It’s impossible to describe Maine painter Carlo Pittore’s life, art and spirit in just a few sentences. Pittore’s work was too challenging and exuberant, his personality too passionate and cantankerous, for that. But one scene in a new film about his life comes close.
In it, the artist looms above the camera, then waggles his right-hand fingers in front of the lens, eclipsing his face. “These five fingers rule the world,” Pittore pronounces in an authoritative but generous tone, before clasping both hands. “Get them together, and anything is possible.
Everything that’s important in life is made by hand.” It’s an almost-perfect encapsulation of the self-invented artist’s belief in the holy capacity of human-powered creativity. The film, “CARLO.
.. and his Merry Band of Artists,” by documentary filmmaker Richard Kane, premiered in July and is now making the rounds at venues and festivals across the state.
Bolstered by archival footage and recent sit-down interviews, the film centers on the lively conversation between Pittore’s old friends at an outdoor dinner party. Their memories, the film and — most of all — the work Pittore left behind are proof that the artist is still relevant and influential nearly 20 years after his death in 2005, at age 62, from cancer. “I found it fascinating to see how both time and personal experience created vastly different views of who this person, Carlo Pittore, really was,” said Kane.
Born Charles J. Stanley to a.