Posters by Aurelio Grisanty

By John Soltes / Editor in Chief

(Dec. 3, 2009) — Aurelio Grisanty, an artist based in Rehobeth Beach, Del., is a man stuck in the past. And he probably would have it no other way.

Grisanty has a made a business out of designing and drawing what he calls “Beach Town Posters,” colorful confections that highlight a particular beach and its iconic symbols. In his work, he has traveled (at least in his imagination) to the coasts of North America, from Florida to California to Delaware to New Jersey and New York.

His is a career of remembrance and homage.

“I started when I moved to Rehobeth Beach,” Grisanty said recently during a phone interview. “When I was a child in the Dominican Republic, my parents had these posters.”

Thinking that he would try to find a few reproductions of these childhood memories, Grisanty set out to rekindle his upbringing. But then he realized something so simple, something that would change his life.

“Then I thought, wait, I am a painter,” he said with a laugh.

And so it began more than five years ago with Grisanty inaugurating “Beach Town Posters” with a poster of his new hometown of Rehobeth Beach. Since then, the posters have grown from a hobby in order to hang a few extra paintings in the house to a thriving business where potential buyers send in requests to Grisanty.

“We have 56 of them done, and I’m working now on seven more,” he said. “I hope by the end of next year, I’ll have more than 100.”

The posters are reminiscent of the retro, art-deco style from decades ago.

The Laguna Beach entry has a tall, almost impossibly vertical palm tree casting shade over a sandy beach and blue waters. The Key West poster is a simple creation of a yellow beach chair with a few strategically located flowers hanging off the edge; of course there’s a blue sky and rippling waves in the background.

For local residents, some of the fondest memories of the Jersey Shore are captured on the 18-inch-by-24-inch sheets of paper. There’s a seagull gliding over a ferryboat on the Cape May-Lewes poster, a beached boat on the Avalon poster and a striking red beach chair beneath a yellow-and-green umbrella for the Long Beach Island option (five dolphins jump in unison in the background).

Future posters will include another option for Atlantic City, one for Cape Lookout, N.C., and several others from Venice, Fla., to Ocean City in the Garden State.

The creations keep the creator busy.

“I’m actually not painting anymore because of all this,” said Grisanty, who added that he pulls from photographs and clip art and hand draws much of the poster. “What I do is assemble them all together.”

In the beginning, Grisanty tried visiting each of the beaches that he made a poster for, but eventually that proved logistically impossible. Now he utilizes the memories forever encapsulated on the Internet to draw inspiration.

Research is an integral part of “Beach Town Posters,” because Grisanty said he wants to make sure as many details as possible are correct otherwise a person’s memory may pick up on the inaccuracy. “Sometimes a lighthouse is on a southern part of a beach and gets the sunlight from one angle,” he said as an example.

The time from initial idea to completed poster varies depending on the beach. “I’ve been working on the Ocean City, N.J., poster for six months and I’m still not quite satisfied,” he said. “For Duck, N.C., it came to me. … I sat there in a beach chair and it was done. Very seldom does it happen that fast.”

On average, a poster takes about one to two weeks to complete. One of the final steps is Grisanty’s signature, a scribble that is featured on every poster.

For this immigrant artist, who came to the United States at the age of 16 to attend to high school, the beaches of America have proved to be a deep well of inspiration and awakening. “I’ve always loved the beach,” he said. “My childhood was going to the beach for the summer.”

And that childhood has lasted for some 60 years for this artist who lives on a beach and creates the memories from those wonderful stretches of sand for an audience that is increasing every day.

Aurelio Grisanty is a man who makes a living out of his living.

You can purchase “Beach Town Posters” at www.beachtownposters.com.

Unframed, the posters run $29.95. For framed photos in a variety of colors, the cost runs $135.