{"id":46069,"date":"2019-04-08T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/how-an-arizona-artist-came-to-make-this-years-folk-festival-poster\/"},"modified":"2019-04-09T11:52:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T19:52:09","slug":"how-an-arizona-artist-came-to-make-this-years-folk-festival-poster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/how-an-arizona-artist-came-to-make-this-years-folk-festival-poster\/","title":{"rendered":"Folk Fest: Meet the artist behind this year’s poster design"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t

The 2019 Alaska Folk Festival poster has Juneau roots, even if they might not be obvious.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

The piece was made by Mesa, Arizona, resident Jonny Antoni, and he titled his work “Legends.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“It was a blast,” Antoni said during a phone interview with the Capital City Weekly. “I loved doing it.”<\/p>\n

\"Artist<\/a>

Artist Jonny Antoni, seen here fishing near Yakobi Island on Cross Sound in September 2018, is a Mesa, Arizona resident and designed the poster for this Alaska Folk Festival. (Courtesy Photo | Jonny Antoni)<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t

Each year, new artwork is made for folk fest, and it graces posters and merchandise. A gallery of posters dating back to 1976 is available through akfolkfest.org. <\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Antoni’s artwork references the festival’s history — this year is the 45th annual folk fest — as well as its Juneau setting via mountains, a towering conifer and a bear.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

The tall tree and negative space created by a dark border combine to create the distinct outline of a stringed instrument.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Antoni said he was specifically inspired by the curvaceous shape of a stand-up bass, but it’s a stand-in for just about any string instrument.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

[Alaska Folk Festival guest artists have bajo sexto appeal<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“The bass is a lot of fun to look at,” Antoni said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

The poster’s title was also worked into the piece.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“I think this year’s artwork is spectacular,” said Ian Putnam, Alaska Folk Festival board president.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Putnam said he first became aware of Antoni and his work a few years ago.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“I was living in a house in Douglas, and one of my housemates was his sister,” Putnam said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Antoni came to live in that house for a stretch, and Putnam remembers being thoroughly impressed by something Antoni made as a thank-you gesture.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

The artist cut out shapes from a devil’s club leaf to create a fox’s face.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“It just seemed very Southeast Alaska folk art,” Putnam said. “It’s kind of how this relationship got started.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Putnam said the work was commissioned, but declined to say how much was paid for the art that Antoni estimated took about 20 hours over the course of a few months to complete.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

However, Putnam said it was less than would normally be paid for similarly involved work. He said generally, folk fest logo designers understand they’re working for a festival that does not pay performers or charge admission.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“The artists in these cases understand what this festival is all about,” Putnam said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

[2019 folk fest schedule<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Antoni does have first-hand experience with Alaska Folk Festival, but he won’t be going to it this year because of a broken collar bone.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“I’ve been to two, but I’m not going to make it to this one,” he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\u2022 Contact arts and culture reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907) 523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.<\/b><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

<\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nature is instrumental for the design. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":46070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[73,555,175],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-46069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-ccw","tag-live-music","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46069"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=46069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}