Art for another art’s sake Sculptor’s company creates armor, props for theater By BOB ROZYCKI

“What do you do with a master’s in art?” Nino Novellino asks. “You end up sleeping in the park under a statue,” he pauses for comic timing, “but at least you know who sculpted the statue.”

Novellino laughs. He can he’s come a long way since he was nearly that student in the park.

The publicity-shy Novellino no photographs, please would rather his wide array of wondrous work serve as illustrative narration. His works have appeared from Broadway to Disney World to television, film and all points in between. His company is Costume Armour Inc., the international leader in the production of custom theatrical armor, as well as sculpture and props.

The company is tucked away in an old mill building in Cornwall. The entrance, a long dark hallway, is lit by electric candles held by human arms protruding from the black-bricked walls; a pile of skulls nearly spills from a darkened niche.

Open the door and a visitor faces a huge double door, found in medieval castles. Open it and you will find everything from a delicately sculpted ballerina, to a huge table and couch (from “Sunset Boulevard”), candelabras, a harp, posters and other theatrical ephemera. Alfred Hitchcock takes in the view from the corner, not far from an old-fashioned silver upright radiator. Turn the corner and enter Novellino’s office, black-walled and complete with the arrow and dagger-filled body of St. Sebastian. In the corner hangs literally a hanged figure. A black-and-white photo of a beautiful ballerina his late wife, Mary is on another wall.

Other than the paper and photos, the items from bricked entryway to the radiator were all created in plastic, Kydex to be exact, by Novellino and his unique and huge Christo-Vac thermo-forming machine. The machine was created by Peter Feller of Feller Scenery Studios, for whom Novellino had worked. Feller created the machines to make the inside and outside walls of the Vatican Pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City. The machines came into Novellino’s possession after Feller spun off his company, which moved from the Bronx to a hangar at Stewart International Airport, to each of the department heads.

Novellino became the head sculptor for Feller Scenery Studios while working for Peter’s wife, Katy, who owned Costume Associates. Her business eventually joined with her husband’s, so it became a one-stop shop for theater designers.

Novellino is self-deprecating “it’s all junk” when he shows the rooms filled with the art. The armor looks real until one raps it with their knuckles and the expected metallic sound is nothing more than the mere thud of plastic. A life-size statue of Jesus made for a Mexican church shares a room with a large-bosomed woman, one of dozens commissioned by a Las Vegas showplace to sit in the balcony for “The Phantom of the Opera.” Novellino limned the charms of scantily clad showgirls for “Legs Diamond” and they are now perched above the workshop. The altar from “The Sound of Music” stands in beautiful intricate detail near a carousel horse.

Name a play or opera company, and chances are Novellino and his company were somehow involved. “The Pirate Queen”? Custom armor. “Cats”? The junkyard. “The Producers”? Nazi Army figures. “Good Vibrations”? The 10-by-90-foot wave that served as a backdrop. “Sunset Boulevard”? The entire room from the huge sofa on which Glenn Close reclined to the pipe organ. “Starlight Express?” Costumes and helmets. “The Jersey Boys”? The Cadillac. “Alice in Wonderland”? The white knight costume Richard Burton wore. “Into the Woods”? The enchanted harp.

Outside his office, 10-foot tall, mystical and bare-breasted women serve as sentries to the workshop where his cadre of artisans is entrusted by George Lucas to create replicas of Darth Vader and stormtroopers featured in his “Star Wars” movies.

After the war, the family moved to New Jersey where he attended Don Bosco High School. And then it was on to Pratt Institute. He had won scholarships to Fashion Institute of Technology and School of the Visual Arts, but Pratt was the only one to give a degree in art.

“Pratt wasn’t really my kind of school; it was strictly Bauhaus, very modern. The teachers came from Germany during the war; they had this German modern approach to everything. I was 100 percent opposite and I couldn’t adjust to that at all,” he said. “I did very poorly in the beginning because I was rebellious and still am. I thought well, if I’m gonna make it, I have to perform.”

All the art teachers had to be exhibiting artists. “You just couldn’t teach art. You had to be legitimate.” So Novellino went to each teacher’s exhibits and copied their style.

“I would give them back each what they did. And to each one of them, I was them reincarnate. And they loved me. And I was completely phony … You paint like this, I’ll paint like that. You sculpt like that, I’ll sculpt like that.”

However, it turned out to be excellent training for the theater because each designer has a different approach to art and the theater and Novellino adapted to whatever they wanted. “So you can say I made it through college by lying, cheating and stealing.” He laughs.

Slackers were aplenty, Novellino found out.

“A lot of those kids went through it without ever attending class, without ever painting.” And then when it was too late they’d go around to all the painting classes shopping for a style they liked.

“We were so stupid and so hungry for a spaghetti dinner that we would go to their apartment and paint a picture for their exhibit,” he said.

“So you might say I should have two, three master’s degrees by now because I did this often for food. But again, it was excellent practice. If the student didn’t get the degree I felt bad. And when they did I felt pleased. It’s an ugly story in a way,” he chuckles.

He majored in illustration until photography started to take over. At his father’s suggestion, he switched to art education. After graduating, he married and taught in Guttenberg, N.J., “something like four blocks wide and nine blocks long, the smallest town in America.” But teaching was cut short when a student pulled a switchblade and sliced through his three-piece suit just missing his skin. In defending himself with his cane, the school found Novellino acted inappropriately and fired him. And with a salary of just $4,000 that was supposed to cover him and his wife through the summer months as well, he realized he needed another job. But getting an artist’s job was not easy. Rather than relying on his teaching resume, he and his wife concocted one. At the time a number of New York City newspapers had folded, so with no way to check references, he built a portfolio on the “work” he had done for them, from fashion illustrator to cartoonist.

That led to work as a window dresser at the major department stores to an interview with Katy Feller at Costume Associates. She was in need of a milliner and he never admitted that he couldn’t do it.

On the day of the interview, Novellino, wearing his wool suit, grabbed his large leather portfolio and umbrella and bounded out into a torrential rainstorm. The umbrella inverted and he was soaked. He got to the building and watched as his wool pants began to shrink and colored water trickled out of his leather case.

Katy Feller “looked at me and started laughing hysterically. She said, ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’”

He misses those days, saying today the business is “rotten.”

“I don’t want to sound like the people when I started who said ‘In my day …’ but in my day there was a lot more love for the business and what you were doing and you just wanted it to happen,” he said.

“But now it’s corporate. You’re not dealing with a human being. You’re dealing with huge corporations.”

Regardless of the culture, his work is not compromised. And despite the negativity of the industry, he survives.