteer, I will step up and my attitude has always been “Why Not” rather than “why?” if someone asks me for help, I answer with a resounding hell yeah dude and that makes those same people want to help you in return and in such ways we all help lift each other up.
Thing three- I am teachable and open to criticism. Ever try and tell someone something and they come back quick with “I know” ? ok cool if you know then why aren’t you doing it. I will let people explain stuff to me again even if I DO actually know just to make sure they don’t have a better way or a little tidbit I can take that I did not previously have. An empty cup always has room for more and theres always more out there.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
As I previously mentioned, I have recently completed illustrating my first children’s book. I really enjoyed that process and would love to continue to do more. However, if you’re out there and you’ve got a rad idea for something awesome and you think I could help, then we should link up. Everything is a side hustle for me until it isn’t but I know how to maximize my time. My email is [email protected] shoot me a line.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.brushandbladeart.com
- Instagram: brush_and_blade_art
- Facebook: brush and blade artistic solutions
