I’ve been working on a few new pieces this semester. The work deals with both personal narratives taken from my own Zen practice and visual iconographies from historical and popular culture.

Darth Mudra

A pair of Darth Vader gloves in the traditional dharmakaya mudra of zazen.

Fist Bumpin Buddha

A bronze cast sculpture of a Buddha… ready to fist bump.

Arts Commission of Greater Toledo Announces Fontana, Stroud, Yarnell Exhibition

The Fontana, Stroud, Yarnell Exhibition will be on display March 7 thru April 22, 2011 in the Parkwood Gallery.  The public is invited to join us for a reception for the exhibition on Friday, March 11 from 6 to 8 pm.

The artists in this exhibition are united in their use of familiar materials calling into question our daily routines, realities and common assumptions.

Anthony Fontana, Learning Technologies Consultant and an Instructor of Art at Bowling Green State University,  uses a conceptual approach to create a dialogue between traditional art and the internet.  Using familiar art materials, like pencils, a sketchbook, a linoleum block and paper, he upturns our preconceived notions of what art is by interjecting supposed high art with contemporary internet experiences and ironic humor.

Another artist, Evaleigh Stroud, carefully considers the power of her materials in her current series of work.  Her mixed media sculpture explores gender roles through pairing the craft of knitting with the iconic and in some cases commonplace subject matter of guns.  The soft, glitter embedded yarn of her knitted firearms ask the viewer to question this powerful historical and contemporary symbol.  Stroud is currently working towards her BFA in Studio Fine Arts at the University of Toledo.

Last, but certainly not least, the work of Meghan Yarnell rounds out the conversation with social as well as personal commentary regarding the long-standing values of wealth, beauty and happiness.  Yarnell enjoys imparting imagery on everyday, functional ceramic vessels to encourage the viewer to reflect upon our social norms while eating breakfast or drinking the morning coffee.  Yarnell received her BFA in 3-D Studies at Bowling Green State University in 2005.

The Parkwood Gallery is open Monday thru Friday 8:30 am – 4:30pm and is located at 1838 Parkwood Avenue, Suite 120 off of Monroe Street in Downtown Toledo.

The Arts Commission of Greater Toledo is the longest standing arts commission in the state of Ohio that develops and promotes the arts in the community, serving Northwest Ohio since 1959. www.acgt.org. 419-254-ARTS

http://www.acgt.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=40&Itemid=27

My work was recently reviewed by Mark Adams of MadeWithPassion.com:

I can imagine the artist trying to come up with the most absurd piece of modern sculpture to fit the name, finally settling on just grabbing a bunch of unsharpened pencils into a bundle, letting go, and thinking, “Art, lolz.”

Finally, someone who gets me.

The work is on exhibit from Oct. 20th – Nov. 28th at The Gallery Project in Ann Arbor, MI.

Photo courtesy of Mark Adams.

http://www.madewithpassion.com/whats-so-funny-2/

http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/mc/zoomnews/page86294.html

Today’s Downtown L.A. Film Festival video. The prompts from curator Christi Nielsen were:

Fuck the machine
Rule of engagement
“After that day, he no longer knew how to fly.”

I will be creating and exhibiting a number of short videos/maybe films with the Inter.sect Art Collective at this year’s Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles. Today’s is below. As many times before, Inter.sect Art Collective is a group of artists from around the country who create work by prompts. The prompt for the work below was ““I’m gonna share with you a vision I had because I love you.”

Last weekend I attended the Second Life Community Conference 2010 with my colleague and BGSU Virtual Campus Co-Administrator Bonnie Mitchell. Below you can find all 4 of the presentations we gave hosted on Slideshare.net and links to the Google Docs.

The newest piece in the #artfail series I’ve been working on:

An artwork titled “#sculpturefail” by Anthony Fontana. October, 2009. 700 pencils in a pile. Each pencil says “#artfail”.

Here’s a look at some of the drawings I’ve been working on. These are all small and stay in the book. I’m thinking about doing a larger series of them.

As the second summer semester came to an end, my Art 101 class in Second Life held a gallery opening on the final day of class. This opening and exhibition was open to the public and several SL residents and BGSU community members were in attendance! Visit the gallery by clicking on this SLURL:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/BGSU%20Collaboration/56/36/35

This exhibition includes two floors of artwork. The first floor hosts work created by Art 101 students influenced by works from history. The full assignment sheet can be seen here. Each work is presented next to the work that inspired it. You can read more about what inspired the students by clicking on each of the works in Second Life.

The exhibition also includes a show of artwork by practicing artists curated by Art 101 students. The assignment sheet for this show can be seen here. Each student interviewed the artist about their work. The interview can be read by clicking on each work in Second Life.

Images from throughout the semester, including the exhibition opening can be seen here:

Below are a few of the “Extra Credit” postcards and posters made for the exhibition.

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