Articles written about Frank Roccanova:

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Hamptons.com * Dans Papers * Una Escuelita * 27 East

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The following is the most recent article about Frank published in the East Hampton Star.

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Forging Friendship Through the Arts

By Elise D’Haene

Tracy Harris Frank Roccanova, a painter, photographer, sculptor, philanthropist, and businessman, at home in Amagansett

    It comes as no surprise, then, that he has built a school for children in a small village in southern Nicaragua called Limon Dos. The school, he said, is dedicated to “living life through the arts to make the world a better place.”

    Construction of Una Escuelita (One Small School, in English) was completed this spring. One mile from the Pacific coast, near the Costa Rican border, the two-story, Spanish-style building sits on eight acres. It was built by locals of brick, steel, and wood, with tile floors. A garden is under way where a variety of local fare, such as avocados, mangos, melons, peppers, and figs, will be grown  (“Being Italian, I had to have them,” he joked).

    Often, when Mr. Roccanova tells others about the school, he finds that “people still have perceptions of Nicaragua as a dangerous place,” referring to the long civil war that ended in 1989 and to lingering memories of C.I.A.-backed contras battling Daniel Ortega’s Soviet-supported Sandinistas.

    The country, about the size of New York State, is one of the poorest in Central America; around 75 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Despite the poverty, “the people are honest, dignified, and hard-working,” Mr. Roccanova said. “They are good-souled people, very prudent, with a simpler lifestyle than we have.”

    Initially, Mr. Roccanova and his business partner, Livingston Pope Noell III of East Hampton, an artist who owned a construction business on the East End, bought land in Costa Rica for residential development. Very soon, after a trip to Nicaragua and interactions with the people there, both men realized “that we didn’t want to be typical gringos, we wanted to give to the community, not take.”

    Their idea evolved from building a day care facility to a more comprehensive vision of a “learning center,” which will help working parents with child care and offer language, learning skills, and computer training, with “art as the main focus.” Eventually, they also hope to incorporate health and dental care, and plans are in the works to build a soccer and baseball field.

    Mr. Roccanova studied art at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he majored in photography and advertising. In the late 1960s he became the creative head art director for Saks Fifth Avenue. He “was exiled from Brooklyn” after a divorce and moved into his Amagansett house full time over 10 years ago, retiring to pursue his art work more fully.

Frank Roccanova The opening day celebration at Una Escuelita in Limon Dos, Nicaragua. The school was built with support from Mr. Roccanova and his business partner Livingston Pope Noell III.

    Initially, he said, the Nicaraguan villagers responded to him and Mr. Noell “as if we dropped in from outer space.” The two soon gained their trust and respect, however, and the community’s enthusiasm for the project grew “once they realized that greed is not our motive.”

    Mr. Roccanova admits that their motto, “the more you give, the more you get back,” has a selfish component. “If more people were selfish about wanting to feel good by giving, the world would be a better place,” he said.

    One important choice that Mr. Roccanova and Mr. Noell made was to incorporate the work of Nicaraguan artists and artisans, including potters, sculptors, woodworkers, painters, and weav­ers. Many of the traditional techniques for making textiles, baskets, ceramics, and sculpture have been used since pre-Columbian times.

    It took the pair several hours on foot to reach a woodworker who lives as a veritable hermit in the rain forest. “We had to wade across four rivers to reach him,” Mr. Roccanova said. The artisan’s elaborate carvings of peacocks and native foliage will adorn some of the furniture in the school.

    “Chickens and pigs rule” the village, roaming freely, and telephone service is sketchy, so “it is a simple way of life,” he said.

    “Little things bring people a great deal of pleasure,” he explained, “like an ice cream cone, or nature; they are very connected and aware of their natural world.”

    When asked what an artist might gain from the experience of teaching at the school, his eyes flickered with enthusiasm. He described his belief that the “common language we all share is love.” Although he admitted that his ability to speak Spanish at this point is limited to “hola,” he said it didn’t matter, because “art does not require words, it’s a universal language.”

    Quite unexpectedly, Mr. Roccanova’s own work has been transformed by his experiences in Nicaragua. In his Amagansett house, a renovated former one-room fishing cottage moved from Montauk to Smithtown, then eventually to Amagansett, Mr. Roccanova’s photography, paintings, and sculptures date back to the early 1960s. They reveal an evolution in his experience and understanding of relationships.

    His art has been focused predominantly on the tricky terrain of intimacy between a man and a woman. He has mined this often messy and glorious subject, and one series of photographs on display in his house pays homage to Magritte, dissecting the language of lovers with layers of visual humor and heartache.

    His latest works, photographed in Nicaraguan villages and towns, are a series of abstract prints in bold colors — ochre, fuchsia, purple, and vibrant greens, muddy reds, and bursts of yellow — colors typical of the painted brick and wood buildings in the area.

    “It was an amazing visual exercise, an explosion of color in combinations, shapes, and textures I’ve never experienced anywhere else. It was not in me to put these colors or shapes together. I had to photograph it,” he said. He paused to gaze at a few recently framed prints, some reminiscent of Rothko, others appearing as imaginative landscapes. “Going to Nicaragua is all of this and so much more,” he said.

    Art matters to Mr. Roccanova. It is a way to express daily life in a transforming way, a way to connect, to speak, to express one’s wishes and dreams, he suggested.

    Una Escuelita is “one small school” in one “small corner of the world” where ordinary people can rejuvenate their spirits by creating art that is relevant to their needs “through their own ideas, words, and images.”

    The school has secured nonprofit status and is looking for artists in all mediums to volunteer their time and talent. Mr. Roccanova is especially interested in having East End artists involved, perhaps combining their time teaching at the school with a vacation to the area.

    A few grants are available for artists and he was quick to point out that there are several options for accommodations very close to the school, with prices ranging from $5 per night to $100. “You can pay very little for a room with a common bathroom and a breakfast that costs two bucks,” he said, “Or stay at an oceanfront resort with a four-star restaurant.”

    The people he has encountered in Limon Dos “live with a purpose. And they attend to it fully,” he said. Whether it is waiting for hours at the corner of an intersection to give directions to a delivery truck, clearing a field with a machete, or fishing for family and neighbors, the villagers have a “different rhythm and beat to their daily lives,” he said.

    Mr. Roccanova credits his time in Nicaragua with “teaching me patience,” he said. “I’m so much more tolerant of situations and have a broader understanding of myself and the human race.”

    Photographs of the school can be viewed at www.unaescuelita.org , where more information about Una Escuelita is available.