Still Life Yet

The nine lives of painter Felix Giordano.

by Mike Newall

Michael T. Regan FOUND ARTIST: "If I could sing like Pavarotti, I'd be a singer," says South Philly's Felix Giordano. "My brother can sing like Pavarotti, but he sells fruit instead."

Felix is painting again.

He peels off his blankets, switches on the lamp and warms his hands by the electric heater he keeps close to the spot on the floor where his bedding lies. Then, he sits with his black faded sketchbook in his lap and draws until sunlight fills the small cramped bedroom he rents in a crumbling building at the end of a narrow alley off Washington Avenue. If Felix is happy with what he's put on the page, he'll pull on his red-checkered lumberman's jacket and make his way down the creaky wooden spiral staircase and out into the trash-strewn alley where he keeps a pile of old wooden frames. Finding one that isn't too weathered or chipped, he'll unroll a piece of canvas and stretch it tightly around the frame. Then, he'll head back upstairs, sit with the canvas in his lap since there is no space for an easel in his room, and begin to paint the image in the sketchbook onto the canvas.

Time passes, usually about three hours, and he is at peace. When he's finished, he carries the freshly painted canvas back down the stairs and rests it against the alley wall, making sure that it is covered and dry. Then he washes off his hands in his rusted coldwater sink, stuffs yesterday's mail and his medical appointment cards into his coat pocket, unlocks the wrought iron gate at the mouth of the alley, crosses Washington Avenue and takes a seat at the bar where he likes to spend his afternoons.

Felix goes there for the company and the heat. He has little money and prefers a clear mind during the daylight hours, so he mostly drinks cranberry and orange juice until the evening crowd shuffles in. Then, he'll allow himself some beer and scotch. He kills the days reading mail and clipping coupons. Dom the bartender plays movies on the television and likes to test Felix's savant-like memory when it comes to the causes of death of little-known actors.

"Warren Oates?" asked Dom one day as Blue Thunder played on the TV.

"Heart attack," said Felix, not looking up from his newspaper.

"Jack Warden?" Dom asked on another occasion when the AMC feature was And Justice for All.

"Kidney failure," said Felix, without hesitation.

Felix never officially informed anyone at the bar that he had begun painting again six months ago. But the change in his attitude was detectable. These days he's upbeat and will talk politics and sports. Recently, he even organized a day trip to the Pine Barrens for some wild mushroom hunting, one of his favorite pastimes.

"It was great," said Dom. "Felix could smell the mushrooms from the car window. We brought back a bunch and some of the guys cooked them up for dinner."

Before he started painting again, Felix was moody and quiet. He would stare into his scotch and say things like, "I'm not living. I'm coping."

Felix was born into the Giordano clan, the legendary Ninth Street produce peddlers, and grew up at Fifth and Washington. But he never took to the "huckster life," as he calls it. He was a natural painter and chose art over tomatoes.

"If I could sing like Pavarotti, I'd be a singer," he likes to say. "My brother can sing like Pavarotti, but he sells fruit instead."

Back in the late '60s, Felix won a scholarship to the Academy of Fine Arts, and studied under famous painting instructor Louis B. Sloan. It was a wild time. Felix looked like Serpico and lived like Gully Jimson.

"Felix shared this huge Old City loft with his beautiful blonde wife," remembers friend Ed Marshal, an Academy classmate. "And he was hanging around with his crazy one-armed cousin who had just gotten back from the war. They were a terrifying pair."

He was also painting manically and producing soulful, disturbing portraits of Ninth Street merchants and longshoremen, bloodied boxers and dead mobsters and loan sharks, nudes of his girlfriends and wife, landscapes, pastels, watercolors, self-portraits, portraits of friends and striking depictions of historical figures from Zapata to John Wayne.

Soon, the Inquirer was lauding him as one of Philadelphia's top up-and-coming artists. He landed New York shows and traveled the country showing his work. But then life happened — relationships fell apart, inspiration dried up and, eventually, Felix found himself broke and working as an orderly in a mental hospital in Northeast Philadelphia, painting patients' faces during breaks.

And now he lives in the crumbling brick house off Washington Avenue. He pays less than $200 a month in rent and never unpacked his belongings in the hopes he could find a place with some room to paint. He couldn't, and so he stopped painting altogether.

But then life happened again. One evening two yeas ago, Frankie Brown walked into the bar and sat next to Felix. Frankie is one of the managers over at Connie's Ric-Rac performing space on Ninth Street, which at the time he had just opened with his brother, Joe. Frankie grew up on Ninth Street and could connect with Felix's story. Felix showed Frankie his sketchbook, and Frankie liked Felix's work so much he offered to host a retrospective show. Frankie had fliers printed up and helped Felix gather up his paintings from a friends' dusty basement in Fishtown. He called the show "Hucksters," an ironic nod to his past.

Someone donated a keg, and Frankie bought some pizza. The guys from the bar showed up, and so did a handful of Felix's old classmates. By 8:30 p.m., the crowd was thinning and only a few paintings had sold. Felix was about ready to hit the keg in earnest, so Frankie went to two nearby cafés also hosting an art shows and told everyone about the art and free beer. Frankie brought back a crowd of about 50 scenesters and within two hours, Felix had sold about 30 paintings. "His paintings have a lot of honesty and heart," said Frankie, "and people just connected to them in a very visceral way."

Felix paid some back bills, bought some art supplies and another show was quickly agreed upon, but then canceled, after the Ric-Ric closed for renovations.

Felix let himself slide into a malaise until about six months ago. He doesn't know exactly what made him pick up the brush again.

"I work in sporadic fits of manic productivity," Felix said the other afternoon at the bar, "and this is one of them."

A newly renovated Ric-Rac opened for business last month, and a second Felix show was rescheduled. Titled "Talking Heads," the show will feature a series of Felix's R. Crumb-style cartoon paintings. These are striking portraits of faces filled at once with angst, despair, hope and humor. Thought bubbles accompany each portrait. "Is it real?" reads one. "Still waiting for someone to say I love you," says another.

Another keg has been donated, fliers have been distributed, and Felix sits up nights, painting.

Felix was asked what he hoped the show will bring. "I guess I'd love to get some money together for a new place to live," he said, "some place with a little more room to paint."

(mike.newall@citypaper.net)

"Talking Heads: The Art of Felix Giordano," Fri., Nov. 14, 6:30 p.m., free, The Ric-Rac, 1132 S. Ninth St., myspace.com/conniesricrac.