Cup Artist Works to Get the Feelings Down on Paper

More than a million people are watching the America’s Cup this week, some from San Diego’s shores and the rest on television.

Next month, and 10 years from now, anyone who wants a second look--absent the video--may turn to the crisp, stunning creations of Franco Costa.

Costa’s internationally acclaimed artworks range from the sets of “A Clockwork Orange” and “The Agony and the Ecstasy” to Dior fabrics to a 1980 America’s Cup poster that sold 3.5 million copies.

The Rome-born Costa met Stars & Stripes skipper Dennis Conner at the 1980 contest in Newport, R.I. The two remained friends through the next two races, in which Costa served as official artist. This year, Costa said, he hadn’t planned to attend. But, when Conner called, he couldn’t say no.

So, once again, he will chronicle the sea, sails and spirit of the race, this time in four or five paintings and two mass-produced posters, which will be released next week.

“I want to translate to the people the feeling of the colors, the brightness, the feelings they create,” Costa, a student of Matisse and Picasso, said Wednesday at his hotel room-studio on Shelter Island.

“It’s a competition, of course, but it’s fantastic. And this generation of people has been fighting for stupid things for too long. This is better for the young.” Costa, 54, spoke with a strong accent, occasionally groping for words.

Costa is modest and dynamic, even exuberant. He has been doing research in San Diego, including on Conner’s catamaran, for 40 days. He plans to wrap up his work here next week.

Costa’s efforts for 16 final images of an earlier America’s Cup required two years, 5,000 photographs and countless sketches. This year, his art--like the race itself--has been scaled back.

“This one is smaller. It was very much a surprise,” Costa said. Still, he says, “You cannot do the poster without you meeting the people.”

“It’s not like a full-time occupation, but you have to spend time. It’s like trying to digest a 10,000-page book in three, four days. You can do it, but you do it wrong.”

“Graphically, it’s a tremendous effort,” he said.

From the photographs, Costa makes a master painting. From that, he and his wife and assistant, Joshoua, make a final drawing and mix the colors for the acrylic prints.

Costa’s works, like the man himself, are warm, emotional and unmistakable, with their sharp lines of fresh, clean color.

“For me, it is essential to have some element you recognize, even from 300 feet,” he said.

What is Costa’s sense of the race?

“What I felt most was the silence and the purity of the sea. It is so, 10 times bigger on the catamaran. There is the space, and the feeling very free. There you are like the god. You fly. You are free.

Something for the Future

“I feel it is something for the future. The catamaran is the future, it is for the young. But $5 million! They must do something so it is less expensive.

“I am not a sailor,” Costa said. “It is difficult to capture what you should do. But I try, I try hard. I want to do something which stays. It’s a serious engagement. You show what you are feeling. There’s so much (that is) fake.”

Costa, who will have an exhibition today in the Quinn-Pollak Gallery in Seaport Village, appears to be a man with a clear idea of his mission. Although he has done commercial work, it has been on his own terms.

That approach applies not only to his subjects, which are carefully chosen, but to his methods of printing, and pricing.

“In general, I like to do a very expensive limited edition--it’s not my fault: They started inexpensive and became expensive--and do very similar $60 prints. It’s also good for public relations,” he said, explaining that his fans, who are poor now and buy only the prints, may become rich later and buy some of his more expensive works.

“When you print in silk-screen, you keep the purity. For me it is a big effort to print (the process can take three months), but in the long run everybody knows you. The Americans are starting to know me again,” Costa said.

Gives Conner Credit

He describes haggling with printers to keep quality up and the consumer’s price down, and credits Conner for teaching him to play hardball: “In this, I feel I learn from Dennis. He is the damned good best one.”

Costa’s next project will take him to Kenya and Mali, where he will attempt to capture “African flavors, colors” for a poster celebrating the work of an international group of medical volunteers.

It won’t be the first time Costa’s humanitarian instincts have dictated his subject. In recent years he has created posters for Greenpeace and UNICEF’s International Year of the Child.

“Before I start, it’s a message,” he said. “My paintings are messages. I don’t like to paint the face of a nice person.

“I feel you should get to the public what it was, even if the Kiwi wins.”

Of the two posters this year, “San Diego Defense” and “Wing”--both of which are co-signed by Conner and earmarked for sale on the waterfront--Costa says he prefers the latter.

“It’s an honest job,” he said.