Contemporary Art in Context: Steve Casino

For almost ten years, Casino has turned peanut shells into people, including famous musicians, artists, historical figures, and athletes. His journey began one day when he was eating his favorite snack (peanuts) and noticed that the shell resembled the human figure, head, and torso. He drew his face on the shell with marker, and a new style was born.

Each peanut sculpture takes ten to twenty hours to complete. He first removes the nuts from the shell, then reseals it with urethane. He seals the outer surface with clear acrylic and uses materials such as polymer clay, air dry clay, and acrylic paint to achieve a likeness that is as accurate as possible.

Casino taught himself the process of turning peanut shells into art and believes that, no matter what the medium, learning to draw is of primary importance. He enjoys combining empty vessels, such as Coke cans, with his peanut shell figures. Casino also creates other artwork unrelated to peanut shells or toy making.

While ancient Roman artists etched portraits in pieces of ivory, it was not until the 1500s in the West that the word “miniature” was applied to art of a small size and reduced scale. Between the 1000s and the 1400s, from Europe to Asia, miniature painting was found in book and scroll illustrations, often including tiny portraits of donors discretely placed among the decorative borders. By the 1500s in Europe, miniature portraits in brooches and as keepsakes became popular. Portrait miniatures as a genre flourished in the West until the 1800s, when photography replaced it in popularity. Portrait miniatures have made a comeback in the twenty-first century.

ARTIST Q&A
What are some of the biggest influences on your work, including other artists, events, or things outside of the arts?
Steve Casino: As a kid, I loved Mad Magazine, Peanuts and Nancy comic strips, Wacky Packages, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, and early Mattel toys like Incredible Edibles and the Thingmaker. I also spent a lot of time walking around the woods alone and made pets of bees, ants, crayfish, and salamanders. It helped me to understand how things worked.

The biggest influence of my life was the Christmas catalog that came out in late summer every year that had all the toys for Christmas in them. I studied every picture and description and it helped me tremendously later as a toy creator. Now thereʼs YouTube for all of that, but not then. Just those catalogs and TV commercials.

What is a typical workday like for you?
SC: I get up, exercise, and go to work at Bang Zoom Design Studio. There, we invent toys all day. I come home, eat, go to my studio, and spend several more hours there. If I have something big going on, like an art show or commission, Iʼll work on a weekend.
Do you have specific strategies, rituals, or routines that help you work and/or generate ideas?

SC: I multitask watching films, talking on the phone, and listening to music or shows while I work. So, itʼs very much like a typical personʼs evening except that my hands are extremely busy the whole time. (My mom gets very irritated if Iʼm talking to her and using the bandsaw at the same time.)

Iʼm lucky to almost always have creative ideas. I have had that ability since I can remember. If Iʼm ever stuck, I just take a walk or draw through it.

How important is social media in sharing and promoting your work?
SC: Itʼs everything. I tried to “make it” as an artist/illustrator for most of my career, but there were always gatekeepers like art directors and editors saying “this is not right for us” or going with someone else for a job because they were friends or knew them. It was hugely disappointing, and I gave up several times—sometimes for years. But social media leveled the playing field. It lets you become the one in charge of your content and audience. If youʼre self-motivated, this is the greatest time to be a creative.

Tell us about one of the biggest moments in your career.
SC: I recently filmed an episode of To Tell The Truth, which aired on ABC on August 22. In it, three celebrity guests must decide who the real Peanut Painter is out of me and two imposters.

How do you adjust your realism convincingly to the scale of a peanut?
SC: It was actually the way that I learned to paint realistically, so itʼs the opposite. I have to adjust when it gets larger.

What sorts of fine art have inspired your working on such a small scale?
SC: The only painting lessons that I ever had were in high school. My teacher, Mr. Gathers, was a great watercolorist and he showed us a few techniques. Everything I paint is based on doing thin washes with acrylics but applied like watercolors. This works well on a small scale because the paint doesnʼt glob. It took a lot of trial and error.

With what do you augment the peanut element of your artworks (e.g., arms and legs)?
SC: I use picture-hanging wire for the arms and wire or bamboo skewers for the legs. I fill in bumpy areas with polymer clay and use compressed foam for the hands.

DISCUSSION
Begin by sharing Steve Casino’s Muhammad Ali sculpture (see centerspread). Ask students to guess what materials the artist used to create the piece. After some discussion, reveal that the hidden materials are peanuts, and show additional examples of Casino’s work. Share how Casino came up with the idea while eating peanuts. Ask students to consider what everyday items might also work as part of miniature sculptures. Close by showing examples of other kinds of miniature artwork.

STUDIO EXPERIENCES

Create a sculpture using unusual materials. Start by choosing a material and experimenting with different ways to transform it into a work of art.
Create a 3D or relief sculpture of a famous person or character from pop culture. Use fine details to make it as accurate as possible. Can your classmates identify the person or character you have depicted?
Create a miniature portrait of an important person in your life (someone you know personally) using the materials of your choice.
Hold a competition with your classmates to see who can create the smallest yet most detailed sculpture using polymer clay, ceramic clay, or the materials of your choice.