A Face in the Crowd….

On Saturday, April 8, at Sac State, I attended a film screening of local ceramic artist Tony Natsoulas.  The film was a documentary of Natsoulas’ career, entitled Tony Natsoulas: A Face in the Crowd, and was directed and produced by Ben Fargen, a longtime friend of Natsoulas.  According to Fargen, this project took around 15 months to complete, which included researching, conducting interviews, and sorting through archived sources and materials of Natsoulas’ career.  Overall, the documentary spanned from Natsoulas’ early career, starting with his undergraduate work at UC Davis, and ended with where he is currently.  I have had the opportunity to meet and work with Tony, so I personally enjoyed this film, as I was able to see the bigger picture of who he is.

Natsoulas grew up in Davis, completing his undergraduate and graduate studies at UC Davis under the teaching of legendary ceramic artist Robert (Bob) Arneson.  Arneson’s influence on Natsoulas’ work is pretty recognizable; Natsoulas even created several portrait pieces to honor his late professor.  Natsoulas’ sculptures are figurative, many of which are life size.  Their exaggerated features reference caricature drawings, providing humorous and whimsical elements to the work.  Natsoulas said he is influenced by childhood comics and cartoons such as Rat Fink.  In describing his work, Natsoulas says that he is interested in motion and action, and despite his sculptures being static, he tries to create a feeling like they could come alive at any moment.

Big Daddy Roth (Portrait of Ed Roth with Rat Fink)

Ceramic, wire, and hand blown glass

47"x28"x20"

Bob (Portrait of Robert Arneson)

Ceramic, Metal, and Wood

96"x22"x28"

Overall, I found the film to be very informative, as it presented an broad, but clear, summary of Tony’s career.  A career that extensive and prolific would be difficult to capture in an hour and a half documentary, so I felt it did a good job highlighting specific events and works of art—including backstories and inspiration around certain sculptures— and was completmented by commentary of friends and colleagues.

photo of Tony Natsoulas at the film screening

photo of the director/producer Ben Fargen at the film screening