I can’t get enough of my friend Alvin Clayton. He is bursting with talent and great energy, and I think he makes the world a more beautiful place through all he does and especially through his art through which he tries to speak to people’s humanity.
Recently I felt compelled to introduce Alvin to as many people as possible who may not know about him just to be able to see the amazing art he creates. Famous people collect his stuff. People like Robert De Niro and Denzel Washington and Halle Berry just to name a few.
Alvin has a fabulous restaurant in New Rochelle, NY called Alvin & Friends which has won many awards. The food is contemporary Caribbean with a Black American South influence, that caters to a discerning customers, and the vibe is always cool with live music often.
A self -taught artist inspired by Matisse, Alvin’s extraordinarily colorful art literally blasts from the walls of his restaurant.
My boyfriend Dave and I often pop in to Alvin’s for a drink and we love when Alvin comes over for a hug and hello and pulls out his phone to show us photos of the latest, greatest pieces of art he has created.
Every single time I think to myself, my God this guy is ridiculously talented!
“Well, I think what I try to do with my art is it speaks to people’s humanity. And I think our humanity is very much connected and is a common ground. And I think if you reach to humanity, color becomes out of the picture. You get yourself into that situation. So, what I try to do with my art is to bring the viewer into that moment or that situation and say, wow, you know what, I’ve experienced that with my friend. And it’s not about color because we all experience it.”
I don’t know how Alvin Clayton does it all. He’s married 30 years to a brilliant beautiful woman, has three children, runs a bustling restaurant that is usually packed with interesting people from all walks of life, then goes home and stays up all night painting.
He’s a good-looking son-of-a-gun too and must not eat all that fabulous food he makes because he’s been a professional model for 25 years. Alvin was the first African American to have eight full pages in GQ magazine. He’s worked for every catalog you could think of, and done major campaigns for Banana Republic, and has shot for Ralph Lauren.
Maybe it’s all that worrying he does that keeps him thin. LOL
“There could be 99 people in my restaurant having an amazing time and possibly one person that did not have the perfect experience and that would wake me out of my sleep. I mean, I’ve gotten a bit better on it, but that still bothers me. I’m genuinely people-oriented, and so my whole thing is to seeing people being in a good space and I think that’s what I do with my art too.
Alvin Tries To Paint Solutions To The Issues Bothering Us
“I mean I paint what some of the issues are that are bothering us and dividing us or whatever, but while I’m painting that I’m also thinking okay we know what the bad things are, what are the solutions, right? And so that’s always the final chapter of whatever I do, it’s solution.”
Alvin believes, “We have more in common than we do that separates us”.
About His Painting of a Woman with Alzheimer’s He Just Showed Me
“Yes, so I was sitting next to this woman in the Dr’s office, her daughter brought her in actually, she had Alzheimer’s and the daughter had to go in for her appointment. She asked me if I could keep an eye on her mom while she was in. I said, of course. And so while she was there, I was looking at her. She was dressed really lovely. You could tell she had style and grace. And there was something about her aura that just seemed to be, you could tell she was a beautiful person even though a lot was missing right now. And she was going into her pocketbook and somehow this image came out that she’s searching for a pocketbook of lost memories. And so I took her picture and did this painting with my colors and everything else, I researched what the symbol was for Alzheimer’s and so on the pocketbook that she had, instead of having a Saint Laurent or one of the trademarks, I had this insignia for the Alzheimer’s Association. Even though the disease is devastating I felt she looked angelic”.
My Gift Is Not Art But Rather The Art Of Seeing Opportunities Others Don’t
After seeing this work of art, Alvin created above capturing the beauty of a woman with Alzheimer’s, it sparked my gift ‘the art of seeing opportunities between people and then bringing them together to make something actually happen’ instead of just thinking about it or talking about doing it ‘someday’. It’s what I really get a kick out of doing for people.
My media world is filled with innovative people from many worlds, and I get to know and understand people on a deeper level than most through what I do. These conversations and relationships I have stick inside my head like Velcro. (I’m always ripping off two separate pieces of Velcro from inside my brain and sticking them together for match lol. Funny I never explained it like that before but makes sense to me. )
I’d just done an interview with the Chairmen of an upcoming Alzheimer’s Association Gala fundraiser so I introduced the idea of a collaboration where Alvin’s Alzheimer’s painting could somehow be used to help raise funds for the organization. It’s in motion!
In case you haven’t noticed ‘Someday’ has arrived and when it comes to trying out new ideas you know what I always say … “Risk It or Regret It”!
Get in touch if you need to brainstorm who’s inside my head that could be a match for whatever you’re passionate about. Debbie@DebbieNigro.com
Enjoy this podcast of my live conversation with Alvin Clayton on The Debbie Nigro Show. If you’d rather read than listen the audio transcript is below.
Follow @AlvinClaytonArtists on Instagram.
While you’re at it you can follow me too @therealdebbienigro
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
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So you hear a guy giggling next to me in the studio. He’s my first guest of a two-part feature today on people who make the world more beautiful. Before I introduce him, because he’s gonna be having his own segment in just a moment, let me tell you that coming up is Charles Fazzino. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a Fazzino,
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but it was probably the first piece of art that made me stop in my tracks walking down the street in New York City in a window and just stare. I was like, what am I looking at? Charles Fazzino brings the world to life. I’ve been a huge fan for many decades. His style is a 3D style of pop art and he likes to be called a pop culture historian.
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Now I happened to catch one of the things he was commissioned for, which was the recent Super Bowl this year. And he did something that I was like, oh my gosh, he’s out and he’s all over the world this guy now and he is he’s been commissioned by the Grammy Awards the Super Bowl the Olympics he’s an international superstar in places like Germany Japan France and Switzerland he’s in awe and he has to pinch himself he says because he just can’t even believe this has happened to him he’s from my hometown of New Rochelle New York we have never met
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today we will so he’s coming up on the show. Now there’s a lot of talent. It must be something in the water where I live in New Rochelle. A lot of talent and there’s a guy who’s sitting with me in the studio today who you’re going to meet who many people know, but I want to make sure more people know. His name is Alvin Clayton. Besides being a good-looking son of a gun, you know, he was a professional model for 25 years, he’s an extraordinary restaurateur and that’s how I know him.
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He has a beautiful restaurant that’s won many awards, Best of Westchester, multiple times, you know, Open Table, he’s got all kinds of awards. And it’s called Alvin and Friends. And often, my boyfriend Dave and I stop in for a drink, and my most fun is when Alvin stops over, because he’s always fun, and then starts pulling out his phone
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to show me the latest, greatest pictures of what he has created, his art. Because in his restaurant is extraordinary art. It blasts from the walls. It’s color. It’s magical. I’m like, this guy is really talented. But much like I was saying earlier in the show, Alvin, I guess much like the women’s basketball team, whoever thought they could grow up and play basketball professionally, maybe if you’re a woman, that’s like really? And it’s like when you’re a kid, you tell your parents I want to be an artist, they’re like, you know, come on, get a real job. So at some point whatever’s in you takes over. And Alvin Clayton is one of those guys who said, screw
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everybody else, I’m going to teach myself to paint. So he’s here today because I saw his latest work of art and it was about his vision of world peace. And I was like, whoa. And I just said, whoa. And so, say hello, Alvin, Clayton, whoa.
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Hey, Debbie. You’re the best. I mean, your energy is so intoxicating. Oh, I like that. I love being around you, and I love when you come into the restroom. I love when we sit and talk and laugh. We need that more now than ever,
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especially with all the stuff that’s going on in the world. So I welcome you and I love your spirit and thank you for having me on your show today.
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Yeah, I like intoxicating. I’m going to put that in my bio. You know, when you write a biography, right, about yourself and you try and pull it all together, you don’t want to be too self-serving. You know what I always find funny is when you’re going, you know, it says Debbie Nigro because you’re reading about yourself and you have to write it usually as if you’re talking, as if somebody else is talking about you, right? And then you don’t know how far you’re supposed to go with telling everybody how
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fabulous you are, but I’m putting intoxicating in there. Alvin, where did this art – when you were a little kid, like, did you know? Were you drawing things like in kindergarten and everybody else was like, look at this
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kid’s art? You know what? I always loved art. I always loved art. I was born in was pre, of course, pre-internet and all that stuff, right? So you couldn’t tell a Trinidadian parent you wanted to be an artist, as you just said. I mean, today, I think things have changed a bit, but I always had that passion of art inside of me, so I always
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did that. What would you have told a Trinidadian parent you wanted to be? What would have made
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them smile? Oh, you’re going to be a doctor, you got to be a lawyer, you got to be something that earns money.
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What’s going on in Trinidad these days? You don’t hear much about Trinidad.
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Actually, Trinidad is like one of the places in the Caribbean that’s actually set because of, you know, it’s a democracy, obviously, and also they’re very well situated. They’re far down south. They’re most southern of the Caribbean Island, so all the storms and stuff that hits, the tropical storms, they don’t really hit Trinidad, so you don’t hear of them having a lot of disasters. Any problems? You hear about them a lot during carnivals because they’re one of the best carnivals
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in the world. Do you go? You know, the steel drum, I haven’t been in a long time, but I always get a taste when I go for Christmas and then we get into the festivities right after Christmas, but they have the steel drum music, which is amazing. Amazing. It’s probably one of the most amazing carnivals you’ll ever have. But being so far down close to Venezuela and South America, they have oil as part of the
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The industry so they’re pretty much settled in that way. It’s not like they’re having a good time in Trinidad
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Oh, they got oil and water My gosh and sunshine and sunshine You and I’ve been drawn to each other Just due to good energy from the first time we met Yes, the more I get to know you the more fascinated I am with you. I meet a lot of people, Alvin. You have this way about you that in everything you touch, you really do make things beautiful. The food that you serve, the people that you connect with, the things you do to help people,
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and then the art. But the art is really the thing. And I didn’t know how far you had been taking this with the Smithsonian now showcasing your art. I’m like, the Smithsonian? So, yeah, I want you to talk about what you’re trying to do right now and how an artist, how long you’ve been doing this to get to where you are.
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So as you said, I’m a self-taught artist and my influence, believe it or not, has been Henri Matisse, the French Impressionist. While I was modeling, I was in Paris, went to Musée d’Orsay, saw Matisse’s work, fell in love with it. For like six months, I just copied his paintings, teaching myself to paint. I said, you know what, I’d love to paint people of color like this, in this vibrancy. I just started doing it, never really paid attention to it, just painted because of the love of painting. Then I had a loft with my paintings all over the loft.
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My agent came into my loft and said, hey, listen, I love these works.
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Okay, so stop there. We have to do a little business. Just tuning in, I’m with Alvin Clayton, a friend and superstar talent in the restaurant business and the art world. And I wanted to really introduce him to many people who may not know about him and look at his work. I mean, people collect his stuff,
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people like De Niro and Denzel Washington and Halle Berry. So Alvin Clayton, stay tuned. More to come here on the Debbie Nigro Show.
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It might seem crazy what I’m about to say. Sometimes she’s here, you can take her place.
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I’ll have you know this is the only place where I can dance these days. Nobody else lets me in. There’s no dancing, they cancel dancing. And I even do it sitting down, so I’m the Queen of Sit Down Dancers of America. Hi everybody, I’m Debbie Nigro, back with my in-studio guest and friend and superstar artist and restaurateur Alvin Clayton, owner of Alvin and Friends Restaurant, and there’s a reason why it’s Alvin and Friends Restaurant in New Rochelle, New York. Lots of awards. I mean, you need some more awards, because I don’t think you have enough awards, to be honest with you. You got, what, five times Best of Westchester magazine?
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At least, yeah.
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Yeah, winner of Open Tables, Diners’ Choice Award. open tables, diners, choice of words. The New York Times called you the darling of downtown New Rochelle.
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That was very nice of them, Alvin.
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It was. You kind of flit around between worlds, meaning, I don’t know how you do it all, I really am in awe every time I see you, that I walk into a bustling restaurant that is packed, always packed, that has live music, that has incredible cocktails and delicious dinner, and then all of a sudden you’re this world-class artist you’re like oh yeah when I left here I’ve been up all night painting I’m like okay and then you’re helping out charities and people I was in your restaurant the other night and there was a contingent in I want to say from they
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were a business group they were meeting there and I don’t want to say Uganda but
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I oh you know oh yeah there was a there’s an organization of doctors from, from Kenya. Kenya. Yes, that actually, this is, there was a second year coming to the restaurant doing it, but they, they all meet and greet and they, they eat all the appetizers you could think about and drink all the drinks you could think about and they have a great time and they were there the other night.
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It was a lot of fun. I was like, I’m like, who are you people? And then we were laughing and then they were joking and I’m like, I was trying to catch it, but yeah, they were all from Kenya, they come to your restaurant. So your restaurant, how would you describe the food? It’s not soul food.
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No, so it’s Caribbean and a black American south influence, but it’s more on a contemporary level because there’s such discerning palates that come to the restaurant. We have a very ethnic spread of people and you’ve got to have that base and that balance that there’s something for almost everyone. So we have a vegetarian section on there. You can go too deep with the spices because some people don’t eat spices, but you have
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to give it enough flavor where people even that are on the spicy side would still love the meals that you prepare for them.
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What’s your favorite meal in your restaurant out of curiosity?
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I’m a fish guy.
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You’re a fish guy. That’s why you’re so sexy. Model stuff didn’t come easy.
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So when I want to be naughty, I go with the fried catfish which is served with a stone ground yellow grits from Louisiana. And the grits come from the original grit girl which is a woman that she refurbished a mill that actually the proceeds from the sales go to help the community. So we’ve been ordering that grits for 14 years.
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Oh my gosh, I have to have that. See, that’s the funny thing about that. You said that you want to be guilty and bad. That would be my choice if I was trying to be good.
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So those grits are good. And then when I want to be good, I go with – we have a grilled salmon that’s to die for. It’s really amazing. But we have oxtail on there. We have Westchester Magazine said we had one of the best fried chickens in Westchester. But I tell people, if you make the best fried chicken, you’re not in my kitchen, so eat something else.
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And so, okay, and then tell me about the modeling because now we talked about the restaurant, let’s talk about the 25-year modeling career. Were you like in every major magazine?
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What was going on? I actually was the first African-American to have like eight full pages in GQ magazine. I’ve worked for every catalog you could probably think about. I’ve done major campaigns for Banana Republic. I shot for Ralph Lauren. I’ve been around the block for a bit.
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So what do you have to do as a male model that other guys don’t have to do?
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You know what? I came into the industry, I think, at a time. It was the late 80s, and I think I said if I had to do anything else except be me to be a model, I wasn’t going to do it. And fortunately, it worked out for me. I got first signed by the Wilhelmina Modeling Agency. I was at Wilhelmina for like 10 years and then Ford for the last 15.
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And then like about three years ago, I did this virtual show during COVID of my political pieces and was called Unapologetically Me, which Iona College ran at their gallery. And IMG Modeling Agency reached out to me and actually were representing me for a few years as well.
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Oh my God, you’re like a magnet for these people. Married, kids, tell everybody about your beautiful family.
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Beautiful wife, we’re going to be celebrating a 30th year anniversary this year.
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Yeah, she’s amazing.
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And we have a…
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Gwen, right?
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Gwen, yes. We have three kids together, Oliver, Matisse and and Bella But they’re all they’re all great and we all live in New Rochelle and we love the town of New Rochelle as you know Yeah, well a lot happening there right now a lot of them kind of regenerating of
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Spirit there although I’m not so sure I like all the giant buildings that have gone up It feels a bit Canyon like to me. I live, you know, I’m a water girl. But it is creating a lot of new energy in the city and I think Nevershell, New York has one of the best array of restaurants, I mean really, in the whole New York area. I mean, if you haven’t been there, just check out, just pick any one of them. Go to Alvin’s
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first. We’ve got some good places. We’ve got my restaurant, of course, Alvin and Friends, we have Dubrovnik, we have Posto, we have Maria’s. They’ve got some really, really lovely restaurants in New Rochelle. And the great thing about New Rochelle is it’s probably one of the most diverse communities in Westchester.
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That’s why I like it. And it’s so beautiful. That’s why I like it. Now look, your art is, as you would describe it, and actually I described it for you, colorful art of people of color. But it does draw everybody’s attention and appreciation. It’s not limited to who loves what you do, which is the magic of what you do.
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Well, I think what I try to do with my art is it speaks to people’s humanity. And I think our humanity is very much connected and is a common ground. And I think if you reach to humanity, color becomes out of the picture. You get yourself into that situation. So what I try to do with my art is to bring the viewer into that moment or that situation and say, wow, you know what, I’ve experienced that with my friend. And it’s not about color because we all experience it.
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We have more in common than we do that separates us, I believe.
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I made you laugh the other day. You showed me one of your latest paintings. You’ve got the guys around the table, right? And the one guy was sitting there and I go, hey, it looks like my cousin, my Italian cousin from Florida. I recently did an interview here on WGCH about the Alzheimer’s Association and an amazing gala which is one of the many things that helps fundraise for this national organization but in the local market where we broadcast Greenwich, Connecticut, the Greenwich Gala at the Delamore Hotel coming up this month is a really big deal.
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So I had the chairman and his wife, Tim Halstein, and his wife, Kelly, who their mom had, his mom had Alzheimer’s and they lost her to it and, you know, very passionate about helping fund what is now becoming important research that’s changing and making a difference in the treatment of Alzheimer’s. So Alvin, I happened to see right after that interview, and one of the things he’s showing me on his phone in the restaurant while I’m drinking, I don’t know what was I drinking, 24, because it was late in the night, is a woman who he was sitting next to in a doctor’s office.
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0:15:33
You can tell the story. Yes, so I was sitting, this woman, her daughter brought her in actually, she had Alzheimer’s and the daughter had to go in for her appointment. She asked me if I could keep an eye on her mom while she was in. I said, of course. And so while she was there, I was looking at her. She was dressed really lovely. You could tell she had style and grace.
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0:15:51
And there was something about her aura that just seemed to be, you could tell she was a beautiful person even though a lot was missing right now. And she was going into her pocketbook and somehow this image came out that she’s searching for a pocketbook of lost memories. And so I did this painting and with my colors and everything else, I researched what the symbol was for Alzheimer’s and so on the pocketbook that she had, instead of having a Saint Laurent or one of the trademarks, I had this insignia for the Alzheimer’s Association. And so the painting, even though it deals with this woman, she has this beautiful, angelic look on her face, and she’s going into this bag, and even though it’s a devastating thing,
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there’s a beauty about the painting. And so I think that’s what the Alzheimer’s Association related to, so we actually are planning on working, facilitated by you, on working on doing a collaboration where the painting can be used to help raise funds for the organization.
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So that was the end of the story. I said, oh, wait a minute now. Because I always go, wait a minute, I see a connection. I am business-like. Why don’t we take this and show them to the Alzheimer’s? Maybe they can use this to fundraise. And so I’ve made the introduction, and hopefully there’ll be something of your work
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at the gala coming up this month. Yes. Moving fast, moving fast. Yes, absolutely. That’s the kind of stuff I really love to do with my time on this planet.
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You’re so good at that too.
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I don’t know what it is, it’s my art. It’s the art of, I don’t know, seeing opportunities between people and then bringing them together to make something actually happen instead of just thinking about it, talking about it someday. And yet there are so many things in my personal life that I can’t get to. It’s frightening. What aggravates you about yourself? You seem so perfect. You’re good looking, you’re skinny, you’ve got good food, you’ve got the art,
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everything seems to be fine. You’ve got a nice family. What’s not going good? What do you don’t
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like? You know, I worry about things and I’m very people-oriented, so there are little things that I know that needs to be done and if it’s not taken care of right away, I worry about it. And it’s sometimes to a fault. I mean, I used to, when we first opened the restaurant, I would have 100 people in the restaurant, 99 people would have an amazing time. The one person that did not have the perfect experience would wake me out of my sleep.
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Son of a gun.
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I mean, that’s, you know, and I’ve gotten a bit better on it, but that still bothers me. I’m really genuinely people-oriented, and so my whole thing is to seeing people being in a good space and I think that’s what I do with my art too.
I mean I paint what some of the issues are that’s bothering us and dividing us or whatever but while I’m painting that I’m also thinking okay we know what the bad things are, what are the solutions, right? And so that’s always the final chapter of whatever I do, it’s solution.
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0:18:51
Speaking of solution, that leads right into one of the pictures I posted that you showed me, also a brand new one about your vision of world peace. Can you describe it to those who are listening? And then of course if you want to see what we’re talking about, it’s on the Debbie Nigro Show Facebook page, Alvin’s beautiful piece of work. Does it have a name?
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0:19:08
You know what, I’m searching for Neverland, I guess, or Oz, searching for arts i believe and because it deals with the the situation that we’re in right now which is so devastating the the israeli palestinian situation and you know it it it’s such an egregious thing happened on the seventh right we we all witnessed that
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that there’s no excuse for it and what’s going on now with innocent people suffering in because war is not easy and it’s very hard and I don’t protest to be in the shoes of anyone But I do know that my humanity makes me be sad for both situations I am too and so this painting that I created I created a Palestinian and Israeli Young kids sitting down together because they’re the future hoping that they can come to a solution where everybody can kind of live in peace. And you know, I basically put it as Oz because, you know, Oz was a dream, right?
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And what you had to have, what they were looking for was already inside them. So the will to have peace is going to be, it’s going to come out of these two peoples coming together and really figuring out what’s best for each of them.
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It’s a very thoughtful piece of art. How long did it take you to do?
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I probably did that in about a week. It’s a large piece and I had some other pieces that I had done with it, with what the situation, what the problems were, but I really wanted to come to a place where I can have a solution.
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0:20:42
So the art you make, and I’m looking at Denzel Washington’s face, I love him, you’re standing with him and of course you and many celebrities collect your work. How does that happen? Do they come into the restaurant and see your stuff? Does somebody show them your stuff? How does that work?
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So I lived in Los Angeles for nine years. And actually, I was partners in a restaurant that actually Denzel was an investor in.
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0:21:03
Really?
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It was called Georgia. It was on Melrose. And so being out there and being in the movie industry, a lot of the movie people, with Denzel being associated with the restaurant, came into the restaurant. So that’s kind of how I met most of these celebrities and we became friends and they started collecting my work. And off we go!
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0:21:21
Well you are just so much fun to have as my guest today Alvin Clayton. If you’re just tuning in and you don’t know about Alvin and Friends, the awesome restaurant in New Rochelle, New York, please go see for yourself. Alvin will be there, you can’t miss him. He’s the most charming one. He’ll come over and show you pictures from his phone of the art that he’s doing. And do you have a website, Alvin?
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0:21:41
Yes, so I have an Instagram page and it’s Alvin Clayton Artists.
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0:21:45
Alvin Clayton Artists, not difficult at all. I can only wish you the great rest of your day today and I will see you soon. It’s been very joyful having you here today.
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0:21:54
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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