Meet the Maker with Todd DiCiurcio

Art is life. Music is life. Surfing is life. And most importantly for Todd DiCiurcio, his lovely wife, best friend, business partner, and biggest supporter, Megan (“Megs”)… is life.
Todd has spent the past 20 plus years creating a balance between his home in Ocean City, studio in Brooklyn, NY, and extensive travels around the globe with Megs. He is well known internationally for his unique artistic style and methods. Todd creates his paintings while capturing live musicians and explosive spectators.
”Since the late 1990s, my art has involved the live drawing and painting of bands that I have worked with in close collaboration. The very first was Guided By Voices in 1999 at the Sapphire Supper Club in Orlando, FL,” he recalled.
He has since captured many mainstream rock and roll sensations on stage, including The Rolling Stones, Blondie, Jack Johnson, Morrissey, Portugal. The Man, New Order, and many others.
Todd’s work has been exhibited in London, Los Angeles, New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania. He has created live paintings in Asbury Park, NJ, Austin, TX, and Australia.

The Experience

He explained that what makes his artwork so special is that he can’t take back even one single stroke.
“While drawing, each sensation of every mark is a direct reaction to the experience of sound to gesture, and of the performer’s action to line. The drawings are visceral responses to the sounds and energy that are unique to each of these bands,” he said. “My identification with the music’s lyrical content, and precise delivery in the live context, enables me to become a physical and visual conduit for the shared experience of the performance within the tradition of drawing from life.”
Blending art and music has evolved throughout Todd’s life. At age six, he got his first album by The Cars.
“Music was everything to me. I pretended to play drums on my bed with chopsticks on paper, ripping through it like I was blasting through drum heads. My life in the arts started with the uncontrollable burning urge to draw all over everything, combine that with the differences of a non-transparent DIY upbringing, childhood divorce and death, dodging, but getting, residual abusive behavior and the freedoms created from it are the fuel to that fire, the ‘life experience,’” Todd explained.
Todd majored in Life Drawing and Printmaking as a Fine Arts student at Kutztown University in PA, spent residency at Vermont Studio Center, lived in Micco, FL, and currently spends much of his time in his Brooklyn, NY studio.
“But, Ocean City is the one constant that brings the light back,” Todd said. “New York can be stifling at times. Even though we’re close to the water, there is a completely different energy here.”

Early On

Born in Norristown, PA, his family spent summers in Ocean City for as far back as he can remember.
“Much of my childhood was spent dreaming of getting back into the surf, while skating sketchy ramps and prohibited areas around PA with colorful accomplices.”
Todd explained in order to live in OC, he had to have a summer job.
“I worked a paper route and vacuumed surf shop floors until I was old enough to be a busboy at Mack & Manco Pizza. This experience in particular taught me structure and responsibility,” he recalled. “The Manco family always supported me even well past the time I left to work at 7th Street Surf Shop. That’s where Megs and I helped friend and owner, Larry Friedel, cultivate a now-thriving surf lesson and camp program.”

Art Celebrates Surf

An avid surfer himself, Todd enjoys transforming surfboards into whimsical, colorful works of art.
“I always painted my own boards as a means to invoke a sense of strength, to do what I love, what I want to do, how I want to do it, how I felt at the moment,” he said. “The majority of these early board creations were collected by 7th Street’s Friedel. Later, I would come to create the official 7th Street logo… who knew.”
Todd also collaborated with Margate’s Steve & Cookie owner and entrepreneur, Cookie Till. He installed a sculptural work-in-progress for her annual art show to “shake things up, which made for wonderful art dialogue,” he said.
He later created a mural on her restaurant food truck, The Traveling Kitchen.
As a birthday present for Megs, he created a mural, “The Queen’s Threshold.”
“My mural was created during the COVID-19 lockdown – something to dream alongside our existence in this shining new soft apocalypse. If the expression provides stimulation for passer-bys, there’s a new conversation for Ocean City,” said Todd.
Todd and Megs met when they were just kids, and have been each other’s yin and yang for decades, working together in the fashion and art worlds, and using surfing together as a shared escape from their bustling businesses.

The Journey

“I think for Todd and I, our journey is about love, it’s about magic and making things happen, and always having each other’s back,” she said. “We push each other, we drive each other, we inspire each other. Both of us are one another’s biggest fans.”
Megs is a renowned entertainment public relations executive in the fashion industry. She and her husband are brand ambassadors for Caddis Eyewear.
Todd’s art and fashion collaborations include Tommy Hilfiger, Rag & Bone, Gap, Kenneth Cole, and March NYC. He is also a founding partner, alongside filmmaker Taylor Steele, of Solento Organic Tequila, available at Circle Liquor in Somers Point.
Fashion, surfing, art, music, and just embracing life… the beat goes on for the DiCiurcios, and they believe the sky’s the limit in the years to come.
“The journey has been incredible,” said Megs. “We dreamt it up, we dreamt it up.”

To see Todd’s work, and upcoming adventures and creations, follow him on Instagram:
www.instagram.com/odddc/.