ArtsXpose 3

NAME: Margarita Vilshanetskaya

artsXpose

Title of Event

Tea Time with Anthony Fontana

Date & Time of Event

Friday, January 25, 2008 3:30 pm

Location of Event

ceramics room- art building

Type of event (Only the events listed below fulfill the artsXpose requirement):

Please Bold and Underline the event attended:

Visiting Artist Lectures Exhibition* (non-course related)

Films** Plays

Arts Related Field Trips Recitals***

Poetry / Literary Readings Arts Related Conferences

Arts Related Symposia, discussion/reading groups or workshops

Attendance of Art Club Meeting****

*Exhibition visits must not be course-related (for example, if we visit an exhibition as a class you may not count this exhibition as an artsXpose event.

**Films must be part of a Univ. dept. sponsored film series—Not films sponsored by the Student Union.

***University Sponsored Recitals only.

****Clubs may only count as one event regardless of the number of clubs or the number of meetings attended during a term

1.) Provide a brief detail-oriented technical description or summary of the event you attended. This section should remain journalistic and should not be reflective of your opinion.

Art professor Anthony Fontana spoke of his past and current works he has produced throughout his life. Some of his past works include a series of paintings that have a sexual theme to them. His more current works include his graphic novel called The Dogs set in Cleveland and his work with Second Life. In Second Life, Anthony produced his own virtual reality character and shows how his character interacts with the virtual environment. In his new machinima for Second Life, Anthony added many of his own art pieces to Second Life and explained how each of his art pieces have affected his virtual self and transformed his face and body into its own work of art. When he showed all of his art work, he said that he was not a master of just one area but enjoyed doing a little bit of everything when it came to making art. He takes pride in doing his own projects and enjoys being his own boss.

2.) Use the section below to write a well-structured paragraph focusing on your personal critical insight / response to the event. How did you interpret or react to what was presented to you?

I felt that Anthony did a great job presenting all of the information he wanted to share in such a short amount of time. Even though he already presented most of his art works in my 2D foundations class, I learned a lot more about the professor that was going to be teaching me the basics of 2D art. Actually seeing his earlier and current works showed that he was very talented in not just one area of art but in many areas. I really enjoyed hearing about his graphic novel and would like to read it in its entirety. Also, I was really surprised to hear that the novel was not published yet because I felt that it was a very original idea. His involvement with and dedication to Second Life shows me how important this learning virtual environment is to him.

3.) What information, ideas, images, etc. most impressed you and why?

I found all of Anthony’s works impressive because it seems that he is good at everything he does from painting, drawing scenes for his graphic novel, writing the story for the novel, and working with Second Life to make a new identity for himself. This was the first time I had ever heard of Second Life so it was very interesting to learn about this virtual world where people can have avatars that interact with one another and live in this new environment that is completely different from the real world. Another thing that impressed me was the concept behind the characters of The Dogs. I have never heard of people dressing up as animals and calling themselves “The Fuzzies”. Also, it was interesting the way that Anthony depicted these characters in the novel. In some of the images, he drew the characters wearing their animal masks but he also added images of them as if they were really animals. He showed the characters’ points of view of what was happening in the story very well.

4.) Overall, how would you rate this event (10 being the most worthwhile)?
(10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 )

5.) Justify your rating in the question above:

Anthony’s lecture about his past and current works was very interesting because I was able to get a better look on what kind of artist he is outside of what I see in the classroom. I did not give this lecture a ten because I felt like Anthony was being rushed since tea time only lasted an hour. Also, I would have liked to know more about his comic book The Dogs because I felt that this was a great accomplishment for him that should be acknowledged. I am sure more people would like to know about this work and more about how he came up with the idea behind the story line.