After 40 years of creating, Anthony Frudakis showcased his life’s work in the Daughtrey Gallery on Friday, Oct. 11 at 5 p.m, which will remain open until Nov. 20. 

Frudakis, associate professor of art at Hillsdale, displayed around 40 pieces for the exhibit, including sculptures, drawings, and a few paintings, according to Frudakis. 

“This took 40 years to prepare; a year for each piece,” Frudakis said. 

Although the exhibit did not have a dedicated theme, Frudakis said he could see themes running through his work. 

“When the work came together there were a couple themes running through it,” Frudakis said. “It is all about being from life.”

Among many lively sculptures and drawings in the exhibit, Frudakis modeled two of his pieces after Amelia Earhart, who in 1932 became the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932. 

“I competed for the Amelia Earhart statue in Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.,” Frudakis said. “The tall figure represents my tentative stature and the portrait was to show that I could capture her likeness.” 

Although Frudakis did not win the commission, he was a finalist in the competition. According to Frudakis, he was also a finalist for sculpting a statue of Rosa Parks. 

Frudakis said each art piece selected for the gallery has a story behind it, and some are more simple than others, particularly one pastel piece displayed in the gallery. 

“I used to live in Saline and would commute,” Frudakis said. “I was struck one day by this one very pretty stretch of the road and the landscape up from it, so I used that as my inspiration.”

Frudakis said the exhibit had been two years in the works after assistant professor of art Roxanne Kaufman approached him about it. 

“The department reached out to me and they were kind enough to be very supportive to get it all together, it took about six months,” Frudakis said. 

According to Frudakis a significant part of his work is the use of live models, particularly the use of those in his classes. 

“It is important to wrestle with the challenges of working with light,” Frudakis said. “It is about making sure to capture the values.”

For the past 33 years Frudakis has taught drawing, sculpting, plaster casting, and artistic anatomy at the college. 

“One important value that I teach my students is variety and unity,” Frudakis said. “Especially understanding the definition of beauty.” 

For Frudakis, his own artistic philosophy motivates him to teach art students. 

“I try to teach them that whether you are doing a portrait, doing a figure, or you are sculpting or drawing you want all the parts to be a part of the organic, cohesive whole,” Frudakis said. “I want them to see what is the underlying design in nature that embodies or manifests.”

It is a part of the process of learning how to do art, Frudakis explained, especially when students are inspired by other artists. 

“There is the profound relationship between the particular and the whole, which is something we can easily just assign to our daily lives as we deal with one another,” he said. “Although we are individual and discrete we are in fact united in our spiritual life and at the level of form and being.” 

Although Frudakis’s gallery took 40 years of work to come together, he said it was a collaborative effort of all those around him. 

“It all bears my name but it is a collaborative process and that makes it more meaningful to the artist as a person,” Frudakis said. “Yes, the art is important, but the life of the artist transcends the work, especially in sculpting.” 

Sophomore Madeline Gardner attended the opening day of the gallery and said liveliness was  a common theme between the pieces. 

“I really liked the sculptures with the very expressive hair,” Gardner said. “They had a lot of movement, there was a lot of caring the way he looked at people, I felt like he was really seeing through people and seeing how they were thinking or feeling.” 

Freshman Gabrielle Wood, who intends to major in art, attended the opening day of the exhibit. 

“I thought all the pieces showed a little facet of humanity,” Wood said. “Each of them either showed a moment of joy, contentment, or despair. I was also very impressed with all of the life drawings.” 

For Frudakis, the collaborative efforts of the exhibit made the gallery possible. 

“And a shout out to professor Kaufman’s and her crew for the beautiful job they did hanging up and setting up the gallery.”