A Bowling Green State University professor who has been involved in the creation of art cars for more than two decades will be a guest speaker at the Toledo Museum of Art as part of its Life Is a Highway exhibition.
Matt Donahue, a senior lecturer in BGSU’s department of pop culture, will explore the role of the art car in popular culture at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in the Little Theater. His free talk coincides with an art car-themed car show from noon to 3 p.m. on Monroe Street in front of the museum.
Donahue said he became interested in art cars after participating in a rolling sculptures art exhibit in Chicago in 1995.
“There were a ton of art cars there. I was really inspired and other artists there said ‘If you are really inspired, you have to go to Houston, Texas,’” Donahue said, noting that he exhibited art cars at the Houston show about 15 times.
Donahue has created 20 art cars over the years, some which have been exhibited in Austin, Seattle, Detroit, Baltimore and other destinations throughout the United States. He has shared his love of art car creation with the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo’s Young Artists At Work program, the Boys and Girls Club of East Toledo, and a special needs kids program in Glasgow, Scotland.
At the talk, Donahue will examine the history of the art car – where the exterior of a vehicle becomes the canvas – from the hot rods in the 1950s that first made the genre popular, to modern day.
■ Several local studios are offering art classes and workshops this weekend and beyond.
At Art Supply Depo, participants can paint a vineyard scene in pastel and watercolor from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, with artist Mary Jane Erard.
The class is $35 and is for anyone interested, regardless of skill level. Bring your own vineyard photos or some will be provided.
Other classes available this weekend at the Art Supply Depo’s Bowling Green studio include creating an art resin and alcohol ink pendant with artist Stephanie Scigliano from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, and creating a floral painting on a birch panel from 2 to 4 p.m., Saturday with artist Kati Kleimola.
At the Hands-On Studio at Toledo Botanical Garden, participants can learn how to make handmade art papers from recycled materials, flower petals and other materials, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, with artist Kelly Savino.
Both the Art Supply Depo and the Fuller Art House in Sylvania offer multi-week workshops to learn a medium, including a six-week watercolor course with artist Larry Golba at Fuller Art House.
■ The Sylvania Community Arts Commission is throwing a fund-raising party that celebrates the arts in the city.
The event will be from 6 to 9 p.m., Sept. 26 at the Chandler Cafe. The annual party honors artist Dave Wisniewski, who is known for his large-scale paintings of the Wild West.
The event will include an exhibition of Wisnieski’s work, and silent and live auctions that include a piece by Wisniewski and a stay at an apartment in Valencia, Spain.
Funds raised from the event fund the Sylvania Community Arts Commission.
■ Former Libbey Inc. design and creative director Robert Zollweg has been awarded the most recent Guest Artist Pavilion Project, an artist in residence program at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Zollweg, a recent retiree from Libbey, is going to be experimenting with making glass by hand using sand casting during his residency in the museum’s Hot Shop, from Sept. 18-27.
The museum’s GAPP program allows artists the opportunity to create new work in glass.
The public is invited to a free talk given by Zollweg at 7 p.m., Sept. 26, in the GlasSalon.
First Published September 12, 2019, 1:06 a.m.
