In artist Jesse Tomasello’s basement studio/workshop in Ocean Acres, he’s surrounded by paintings in progress, tools and supplies related to his many different creative pursuits, a string of lights, and … something that looks like a gorilla.

He ran to fetch it to offer a better look. It’s a sculptural headpiece, like a mascot head, made out of a pool filter, a relic from his days of building aboveground pools.

“Everyone has decided it’s a gorilla,” he explained with a wide grin, then set it aside, confessing, “I have a hard…