Michael Albert is an artist from White Plains, New York who specializes in pop art collages that often feature cut-ups of brightly-colored cereal boxes. It’s a technique he calls “cerealism.”
Many of these works can be seen in his fascinating book “An Artist’s America.” This week Albert brings his hands-on traveling workshop to the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library.
These appearances are part of a mammoth, non-stop summer tour which has him zig-zagging across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio before moving on to the northeastern states. I spoke with Michael a few days ago as he headed to Cleveland and asked if he was on the road on his own.
“Right,” he said, “I don’t have a driver. I don’t have a limo. But I have all my stuff in the car. Huge containers full of cereal boxes, card, scissors and glue.
“I could do a workshop for 500 people right now. It’s great!”
So what is pop art?
“Well, Andy Warhol was the beginning of all that, when he said that a Campbell’s Soup can was art,” Albert said. “You can put it in a museum and people can still relate to it, because it’s part of our everyday life. A 5-year-old kid can relate to it. And that’s it really: it’s just popular culture, it’s our shared knowledge.
“It’s like Frosted Flakes,” he continued, “everyone’s seen that box, we all know it. You can cut it up into pieces and people still recognize it.”
I told Michael I grew up with Frosted Flakes in England, too, only over there they’re called “Frosties.”
“It really says that on the box?” he asked. “I’ve talked with British people who call them that but I figured it was a nickname.
“By the way,” he added, “I’m not saying we should eat these products, I’m not promoting them in that way. I don’t eat this stuff now, although I have in my time. Frosted Flakes used to be called “Sugar Frosted Flakes” and that was a selling point. We forgot we needed nutrition.”
I asked Michael if he was interested in art as a child.
“Well, I liked art class but I didn’t choose it as an elective in high school,” he explained, “so I guess I wasn’t that interested. And then at NYU I studied business.
“But what happened was, in my free time I went to the museums in New York. I read the cards next to the exhibits and I thought, you know, I love this stuff.
“And it occurred to me that art is really the only thing that’s truly priceless,” he continued. “You can put a price on almost any other object.
“I mean, the Museum of Modern Art is not selling (Van Gogh’s) Starry Night. Bill Gates could buy the Empire State Building but he can’t have the Mona Lisa hanging in his house. He can’t have Michelangelo’s David. Why not? Because it’s genuinely priceless. And it’s just a slab of marble chipped away at 500 years ago.
“So my conclusion was that art is beyond the everyday, it’s the apex of human achievement. And I thought to myself: why can’t I try to create a masterpiece?”
So this is when you started making your own art?
“Right. To begin with, I’d draw on pieces of card with wax oil crayons,” Michael said. “You can do it anywhere. It doesn’t have to dry so you can work on it and put it away. I could do it when I was riding with someone in their car.
“I did landscapes and interiors,” he continued, “but even back then I was attracted to products, somehow. I did a piece called ‘The Victim,’ it’s a self-portrait of me and my stuff. I’m a victim of advertising, I guess. You can see all the product details. You can see the brand on my shampoo.
“My goal, ultimately, is to make something good enough to be in a major museum. It’s not about money. Van Gogh didn’t make any money.
“And you know we don’t have to make art,” he told me. “You have to pay the bills, do the laundry, eat and sleep. But art – we don’t have to do it.”
So what happens at your workshops?
“I talk about how I started making art,” Michael told me, “and I show my work. I give away some posters. They’re actually limited-edition prints.
“Over time I must have given away 80,000 posters. They’re in schools, they’re in libraries. And they’re in pizza places, delis and gas stations.
“I’m doing it backwards,” he laughed. “Most major artists get famous first and then their work is everywhere. I’m starting out by getting my work everywhere and then maybe people will wonder who I am!
“Of course it takes a lifetime (to find that kind of appreciation),” he continued. “Or longer. Only time will tell. It’s not the job of the artist to make that judgement. The job of the artist is to make art.
“So at the workshops, once I’ve talked about myself, then everyone gets their chance to make their own collage. Children love it but I encourage parents and adults to be there and join in, too. You really never know what someone’s going to come up with,” he explained.
“And when you try it for yourself you realize how much work goes into the more complicated pieces that I do. You understand how it’s possible to work on something for six months.
“Back home, my workshop is real chaotic, but then I come out of that chaos with a finished piece and show it to my wife.”
Is no-one allowed to see the work in progress, I asked?
“Not really,” Michael told me, explaining that with all the moving parts it’s too easy to mess it up. “My family usually stays away from my studio. They’re scared. And the cats stay out, too, because a few swishes of the tail can mean weeks of work is ruined.”
Having owned several cats myself – all of the “Captain Chaos” variety – I can sympathize. Not one of them would hesitate to deliberately sabotage a work of art.
“When you see someone sitting there, cutting something out, pasting it,” Michael continued, “you can see it’s universal. Everyone’s done it. If I give you some cardboard, some scissors and some glue, you know what to do. And artists have been using found objects as part of their art since the time of Picasso.
“Sometimes half the room are adults,” Michael told me. “I had a lady who made a collage the way she made quilts, she was used to cutting fabric. It was fantastic. There are no rules. You make up the rules.
“I make a piece for every place that I visit,” he explained. “I have a dream that when I make it big they’ll frame it. ‘He made this for us! I attended his workshop when I was eight years old!’”
He chuckled. “Well, even if I never get there, it doesn’t matter. All we have is the journey, you know.”
You can meet with Michael Albert and be part of the journey at the following times and locations:
Wednesday June 28, 2 p.m., at the Madison Branch Library, 1395 Grace St., Mansfield. Call 419-589-7050 to sign up.
Wednesday June 28, 5:30 p.m., at the Main Library, 43 W 3rd St., Mansfield. Call 419-521-3100 to sign up.
Thursday June 29, 2 p.m., at the Ontario Branch Library, 2221 Village Mall Dr., Ontario. Call 419-529-4912 to sign up.
Thursday June 29, 5:30 p.m., at the Bellville Branch Library, 97 Bell St., Bellville. Call 419-886-3811 to sign up.
Although Michael provides the raw materials, he also encourages people to bring their own: colorful boxes, wrappers, that sort of thing.
Which reminds me, I really should try to get hold of a British Frosties box for him. Mum, if you’re reading this in England can you fold up an empty box of Frosties and send it over? Thanks.
