Pizza, Paintings, Passion -- Teo Dicicco Is Known Here For His Restaurant, But In Italy For His Art

For more than two decades, Teo DiCicco has been rebuilding Rome.

Not with concrete and mortar, but with subtle strokes of a fine-haired paintbrush.

Not with heavy machinery, but with a sculptor's sharp chisel.

Not in Italy, but in Kenmore.

DiCicco is the owner of Teo's Mia Roma, a popular Italian restaurant in Kenmore. On weekend nights, the place is packed, buzzing with conversation and activity. Running the restaurant is DiCicco's vocation. And, by his own account, it has made the one-time dishwasher a wealthy man.

But his avocation? That's art. And the achievements of a lifetime's labor cover the walls of his restaurant. Walk slowly around the darkened interior, and the deep colors of the oil paintings blend together. The subjects - religious, human, emotional - read like a road map of the artist's soul.

Outside on the patio, under a blue tarp which has shielded them from the rain, are the sculptures. Overpowering in size and yet as gentle as the touch of a mother holding her child.

All born in DiCicco's dark eyes.

In America, he is more famous for his pizza than for his paintings. In his Italian homeland, however, DiCicco is known as an artist.

Last October, he received the ItalianTV/Radiocorrie (TV/Radio news) award for the arts, in recognition of a life devoted to painting and sculpting. And in 1990, his hometown celebrated the arrival of one of DiCicco's most inspired works - "Mother and Child

of Fondi." The 8-foot-tall bronze sculpture of a woman with a child on her lap now adorns a city park.

"I'm not looking for prestige, I'm looking for the fun of it," he said. "In art, it is best when you do work that you do it for yourself, to express what you really feel inside. Otherwise, as an artist, you couldn't get by. No one could."

It was just after 1 p.m., and DiCicco, 49, paced slowly past his restaurant's back gate smoking a cigarette. The blue work shirt he wore had a few small paint stains. He is tall and thin with slightly bent shoulders, and he smiles broadly when he says hello. His effervescent personality lends charm to his thick Italian accent.

After a tour of his restaurant - which opened in 1973 - two glasses of wine are poured, and he sits to talk about his art, his business and his life.

His style has been described as realism with a personal spin. He cites such divergent influences as Michelangelo and French impressionists.

"He has a very individual way of approaching art," said Steve Brooks, assistant to the director of the Frye Museum. In 1990, DiCicco displayed about 70 portraits and a sculpture at the Seattle museum. "It's not a style that is considered contemporary, so it would be difficult for him to find a market for it," he added.

That hasn't stopped DiCicco, who figures he has produced about 2,500 pieces of art since he began painting at age 3. His career began just after World War II. His first pictures he made by rubbing colorful flowers on the floor. By the age of 12, he was copying Renaissance masterpieces - some of which are on display in the restaurant - and was commissioned to paint St. Peter for his local church.

At 16, he won a scholarship to a prestigious art school in Rome and, after a few years, continued his studies in Paris. Along the way he dabbled in film, taking bit parts alongside such European stars as Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. But painting was the center of his young life, and during one show in Paris, he said he sold 270 pictures in three days.

In 1965, he was on his way to Mexico, a brief stop along the path that led to Seattle. DiCicco had an uncle here in the restaurant business - someone he very much admired - so he settled down to learn the language and make a new life in his adopted country.

"What you have here is a real success story," said long-time friend and photographer Joe Scaylea. "He came over from Italy, didn't speak the language, started washing dishes. Pretty soon he owns one of the best Italian restaurants in Seattle."

Why didn't DiCicco devote his entire life to painting? Because making art to make a living takes away the innocence of expression, he said.

"You need to do something different, you got to put the good and the bad together, the sweet and the sour together, and then you get this," he said, gesturing to his restaurant and the art all around him. "If you do just one thing, then I think you miss what's going on around you. Look at all the artists in history who worked for big rich people (and not for themselves). I think that is the worst punishment there is."

But the restaurant is more than just a steady income for DiCicco. It's a source of inspiration.

"This is the type of place where people can get together and everybody brings their feelings and problems, negative and positive," he said. "Every night it is a different story."

Practically every morning, DiCicco paints or sculpts. He's fast, usually spending only an hour or two on each picture. That, he said, is the essence of his style.

"I think I do better when I go quick," he said. "You get the emotions and the feelings of the inspiration, and you have to express them. If you wait too long because of frustration, you might lose it."

Sculptures, of course, take longer. DiCicco's latest effort - which he hopes to have finished in a few months - is a bronze rendering of St. Rocco, or Roch, a 14th-century miracle worker who tended Europe's plague-stricken. In an age of AIDS, DiCicco feels this figure from the past could be a symbol for today.

"He is what we need more of in this day and age," he said. "St. Rocco walking around and trying to help sick people - that is the message I'm trying to get across. Sure, he is from yesterday, but he shows what needs to go on today."

Eventually, DiCicco would like to take his private collection on the road to Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. But there is one thing he never wants to do - give up art.

Asked what life would be like without a paintbrush and chisel, DiCicco looked down at the table, and paused before answering.

"That's what it would be like to be dead."