Bobbi Mastrangelo, Who Built a Career from Manhole Covers, Writes 'It's A Grate Life'
Bobbi Mastrangelo, a sculptor and printmaker from Florida, dedicated more than 40 years to converting urban features and manhole covers into art through her initiative "Grate Works of Art." Her journey began in 1979, influenced by Sol LeWitt's urban art and Lawrence Alloway's remarks on her "penchant for circles," which shaped her artistic direction. After six years of teaching and drawing inspiration from Pop Art, she crafted realistic reliefs that led to claims of replicating actual covers. Environmental themes, inspired by her husband Al, resulted in pieces like "Water?" and "Save Water." Following a stroke in 2017, she penned her autobiography, "It's A Grate Life," using her right hand. Mastrangelo retired at 87, with her works featured in numerous museums and plans to contribute to the Tokyo Rainbow Sewerage Museum.
Key facts
- Bobbi Mastrangelo named her practice "Grate Works of Art" and committed to manhole covers, water covers, grates and drains in 1979
- Art historian Lawrence Alloway told her she had "a penchant for circles"; printmaking professor Dan Welden urged a consistent theme
- She taught elementary school for six years and took one art course per semester while raising her family
- Her husband Al encouraged environmental themes, leading to prints "Water?" and "When the People Care" and the sculpture "Save Water"
- Son Michael created sound effects for the interactive assemblage "Precious Water" and suggested the earthquake concept for a wrinkled print
- In July 1992 son Peter brought discarded coffee filters and grounds from Seven Eleven, which became two dozen sheets of nine-by-twelve-inch handmade paper
- She survived a hemorrhagic stroke in 2017 at age eighty and wrote "It's A Grate Life" between eighty-six and eighty-eight with only her right hand, including more than 140 photographs
- Greg Deibert used AI to create a watercolor rendering from Anne Mastrangelo's photograph for the book cover
- Works are held by the Islip Art Museum, the former Baltimore Public Works Museum and the Zimmerli Art Museum; Toast Coffee House in Patchogue, New York, hosts a permanent display
- She hopes to donate a sewer wall relief to the Tokyo Rainbow Sewerage Museum and place the rest of her collection in a Florida art museum
Entities
Artists
- Bobbi Mastrangelo
- Dan Welden
- Lawrence Alloway
- Sol LeWitt
- Andy Warhol
- Jasper Johns
- Anne Mastrangelo
- Michael Mastrangelo
- Peter Mastrangelo
- Al Mastrangelo
- Greg Deibert
Institutions
- Grate Works of Art
- Staller Center for the Arts
- Toho Water Authority
- Toast Coffee House
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Islip Art Museum
- Baltimore Public Works Museum
- National Association of Women Artists
- Zimmerli Art Museum
- Tokyo Rainbow Sewerage Museum
- Seven Eleven
- Dickerson Printing Press
- Con Ed
- AATONAU
Locations
- St. James
- New York
- United States
- Patchogue
- New York City
- Florida
- Orlando
- Central Florida
- Manhattan
- Baltimore
- Tokyo
- Japan
- Lake Avenue
Sources
- AATONAU —