Alum’s Celebrity Portraits Signed and Featured in Hollywood

“[Back in college] if you told me I'd be working with Al Pacino, and he'd be signing my art, I'd say, ‘That’s crazy. That's never going to happen.’”  

And yet, for Michael Ferrari, Northampton Community College (NCC) alum, that “crazy” path is exactly where life took him.  

Currently working as both Chief Operating Officer of Celebrity Authentics, an East Stroudsburg based company that sells authenticated celebrity-signed art and collectables, and as a celebrity-based artist in his own right, Ferrari’s work is constantly pushing the boundaries of creativity. He credits his NCC experience as a communication design student with starting him on that path, constantly looking to improve his work.  

“When I was at Northampton, I had fantastic professors,” Ferrari recalls. “Every time you did your work, they’d go, ‘Oh, that's good. Now push it.’ Today, in everything I do, I still hear that voice… ‘How can it be better?’” 

Ferrari received this kind of encouragement throughout his extensive NCC education, which included an associate in applied science degree in communication design as well as three specialized diplomas (in multimedia, computer animation, and web site design).  

This background led him to a bachelor's degree in art and design from East Stroudsburg University and an ensuing career in graphic design, including eight years as a designer for boutique agency Thornton Creative. When that agency closed and former client Celebrity Authentics offered Ferrari a position, he jumped at the chance.  

He’s been jumping into opportunities ever since – from helping design the floorplan for Celebrity Authentics’ storefront on CityWalk Hollywood in California, to creating his own artwork for the company’s impressive collection of signed merchandise.  

Ferrari’s artwork, celebrity and film-inspired portraits bursting with color and movement, has brought him face to face with the likes of Michael J. Fox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daniel Craig, the aforementioned Al Pacino, and many more.  

How did he go from graphic designer to in-demand artist? Ferrari himself somewhat can’t believe it, but looking back, the path seems completely clear. In his work with Celebrity Authentics, Ferrari and his team were constantly on the lookout for new collectable opportunities – something new and different that hadn’t been done before. Ferrari’s creative wheels began to turn, and he “started playing around in Photoshop.”  

“I just wanted to do something that was really colorful, really expressive, but kind of not straightforward,” Ferrari said. And the bold, colorful, splatter-paint style portraits that came out of this brainstorming were exactly what the company was looking for.  

In the past 11 years of creating art for Celebrity Authentics, Ferrari continues to tap into his graphic design roots, using Photoshop to lay out his artwork as prints and, when time allows, hand painting them using acrylics and spray paint. His prints and paintings, then signed by the actors and actresses that inspired them, go on to be displayed and sold to movie fans around the world.  

“I never really thought that was going to happen,” Ferrari recalls when discussing this transition in his career. “In my mind, I was just going to do graphic design. The fact that I went from that into now painting paintings is something I didn't anticipate or expect.” 

But Ferrari credits that element of the unexpected with getting him to this point in his career.  

“I think where I am today is because of opportunities. When they were presented, I took them, even when they might have seemed hard or difficult or something that maybe I wasn't totally prepared for.” 

Another surprising aspect of Ferrari’s career is the travel and logistics side of his work. Living in East Stroudsburg and creating larger-than-life paintings that need to get to California to be signed and displayed creates a new kind of challenge that happens behind the scenes. 

One of the hallmarks of the Celebrity Authentics brand is that every piece they sell is hand-signed by the celeb in-person, which takes a lot of planning. They often operate within short windows of time – unpacking all the artwork and collectables, getting them signed, and packing them right back up again.  

“It’s a lot of details and hard work to make these happen,” Ferrari says. “We take it really seriously.”   

From coast-to-coast travel to design work to painting celebrity portraits, Ferrari’s work has certainly taken him to many interesting places over the years. But he is quick to recall his days at NCC and the impression they left on him – right down to the art pieces on display in Communications Hall.  

After productive late-night sessions in the media lab, collaborating and brainstorming with his fellow students, Ferrari remembers looking at the featured artwork on the hallway walls and thinking how cool it would be to have his own work on display. Today, he feels very humbled to find himself in that very position.  

“It’s funny how time and circumstance changes things,” he says. “It’s really cool to now be talking about that, because I didn’t ever think I’d be making fine art.” 

Ferrari’s bold, vibrant artwork can be viewed and purchased through his website: https://www.michaelferrariart.com.