Art and Mosaics: One on One with Danilo Bonazza

Danilo details his experiences traveling the world to do Mosaic tile installations, including working at the Vatican and at Putin's personal residence!

Transcript

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What's up guys? This is Chris Bowen here with Level Up the Podcast. I'm here with Danilo today. Danilo is a world renowned mosaic installer of glass tiles. So we're really excited to have him here. Danilo, what's the name of your company? It's Art & Mosaics. I love it. So, and Danilo here travels a lot for work all over the world. He's based up in Eastern United States, so New York, New Jersey area, where he's currently trying to build more business there, but currently he's still traveling all over the world. So Danilo, kind of tell us about yourself, tell us about your business. Well, I was born and raised in Italy. Then I started traveling at the age of 23. I studied as a telecommunication expert but never wanted to do it. you say you're quite a bit different from that now. Yeah, I've always been into arts, but my family pushed me to do something else because they didn't believe that it could have been possible in creating art and doing major things and surviving with the money they were making through art, but I did. I believed in myself, I pushed it for many years, and then I started like, keep creating my mosaic art pieces and then installing them in bathrooms and spas and then pools and all over the world. I was here in the United States in 2006 for a major project. And then I spent pretty much a year in my workshop in Italy doing the preparation for this project. And then I shipped everything over here, did the installation over nine, eight months, during which time I just spent a lot of time here and getting to know people. And then I met the love of my life. And... that I started struggling with the idea of keep traveling and then going back to Europe all the time and then coming back here for two days just to see her. Didn't work that way that well. Sorry. See, I thought it was hard because when I met my wife, she lived in Colorado and the travel between Texas and Colorado, I can't imagine having to traverse an ocean. New York. So I remember I was doing a project in Geneva, in Switzerland, and stopping Friday, taking a flight, coming back here, getting here Saturday, see her, and then going back on Sunday to go back to work. And I did that for her. you know, a few months and then I was in Japan and doing the same was even more difficult. So it's just like... So then after a little bit, you know, she came over for a little while and then we figured out that one of the two had to jump and I've never been afraid of, you know, risking so I was like, I'll do it. So then I did. I jumped over, closed my company over there. I gave a lot of my projects to my, at that time, employees. They still work, they still do what they keep doing and they come over for my projects here to help me out every time I need them. So I still have an amazing relationship with them, but they do their own projects over there on smaller scale, but they are very successful and very good and I'm happy for them. Actually, two of them, they're coming over next month to help me out here in three projects that I have back to back to back that I want to get done in a couple of months. So. I have two of them coming over. Plus I have my employee on a regular basis here. So I opened my company. It took a little bit obviously to set up all the documents and everything else and to move everything from Italy to here and closing up my company over there, opening a new company here. So it took almost a year and a half in which pretty much I didn't work besides side jobs like you know. cab driver or like, you know, washing dishes or like stuff like that to make just like little bit of money. overqualified to be doing. Yeah, but you know, whatever. I can't sit on my ass and doing nothing, so I was like, okay. So, finally in 2008, I opened my company, Art & Mosaics, and I kept traveling, and my wife was traveling with me for a lot of projects, and the Seychelles, and Las Vegas, and Thailand, and Dubai, and... it safe to say you've done a mosaic project on every continent yet? Just about? That's crazy. So probably between 105 and 115, hard to tell because when I start thinking it's like you know I always lose some country but definitely more than a hundred countries, a lot of countries you know more than others obviously Europe especially, United States especially but you know some countries like just I just went over there. and you know one time did one project on the left but yeah it's I love it and that sometimes one of the things that I love the most is when I go back and get in touch with those clients or anyway knowing that somewhere in that in that country that's one of my projects that people still love and enjoy you know that's one of the reason why I love doing pools because it's not just an art piece that you create and stays there and people look at it which is great but also a swimming pool it's one level up because people actually enjoy it they live into it they have parties they invite their friends and they have fun so it's to me it's a joy I love it I love the idea that I created something that people look at it and appreciate it but also have fun with it it's one of the biggest things No, that's awesome, man. And I heard a rumor, and you can tell me if this is true or not, but that you're one of the few people that are authorized to do work at the Vatican. Yes, correct. That's true. I worked on three different occasions and a total of probably seven or eight months doing restorations of the mosaics and the Vatican's. Some of which are, you know, public knowledge, like you can actually see them. Some of which are not, like they're, you know, in places where public... Yeah, yeah, public... Regular public people cannot go to So yeah, I worked and I worked for a lot of these people one of the crazy project I've ever done was for his private residential for a Putin in in Moscow yeah, that was the 2004 was a crazy experience Yeah Yeah I like that. What would the design end up being for that project? Do you remember? was a big spa. I pretty much created a huge medallion for him as like his family crest that he wanted to be created in the middle of the room and then the whole spa with benches and ceiling bolts and all that jazz. It was pretty much 50 -55 days over there. But it was a crazy experience. I had... 24 -7 a guy five feet away from me with a Kalashnikov Sitting like staying outside of my hotel room During the night making sure that I was not going anywhere. They took my passport So, you know, I Yeah, little intense and then I had free time With a guy that was like my custody and like allowing me to pretty much go wherever I wanted from Saturday at noon Until 6 a .m. On Monday, but from 6 a .m. On Monday until Saturday at noon I Couldn't could not go anywhere. I could order any food I wanted at night, but I had to stay in my in my room at the hotel and You know having 24 -7 followed by you know the security with with a Kalashnikov so it was yeah intense for me, but what a cool experience to get to work on a project like that. So you were able to explore Moscow just a little bit. Um, yeah. during the weekend with Vadim, this guy that was assigned to me, who actually now is, well, he's hiding, but he became a billionaire. Because at that time I was 30, he was 21, but he had everything happening. Like we were stopping at 3 a .m. in the middle of nowhere in a place that was super scary and it was exchanging suitcases. And I always felt like I don't want to know what's inside. I don't even mention it. I want to know nothing about the business that you're doing. Still to this day, I don't know what was happening, but I'm sure a lot. I'm sure a lot. And so then over the years, he became in charge of pretty much organizing and building all the infrastructure around the Russia. So he became a billionaire and he's one of those, you know, oligarchs that is hiding right now because what's happening with the war between Russia and Ukraine and all that stuff. So anyway. that's a cool little story right there. So... crazy stories, traveling so much, I got to know so many crazy people, interesting people, famous people, rich people, anything. I have so many stories, but this is just one of them. We could do a podcast series just on some of the stories, and some of them I cannot mention obviously. we'll do just DeMillo's travel stories. I can. Well, some are risky. Like if I mention it, I could be in trouble. And some... NDAs and stuff like that as well with all the clients that you've worked with. some are related to criminals or people that are hiding or whatever. And somehow there's just some personal things that I don't want to share. But besides that, there's definitely a lot of stories that I have. But this is for another time. Absolutely. Well, that's cool, man. So tell us a little bit about the business side of things. Tell us kind of what your goals are. So you've got a new son. And so that's kind of the reason that you're pulling back from traveling a little bit. goal. My new goal is to create enough business revenue around my area here, especially New Jersey, so I don't have to travel that much. I still love traveling. That's one of the reasons why I created my business this way. But again, with the little son now, it's just more difficult and I miss him so much every time I'm gone. I just came back from Las Vegas for a project over there and I was just missing him. and now I have to go to Europe and I'm going to miss him again. It's difficult. I still want to travel once or twice a year, that's fine, but not on a regular basis like I do every time. So that's my main goal. Everything else, to be honest with you, I don't have any other goals. I've pretty much accomplished everything. I have projects in more than 100 countries. I did one of the most amazing projects in the world related to mosaics. and I still do. I do amazing pools. All my projects are super cool and I love them. And I try to make them as different as possible from one another. And a lot of the clients, they just allow me to do it, which is awesome. That's one question I did have for you is, do you design a lot of your own projects or are they coming to you with an existing design? But my average project, I sit down with the designer and the client or just the client, or the architect depending on who's involved, the pool builder as well, because I always want to involve the pool builder for technical reasons obviously. And then we come up based on the shape of the pool, based on what the client wants. I usually do an interview at the beginning to the client. understanding what they like I need to see the style of the house because if you know if the house is super modern you don't want to create you know gothic style pool or the opposite you know so you want to match the feeling of what's surrounding and then based on that you know I create a little first little sketch that I present to the client and to the architects and then we start elaborating based on that. They keep giving me their inputs, obviously, and then once we finalize the design, usually then we start talking about color range. Because the same design can be done in so many different colors, right? When I talk about design, it could be even something simple. just a gradiation of color from like one color to another one with some lines, maybe some gold and some platinum and some other things. But also could be of something very intricate. It could be having Greek keys or medallions or obviously as you know, artistic stuff, recreating. I did a pool where I recreated a picture that the owner took in Africa. actually, sorry, in Australia. And then I created the bottom of the pool with this picture. There was an ostrich and a tree and the sunset. So that was the bottom of the pool. You know, I do some portrayals sometimes. I actually, you know, I keep going with my icon series where I created Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Prince and, you know, some of them I sold, some of them... I still have it, but it got a lot of traction. In the last couple of years, I started creating all this stuff that were very famous all over the internet. Obviously, you can see some of the stuff that I do on Instagram, at Art and Mosaic. So you can take a look at all the variation of the different kind of projects that I do. Some of them I cannot post because I have MDAs that I have to sign with the clients, but you know, whenever I can do it, I'll post it, I'll keep people updated and what I create. So that's pretty much how it works most of the time. Sometimes, you know, the clients, they already have a pattern, they already have a design, they just tell me, can you do this? And then obviously I have to adapt it to the surface that I'm covering, you know, to the swimming pool or to the mural or to whatever. So I still have to place my input into the whole picture or the whole design, but sometimes they already have their vision and they just want me to recreate it. And then are you doing all the glass yourself? So are you producing the glass for these mosaics as well? Okay. but most of the time yes. I have two kilns in Italy where I actually create the glass. But also I buy from other sources. But I try the most that I can. Sometimes I even do installations for brands that already have their designs created. You know, Seaches, Bizazza. Oceanside trend, you know, you know Lightstream as far Yeah, but let's I would say 80 % It's my own class my own stuff. There's a huge swimming pool that I just finished at the end of the year That you know collaboration with the Jeff Hampe in the Hamptons where you know while the demolition was going on the pool was a renovation it's actually a very famous pool because it was depicted many times in the show the show time show billions so we recreated that we redid that pool and while you know the demolition was going on with Jeff that was on site I was in Italy in my workshop creating all the mosaics the artistic mosaic for the bottom of the pool. That's so cool. everything over and then I did the installation over here. That's really cool. So when you do that, do you find that you have on a business side of things, you have a higher profit margin when you're creating the tile yourself, I would imagine? Or is it about work out the same? Okay. To be honest with you, I have a very high profit margin anyway because there's a lot of labor involved. I don't have a crazy amount of expenses. Obviously, traveling is one of them. Epoxy materials or waterproofing and all that stuff. But they're probably in the range of 15%, 20 % of... only so many people in the world that can do this type of work. And I think people need to realize that, that especially when you're talking about swimming pools, I only really know of maybe four installers in the United States that are installing glass tile at a really high level. And even then, maybe only you and one other that are really traveling outside of the country a lot to do this. And you're the only one that I'm aware of up on the Upper East Coast that's doing it. So I mean, I think that's pretty normal that when you're in that select few of people that you have a higher profit margin just because not just anybody can do this, not just anybody can design it, not just anybody can create the glass, not just anybody can install it. It's, you know, very rare. Yeah. So I think that's the way that it should be. So before we hop off, do you have any other cool stories for us? I'm trying to scroll something that I can say in two minutes. Okay, I can't name the person, okay? But based on what I say, people will probably understand. It's one of the worst experiences I had because... this person, depending on the way that she was waking up, she was changing completely the color range of the mosaics that I was creating in her apartment in Manhattan. She just, at that time she just divorced, she's a Latina, she's very famous, singer and actress. So she happened to divorce another Latino male singer at that time, I would imagine. Yeah. So we dragged that thing for like two months and every time she would change like, I don't want the sky... I was doing like a huge mural. I don't want the sky that blue. I want light blue. Okay. You know, restarting it again. Then after four days she would show up with a different mood like, oh no. That's just, what's that light blue? I wanted a blue sky, dark blue. I'm like, ah, but that's not what you said four days ago. Well, I changed my mind, so just do it. So. Some people have stupid amounts of money that they can do that. I know, but it's not about the money. It's about, hey, I'm here working for you and I'm creating something. So that project dragged for like two months while I was supposed to do like three weeks. And then after six months, at the end I told them, like, listen, don't even think about calling me back anymore. I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore. Goodbye forever. So after six months, I get this call from a designer. and it sounded a little fishy and then I figured out that it was a designer working for this person and trying to hire me and I flat out, you know, I was like, I think I was pretty clear, I don't want, I want you to forget my phone number, I want you to forget my name, I want you to forget that I even exist, goodbye. But that was the whole thing. It was just a terrible experience. Yeah, oh, I can imagine. I can't even imagine, especially something to that kind of, that magnitude and that difficulty, somebody changing, you know, every few days, what it's going to be like. Because it's not just a little change. on the mood of the day. Yeah. Boy. Well, Danilo, man, I really appreciate you being on here with me today. For those listening, if they're interested in what you offer, if they're interested in getting Mosaic work done, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you or to find you on the internet? Instagram, r10mosaics. Otherwise, you can go to my website r10mosaics .com or looking for Danilo Bonanza online, you'll find plenty of stuff about me and you will be able to reach me through, you know, finding my email or direct messages on Instagram or through my website and so on. So. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, man. And it's been fantastic. best of luck, let's keep in touch, let me know how things go and let's do another one in the future talking about something else that you want to talk about. Absolutely. When you're in Austin, hit me up and let's get dinner one night. I'll drive out there for you. Well, they're happy to do that. Bye, take care.