Meet Philly-based Artist Anthony Visco
Anthony Visco is a Philadelphia, PA-based visual artist, specializing in sculpture, mural painting, and relief composition. Visit his website, Facebook page, or send him an email at viscosacredarts@gmail.com.
CATHOLIC ARTIST CONNECTION: Where are you from originally, and what brought you to Philadelphia?
ANTHONY VISCO: I was born and raised in Philadelphia and have lived and taught in Florence, Italy as well
How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist?
I see my vocation as Catholic artist as a gift that I could have never given to myself. As for a personal mission, it is my ministry to learn and teach others who have the same calling.
Where have you found support in the Church for your vocation as an artist?
Our Catholic colleges and universities need to do much much more. There is not one Catholic college and university the country that offers a worthy BFA or MFA in secular art, let alone a degree in sacred art.
Where have you found support among your fellow artists for your Catholic faith?
We are at a critical mass of some very talented Catholic artists who still remain relatively unknown in part due to other Catholic artists who never mention their fellow artists. The greatest help in bringing us together thus far has been the internet.
How can the Church be more welcoming to artists?
By educating seminarians, donors, and clients. By using living artists from their communities or neighboring communities instead of purchasing those over the counter and catalog works. Recognize that the workers are plenty and have heard the call of the Wine Master. Now the stewards must open the gates to the vineyards.
How can the artistic world be more welcoming to artists of faith?
I'm not sure the secular world can be more welcoming without the gift of faith. It certainly won't happen in our art colleges, and galleries where artists of faith, especially those who actually make sacred art, are not welcomed. I think it is more the question as to how can the Church and all its artistic patrimony can be more inviting and inspiring to the artist of no faith.
How have you found or built community as a Catholic artist in Philadelphia?
With my classes here I now have a community of Catholic artists including seminarians and priests. We come together regularly for art sessions. We work and pray and break bread together on a regular basis.
What is your daily spiritual practice?
First in the mornings, I go to the daily Mass readings, then to Lauds (part of the Liturgy of the Hours). I also keep a log of my personal favorite prayers and novenas. I long to have a spiritual director, but cannot find one here, and those I had have either died or have been transferred elsewhere.
What is your daily artistic practice?
My daily practice starts the night before as i make my lists. Then, after morning prayer, I begin my studio work, which depends on what phase I am one in any given work. It could be the beginning, or the middle or the end of a commission. At times they overlap which can make it quite complicated but interesting.
What brings you the most joy when living out your vocation as an artist?
When I can see that my content and compositions are one, and when I show them to my fellow Catholic artists. When I have my students achieve their goals. When I learn that the work I was called to do fulfills the spiritual needs of my clients and their donors.
How do you afford housing and financially support yourself as an artist?
By my studio work and teaching. I live by an old adage, "Every good Florentine keeps his shop and his shop keeps him." I have always done whatever it takes to keep the studio opened. Sometimes that can mean juggling various jobs in order to do it all. Work often begets more work when one is a free lance artist. Work for hire can rarely bring that. As for neighborhoods, Philadelphia is tricky and sadly no neighborhood is safe from crime or drugs right now. It can be a great place to nurture your craft but not a great marketplace for gallerists.
How do you market your art?
For my career word of mouth has always the best way and one commission often begets another when seen and witnessed. When young Catholic artists ask me how does one get a commission i have always recommended the same thing; give yourself one.
What advice do you have for Catholic artists?
Keep your faith, let others know what you do, and keep the practice regardless.
Anthony Visco, director of the Atelier for the Sacred Arts, graduated from the University of the Arts, where he received Fulbright–Hayes Grant to travel and study in Florence, Italy. In 1975, he was awarded the Elizabeth T. Greenshields Grant for figurative sculpture. He also received the coveted Arthur Ross Award twice for sculpture within an classical architectural setting for his triptych reliefs at the Catherine Pew Memorial Chapel at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian and the Stations of the Cross at St. Joseph Church in Philadelphia. He has taught at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as well as New York Academy of Art and currently teaches artistic anatomy, signs and symbols of Catholic art, relief composition and drawing at the Sacred Art School/ Firenze. With many ecclesiastic commissions, Visco’s sculptures, murals, and reliefs adorn the National Shrine of Saint Rita of Cascia also in Philadelphia as well as the Via Crucis in bronze relief for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI, where he also made the Guardian Angel of the Unborn in the shrine’s Memorial to the Unborn there.