Anthony Billoni came late to art. He really didn’t think much about it until he took a photography course in his senior year of high school. Then he built on his budding interest in music by photographing some of the local bands in Western New York in the late ‘70s. He was listening to Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Genesis and German avant-garde with his friends. One summer he printed about 1,000 photos of his friends that he had been taking over the previous 2 years and the urge to create was awakened.
Then the summer of 1977 everything changed. He and his friends heard the Clash and the Sex Pistols for the first time. Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Patti Smith and a rush of local bands would follow. He would bring his 35mm camera everywhere chronicling the art and music scene into the early ‘80s. Performance art followed as did two original music bands.
Eventually, Billoni took a gig at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo as performance art curator. He was the first person to book Karen Finley anywhere outside of university. He was the only one who answered her hand written letter. Much more than performing and making art Billoni was excited to be bringing art and audiences together.
He started by finding unusual venues to book his own bands. This interest grew and rallied support from other scensters in 1984 when Billoni founded the Artists & Models Affair – an annual fashion/art rave before they called them raves.
Two night clubs followed and then a bit of settling down and self-reflexive thinking about what he had started. In the ‘90s he discovered the Creative Problem Solving Institute. It was the first place he saw adults acting like people did at his parties in the sunlight and without being drunk or high. Not that there is anything wrong with that!!
By 2000 he had drunk the kool aid dispensed by Sid Parnes at Buffalo State College and he met the girl of his dreams. The both walked down the yellow brick road with Sid, Bea and hundreds of others to get their masters in creativity at Buffalo State College and celebrate it each year at CPSI. He began the art experience as his thesis and for the last 10 years he has been refining it to what you are able to experience today – The Art Diary.
