Domenic Esposito Artist Activist

Episode Notes:

Domenic Esposito broke out in 2018 by dropping an 800 pound opioid spoon on Perdue to bring awareness to the epidemic of addiction that was created and promoted by corporate greed. 

But, he isn't just resting on those laurels. He sat down to talk with me about being a father of 4, finding purpose in creating art and why he became an activist.

He's a fascinating, thoughtful artist and has a lot to say!

SUPPORT THE SHOW:

Buy Me a Coffee is the easiest way to help me to keep bringing you these conversations with artists, chefs, entrepreneurs and more about life, food, art and sustainability.. Simply click the link or go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattmckee and buy me a coffee. You don't even have to meet me at the coffee shop. But, that would be fun too. 

The other way to help the show is to go to TheArtOfMattMcKee.com and get a new piece of art for your home or office. 

EXPLORE THE SHOW:

Visit http://www.cherrybombthepodcast.com for all the episodes of the show.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CHERRY BOMB! THE PODCAST HOST MATT MCKEE

Subscribe to his newsletter, explore his Sweet Blast, Tools and Found on the Beach art series and listen to all of Matt's shows at http://www.theartofmattmckee.com

INSIDE THIS EPISODE:

Guest can be found at domenicesposito.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Domenic.esposito70

Instagram: @domenic_esposito_metal

Follow Host Matt McKee on twitter and instagram https://twitter.com/mckeephoto and https://www.instagram.com/mckee_photo/

This episode was produced by Matt McKee, with help from Suzanne Schultz and http://www.CanvasFineArts.com, the specialists in coaching for creatives, and editing by Bill Shamlian at Orb Sound.

Transcript

Domenic Esposito Artist Activist
Cherry Bomb! The Podcast Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
spoon, art, opioid, hoodie, artist, called, people, creates, medicine cabinets, painting, matt, feel, years, dominic, question, speaks, stigma, piece, podcast, studio
SPEAKERS
Matt McKee, Domenic Esposito

Domenic Esposito  00:00
I think I would be thrilled. Right? I would be absolutely thrilled if I didn't have to protest anymore the opioid crisis, right because you know the be less pain and struggles out there.

Matt McKee  00:15
Hi, I'm Matt McKee and welcome to Cherry Bomb the podcast a series of conversations with people about food, art and sustainability. Today I'm speaking in the studio with artist Dominic Esposito. This episode is sponsored by Cherry Bomb, a part of my sweet blast series of photos. This podcast is a companion piece to that project where I get to share with you some of the discussions about the bigger topics of food art and sustainability that sweet classed as inspired. You can browse and get images in the sweet glass collection at the art of Matt McKee calm. Please share this episode to your Facebook, Twitter and all your social media so your friends can listen and join in the conversation. Just a quick note before we begin this episode is going to talk about substance abuse and addiction. If these are sensitive topics for you, please take care while listening. Dominic, it is great to see you again. Oh, thanks, man. It's an honor to be here. Seems like only a week ago I had you in here for a new artist portrait. That's right. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, cool, painless. I'd like to hear that. So you've over the past five years or so have transitioned from a previous life as I like to call it as a financial person to becoming an artist doing large metal sculptures. And now, again, you're also transitioning with paint.

Domenic Esposito  01:32
That's right, you know, I never really kind of pictured myself doing this right just kind of happened, right, I left retired from kind of the financial industry, while even while I was there was sort of tinkering around with welding, equipment sculpting and all that sort of stuff. And it just kind of really got hooked on the ability to use heat hammer and your own sort of strength to smash and bend and cast metal into any shape you kind of want. And, you know, I spend time now in my studio, you know, sometimes eight to 10 hours a day, and you know, rush home to grab lunch back out again. And it feels like I've been in there for like 10 minutes. And it's just a sense of maybe it's, you know, the part of my brain I'm rediscovering is there right, using your hands, using your creativity to make things and I just love it. So

Matt McKee  02:20
before you went into finance as a young student in elementary, middle school, high school, college, even were you dabbling in the arts, then?

Domenic Esposito  02:29
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, not to the extent I am now, but I've always sort of had this passion for art, whether it was sort of, you know, playing around with cement forms when I was in middle school, right in kind of creating shapes out of that, right or in college actually took photography classes as an elective black and white photography. And I absolutely just fell in love with it when I bought my camera, and I was doing kind of experimentation, and you're a photographer, so you should know this stuff. incredibly well. But back then, you know, it was you know, black and white and kind of developing it. And being outside one of the projects I did was I took my camera and I open up the aperture like completely like for, you know, probably a minute, right in the dark. And I was up in Arlington, on Arlington Heights, and you can see sort of Boston in the background, I went out there with a flashlight, just etched all this stuff into the film effectively and creating a work around that. And I really enjoyed that class and that part of it in the professor, remember him hanging my stuff outside, and I'm a business major and my stuff is hanging out there with art majors. So so I really kind of enjoyed I had the same passion for it.

Matt McKee  03:36
Yeah. And you got validation. It sounds like from

Domenic Esposito  03:39
years kind of went quiet, you know, life, you know, growing up

Matt McKee  03:44
the pursuit of rent, things like that. Yeah, to get away sometimes. Young art careers. That's right, we have to address your coming out party, I might describe it the opioid spoon project that was in 2018.

Domenic Esposito  03:57
That's right, it was it's art and activism. So the first drop was June of 2018. And I gotta tell you a little bit about what it really entails. And basically, I make these large 800 pound 10 foot opioid spoons, right, and they're massive and they weigh a lot and they're shaped and bent like an opioid spoon would be burnt and sort of colored on the inside. And we placed those I placed those in front of pharmaceutical companies like Purdue Johnson and Johnson. In fact, we haven't done the FDA a year after that and really to call attention to who's accountable for this man made disease and I reason why I got into it is sort of take a step back is my brother, Danny has been fighting substance use disorder for the last 1213 years now and it's sort of this personal battle for him but it's also taken a lot of the family with him right is a family disease is not just one person that it's affects. So in the sense of hopelessness, and no one being out there to help us out and then all of a sudden, you know, you start hearing more and more about you know, who's responsible and how all these companies profited and made billions off of selling opioids offers some pretty sketchy research. Fast forward now four years, or three and a half years, and a lot of these companies have slowed down the manufacturing and in the selling of these products, Purdue is now bankrupt effectively and all the lawsuits,

Matt McKee  05:19
they pretty much admitted their culpability in the whole epidemic.

Domenic Esposito  05:22
That's right, the company is paying close to $10 billion in fines. And the Sackler family is also paying something like four and a half billion dollars. These are, you know, lawsuits have been going on now, for a couple of years. Although the research has been out there, the lawsuits, these aren't new, you know, they started as far back as 2001. Right. It's just because of corporate lobbying and corporate greed, they've been able to sort of hang on to those profits, and continue selling for this long, right. So this is, you know, it's a 25 year epidemic, they would just introduced it. 1995, which, to me, doesn't seem that long ago. Yeah. You know, the question I always posed to people, Matt is like, what did you do before? 1995? Right, you know, if you sprained your ankle, hurt your knee, or, and don't get me wrong, like opioids, you know, I think they do have a place in society. Right? And, you know, you have end of life care, cancer patients, even acute surgery, you can make a pretty good argument that they're needed.

Matt McKee  06:18
Yeah, like any tool that man has come up with, I mean, there's a use for it, and then there's a misuse of

Domenic Esposito  06:23
it. That's right. Right. So you know, when you have kids going in to get their wisdom tooth pulled when they're, you know, 1617 and, you know, get a 30 day supply of oxys. That's probably not the right use. Yeah, right. And you know, your age where you're highly successful to alcoholism and addiction and all the other stuff, and you mix the two together, you're, you're basically by taking opioids, even at that early of an age, you've rewired physically rewired your brain, right?

Matt McKee  06:51
Yeah. Now, soon after I saw your original opioids boon. Get displayed. You had another display that was at Suzanne Schultz as gallery. That was, I think, a bronze brains that had pills in one of them and dice. And another one, is that a continuation of that kind of exploring the hand of man in our own? That's right,

Domenic Esposito  07:13
yeah. I mean, that exhibition was called, we're only human. And it really kind of speaks to how corporate greed and marketing really has an effect on us. And sometimes we don't even know it, you know, now there's a lot more research out there, you know, but the Facebook's and the Instagrams and how they manipulate us into buying things, or you know, how ads chase us, you know, you just feel like sometimes if I say something in a room, the next thing I know, is I get an ad for it. So you know, sometimes things out there, right? And, and this isn't just being like conspiracy theory, these, these are legitimate ways that, you know, we get marketed to that we don't know. And so that exhibition was, as you say, you know, it was, you know, pills that are kind of obvious, right, but sometimes we don't even know that we need the pills, right? It's things like anxiety, and you've got a band aid for everything, right? The band aid instead of the hard work. It was the chips and the dice and poker cards. The third one was social media. So I had all the emblems of like Facebook, and Instagram, and Snapchat, and all these kind of caked in this bronze brain

Matt McKee  08:13
that was before tick tock came along. Yeah. The new addiction.

Domenic Esposito  08:17
Yeah. And that that was, that was a few years ago that work.

Matt McKee  08:21
For those that don't know, the work is beautifully executed. But it always has that darker theme that in my mind, anyway, it talks about the the darker side of humanity of what we do to dilute the world for ourselves. Yeah, now you've moved into painting and are continuing to explore and expand your artistic skills. The new paintings feature a hoodie character throughout,

Domenic Esposito  08:46
you know, the painting is relatively new, you know, I've only kind of been at it for about 18 months now. And what I'm doing with a lot of my work from a technical standpoint of marrying both painting and sculpture, so I'm trying to bring them together. So a handful of my pieces also have this bronze sculptural component to it on top of the painting and sculptural component, as well as the painted figures. As you correctly point out, Matt is this hooded character, and most of the time the face is invisible and the hoodie to me, it speaks to this language of how we are feeling right, and the stigma around both mental health and how you know, wearing your hoodie over your head, really says to people, you know, leave me alone. It's sort of like this sense of isolation and loneliness that's out there. You know, it's been exacerbated with COVID-19 in the last couple of years. And it's also how we deal with it. SSID right. You know, a lot of times you know, when we see someone with a hood over their head us is automatically kind of language saying can leave me alone and we don't approach them. Maybe it's us or the viewer that doesn't have the capacity to deal with it or want to deal with it, right versus the person who's actually In the hoodie, so it's a little bit of both, it's you, the viewer versus person in the hoodie. Is it you in there? Right? So a lot of times I feel like I'm in there, you know, in the work sort of connects to also, you know, substance use disorder, because, in some sense, a lot of it is a prequel to substance use disorder, or is it you know, derived, right. And so that work that I did, you know, that showcase that just last march down in West Palm, for the first time was called blank slate, and it's talks about how is it our environment that creates who we are, right? Or is it genetics? Right? And that's a big question for me, like, you know, you look at someone's like, okay, you know, there's definitely a sense of genetics with a lot of diseases out there. Right. But there's also a sense of like, it's our culture and environment. Right. Yeah. That create who we are. Right? If you had a father that was abusive, not you, Matt, but you know, if you did, what does that mean that you're going to be abusive, right, you know, what creates that that's a cultural behavioral training behavior. Yeah. And it's passed on generation to generation. And you can say, okay, it's not genetics, right. But it is still passed down, because, you know, abuse gets passed down. So that's what the exhibit talks about, is it you know, who creates this? Is the mental health something genetic? Or is it something that is culturally there?

Matt McKee  11:17
Yeah. How much has raising children changed your perspective on wanting to talk about these kinds of things?

Domenic Esposito  11:26
A lot, a lot, actually, you know, these are all some sense, lived experiences for me, right. Some of it is, you know, related to raising kids, and the issues that come about with, you know, social media and the bullying and the FOMO, you know, fear of missing out, I think, is a huge component of raising kids. And, as a parent, you know, put my parent hat back on, it's really hard to actually navigate this these days. Yeah. Because there's no script, a break your leg, you know, you know what to do, but it kid is not being invited to a party, and you see it on Instagram, there's a lot of issues that get created around, I'd say, you know, social media that didn't exist, yeah, less than 10 years ago. Right. Right. It's always challenging. Being a parent, you know, and every generation has their challenges. I think this is just a new challenge for us. And we're in uncharted territory, in a lot of that is incorporated in my work. Because, you know, I think, you know, as an artist, you know, I made a promise to myself that my work would reflect who I am and the passions and both dark and happy. We haven't seen the happy side. But hopefully, I get this will be coming. Yeah, you know, and I do, you know, have a lot of fun with the kids. And, you know, then there's moments in life that, you know, need to be also broadcast as an artist, right?

Matt McKee  12:44
Yeah. Well, that certainly to bring up the harder subjects. You can't hide your head in the sand for these things, because it's going to come back and bite you no matter what. So by talking about it, I think either through the dialogue, the art or in person is hugely cathartic in some ways, and also these two solutions, I hope, but to that end, what would a more hopeful piece be for you? What are you doing with your work, and maybe a better way of putting it,

Domenic Esposito  13:10
I have some sculptures that are sort of more, I call them kind of whimsical, because they're kind of me having, you know, a good time in the studio. I have this sort of nine foot matchstick looking guy that's kind of running right, and it's called running from 2020. I just started tinkering with it. And I just love the idea. And then I have this other piece on Newbury Street. It looks like these weird ghostly figures that are all kind of tied together. But once upside down, well, no, there's five of them. And they're all sort of connected, right? And they're all kind of making this weird stance. And it's very abstract. And it's called look at me ma, because it's like, you know, let's not forget to have fun, right? So it's like these ghostly looking figures having fun, right? So that stuff I've done in the last few years, I love making lists. So I just make a list of things that I want to discuss or bring happiness to me and it's, you know, some of them are, you know, whether it's, you know, being married or getting married, or witnessing your childbirth being in there. And those moments, you know, those first weeks or two, I think, are some of the greatest moments in your life. Right? You know, I don't know how you express them in art yet. Those are moments right. But incense, you know, what we're really kind of left with is memories. And those memories, to me are the ones that maybe I could broadcast out in a language of art.

Matt McKee  14:29
Okay, what kind of kick starts the process for you, as you're thinking about these memories, or the darker side of humanity? What is the genesis of a new piece for you?

Domenic Esposito  14:40
There's no process, right? There's a process to when I make it, I know that and I can tell you what that is. You know, we're talking about There's a book out by John Cleese. It's called Creativity and how to spark your mind and I picked that up. I think I have almost too much creativity, because I have too many ideas, more ideas than time so I'm not even sure how they kind of get sparked. But it's just, you know, like the hoodie stuff, right? You know, my daughter came downstairs one day, and she was wearing her hoodie down. And I was just intimidated by it and right, and this was, you know, four or five years ago. And so it's always stuck in my mind as this hoodie as this language. It just hit home with so many people, right? Those lived experiences. It's a sense that you're not alone, right, that other people are going through other things similar to that and or as a parent or as a sibling, or whatever. To answer your question. I don't know what it really kind of happens to kind of generate those ideas.

Matt McKee  15:36
I always want to ask that question, because people will come up to me all the time and ask the same question. And it's like, for me these ideas, like you almost fully formed in my head, I've trained myself to recognize that there is a common language that's happening that if I see something that's resonating with me that I should go forward with it. But otherwise, these ideas are fully formed and the execution is that's just process at that point. That's Yes.

Domenic Esposito  16:01
Just doing stuff with process. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, the spoon was a very dark symbol for me, right? Because I remember my mom calling me screaming that she had found another burned spoon in the house. No. So you know, you know, you know, my brother's in recovery, you know, and, you know, six months in recovery, and then all of a sudden, you know, you find out the burns spoon in the house, and it's just sort of sends off, like, your heart starts beating rapidly. And you know, like, oh, here we go again. And so that, that's how that sort of symbol kind of kind of just got etched in my brain, right as a negative symbol, and cob symbol. So. So I think, you know, lived experiences give us tons of things that we want to show talk about, and it's sort of like this group empathy around them, which is powerful.

Matt McKee  16:50
Yeah. I don't want this to be necessarily a sensitive question that this is not a gotcha show. But I wanted to ask, with you dropping the spoon in these different places and putting a very personal family trauma out on display, how does the rest of your family feel about that dialog getting started?

Domenic Esposito  17:10
At first, I didn't know what the reaction would be. Now, you know, it's pretty evident my family's, you know, they're incredibly proud of what I've done. They're happy. Once I did that, you just realize there's so many other people who have done similar, not big 800 pound spoons, but are out there, you know, fighting and the activist as well. We've gotten a lot of the activists kind of community. Back to your question, like they're all behind me. Yeah, it's a touchy subject, but it's also a subject that needs to be discussed more openly. That's part of the battle. And that's the reason why it's been so hard to get help, even to this day. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a lot better than it was four or five years ago, if you're in recovery, you know, there's a lot more programs, there's still not a ton of government action out there. And there's not a lot of government funding. And that stigma is starting to erase like you see a lot more about it on TV, you see a lot more documentaries being made about it. So that's slowly starting to happen. I always make an analogy to the HIV AIDS crisis, right. And, you know, it took that community 10 years of really kind of rallying and protesting and flipping cars, and you can go back and watch all this footage of what they actually did. And it was pretty remarkable. And I feel like, you know, we're probably 1987 88 In that battle, right? We got to get to, you know, 91, where you have the riot act, and it will change and we're not there yet. So at

Matt McKee  18:41
least the pace seems to have accelerated Exactly, yep. Stigma to acceptance to solve for this. Yeah, I hope anyway,

Domenic Esposito  18:49
the stigma. That's an old battle, right. You know what I mean, I don't even bring that up anymore. I think we're past that. I think we're past that. I think, you know, people are more open to discussing it, then than they were before. I think that the new battle is really kind of getting funding getting beds available, getting commitments.

Matt McKee  19:09
Like most artists, once you kind of crack into a theme or a subject can be hard not to follow it down the rabbit hole to see where it leads. What are you curious about tackling next.

Domenic Esposito  19:19
I'm working toward a solo show. There's a solo show I have in Boston in January, I do want to start tackling some of the stuff that brings happiness to my life right as well. Right. Okay. Something maybe around my children and raising them and accomplishments and things that parents are proud of. I think there's always going to be this sort of social injustice angle with my work as well.

Matt McKee  19:42
Yeah, I find that with a lot of people once they're able to tap into that inner anger. Yeah, hopefully balance has maintained throughout it, but it becomes okay, this is another thing that I really want to talk about. And this is the next thing I really want to talk about that sparks my higher.

Domenic Esposito  19:56
I'm working on a larger sculpture as well which is more along the lines of fabrication versus casting, which I've cashed a lot in the last couple of years. And I'm fabricating this tower of medicine cabinets. You know, originally, it was going to be 12 feet tall, but it looks like it's only going to be eight because the gallery spaces has eight foot ceilings. Yeah, and you can just picture like all these medicine cabinets with glass and stainless steel and mirrors and kind of all piled up on each other. Right? And you're looking into them, they're looking back at you, you know, it's you and the people that are in the exhibition, it just really kind of speaks to how we run to the medicine cabinet for everything, right. And it's gotten to the point where as humans we're not even allowed now to feel emotion. Right? Yeah. So you know, we all want to have this steady state of emotion right? You know, you feel sad, you know, all of a sudden, don't get me wrong like there is need for anti anxiety antidepressants but you know a lot of times we don't do what we say we should be doing right whether going corn for a hike gone for a walk yeah cooking dinner

Matt McKee  21:04
George Carlin to in the mouth zone to in the mouth. Yeah. becomes the default rather than actually experiencing frustration or loneliness, or whatever it is, and learning how to function beyond that.

Domenic Esposito  21:15
Yeah, you know, that's a bigger theme for me. But that's what that exhibit that work will will speak to and but it's been great kind of getting back into studio and stepping a little bit away from the painting but now you know, welding burning your fingers and you know, sticking your finger in a grinder, you know, those those experiences?

Matt McKee  21:34
That's part of the fun, I think, sometimes, sometimes. What do you wish you knew when you started this particular journey?

Domenic Esposito  21:42
What I've learned with art, which is different from previous careers, like to let things kind of just kind of flow and bounce off you, right? Don't be so thick skinned about everything. Right? And and it's hard in art, because you think you're told, what's the statistics, like you're told no, like, 85 90% of the time, right. And that's hard, right? Coming from a previous career in finance. So that's been hard. And I wish I knew was going to be like that, right? Where I can kind of get maybe get prepared for it. So

Matt McKee  22:10
I can't be experienced when artists are working on these pieces with these deeper social issues. And one of the questions I always think of is, what would it look like if it was done? If the original problem was solved? I mean, how would you feel if the opioid spoon was instrumental in changing hearts and minds for I hate that phrase, but I mean,

Domenic Esposito  22:32
yeah, I think I would be thrilled. Right? I would be absolutely thrilled, you know, if I didn't have to protest anymore, the opioid crisis, right, because, you know, the be less pain and struggles out there. So I would be absolutely ecstatic if something like that happened. Okay. I think all with all the work I do, whether it's opioid crisis, social injustice, mental health, all these things, I mean, yeah, I mean, I wish there was, you know, real change and real solutions, and at least in my generation, so it'd be amazing. Yeah, we do run our own nonprofits called the opioid spoon project, too. But we're really out there kind of raising awareness for the opioid crisis, and really trying to get it at a national level. So if somebody wants to help out, we have tons of volunteers out there, we're creating some new projects around that. A large memorial, we're about to launch next month, we're going to start speaking at a lot of universities, we had one venue a few years ago, pause University, we're trying to duplicate that, and some other schools in the area. So but we're always looking for volunteers. And if you go to the opioid spoon project.com, that's our website and sort of landing grounds, you know, events that we have going on around that. But there are also, you know, tons of organizations that we've worked with around the Boston area that are just great. You know, there's places like learn to cope, which is a really kind of helps out a lot of families dealing with this, right. So that's a place to sort of gather in groups and talk about these issues, you know, that your kid or sibling or someone is facing, there's grief support groups out there, there's team sharing, that's national as well. But the headquarters are here in Marlborough mass that we've worked with, there are tons of other groups, you can always send us an email, and you know, we'll get back to him get you in the right direction of where to go.

Matt McKee  24:16
What would you like your legacy to be?

Domenic Esposito  24:18
Oh, that's a good if I were to encapsulate in one word, I would say you know, Dominic was a very empathetic person. I wore people's pain. So that would be one thing.

Matt McKee  24:31
That's a good answer. I know how important cooking is to you and your family food and the camaraderie around the kitchen. I remember from the time I was able to go over and visit you over at your studio and at your house. Just how big your kitchen was. And it looked like the central gathering place for anything that happens at your house. What's your comfort food at the end of the day?

Domenic Esposito  24:53
I would say my comfort food is probably pasta dish or probably like some sort of pasta bowling is a or something like that. So in it's just the sense of like slow cooking that aromas, all that, you know, the caramelized vegetables and the slow cooking you know, and carrots. And it's just amazing. And so to me that that would be my, my go to comfort food. Nice. Yeah. Nice.

Matt McKee  25:18
So you said you had a show coming up in January in Boston that hasn't been named yet though. But do you have any details you can share? Yeah,

Domenic Esposito  25:26
yeah, the location is a piano Craft Gallery in Boston. So I'm really kind of thrilled about it's a great space, my work tends to be pretty large. We're going to try and make it interactive. So like, there's not just this wall of art, right? So people get to participate in it, you know, we're going to try and get some performance artists as well. So I think it's going to be really cool. And we're gonna have, hopefully different events throughout the month of January's, I think it'll be an interesting show, because it'll probably take a little bit of a step away from your traditional kind of art shows, and make it a lot more interactive and less white wall heavy, right? Yeah, even term

Matt McKee  26:07
that sounds intriguing. Sounds like that's gonna be an exciting show. 

Matt McKee  26:11
Thank you for checking in this episode of cherry bomb the podcast. I'm your host, Matt McKee. Today's guest is Dominic Esposito. You can find him online at Dominic esposito.com. You can also go to www dot opioid spoon project.com For more information on that project. Please share this episode to your Facebook, Twitter and all your social media so your friends can listen and join in the conversation. Don't forget to check out the show notes at the art of Matt mckee.com for all the links to his work, and to the other episodes of cherry bomb the podcast. This episode of cherry bomb the podcast could not have been done without the help of Suzanne Schultz in Canvas Fine Arts, the specialists and coaching for creatives and editing by the always sublime Bill Champlin at orb sound. Thanks for listening. And let's start the conversation