“My art toy journey began sometime in 2014. I was visiting my mother in New York City and wanted to check out a toy shop I had heard about called Toy Tokyo. They had a vintage toy section in their downstairs area of the shop and I was big into toys of the 80s. But when we walked in, first thing I see is a display case full of Ron English figures. I was instantly mind blown. I had never seen anything like it. And the guy behind the counter tells me a little bit about designer toys and about Ron English. I bought a few figures and first chance I got, started researching all about designer art toys.
It didn’t take long to go from collecting to wanting to create my own figures. I did maybe two customs on knockoff Kidrobot figures. Before I came across an article with an interview of Josh Mayhem. In it he basically says things didn’t really start happening for him as an artist until he stopped doing figures similar to artists he admired or trying styles he had seen from other artists, and actually started creating his own identity in his work. With that in mind, I approached my next figure (another knockoff Kidrobot) with the plan that I would just do what I do as an abstract painter, but do it on this 3-dimensional figure.
The result was “Cheesecake in a Straight Jacket”. I posted him on Instagram, which I was very new too. I don’t even think I knew how to use hashtags. And one of my favorite artists, Brandt Peters, liked the pic.
That was it. Call me crazy, I signed up for Designer Con 2015, quit my full time job as a 911 dispatcher, and became a full time artist. I had the pleasure of meeting Brandt in 2018 and telling him my story. How he inspired me, etc. And he was such a genuinely nice guy. It just solidified the whole experience for me. Now I try to attend Designer Con every year. And I continue to intensely love creating three dimensional art toy figures from wood, resin, metal etc.” —ACP
For custom inquiries please email me at acp@5149andahalfart.com
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The Artwork of ACP 