Quick sketch in Charcoal captures Contemplation by Robert Maniscalco in Charleston

Robert Maniscalco, a survivor of CSA, has been a professional multidisciplinary creative artist his entire adult life. Maniscalco’s medium is light and his art breathes with life and light. Born in 1959 in Detroit, he has lived in New York, New Orleans and currently in Charleston, SC. His commission portraits and fine art are part of over 1,200 private and public collections throughout North America. In Detroit, he was the celebrated host of Artbeat on PBS and founded the Maniscalco Gallery, both of which celebrated local and international artists. As a fine artist, Robert works in multiple series. Perhaps his most enduring series is that of a commission portrait artist, immortalizing the legacies of Supreme Court Justices as well as children and families, even their beloved pets. In 2014 Robert took on a vision-quest, called The Quench Project, in which he traveled to Haiti, producing numerous artworks, a documentary short (Out of Darkness), along with a companion book (Quench), juxtaposing the Haitian struggle with obtaining fresh water against American society’s obscene wealth inequality. Robert blogs on a wide range of subjects and has written six books, among them, Quench, The Fishly, Point of Art and Chromo Sapient, a compilation of ekphrastic poems. One of his books, an Amazon #1 bestseller, is a full color drawing/painting, how-to method, called The Power of Positive Painting. He is an actor/director, writer/playwright, musician/composer and teacher, a former Adjunct Professor of fine art and theatre at Charleston Southern University and drawing illustration at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Robert has expanded his creative milieu to include courtroom sketching, covering the Dylann Roof and Michael Slager trials in Charleston. His multi-disciplinary play, and sixth book, Vincent John Doe, received its world premiere, to rave reviews, during the 2018 and 2019 Piccolo Spoleto Festivals. He is now a regular exhibitor in the Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Art Exhibition.