Congress of Curious Peoples Workshop: Sideshow Mini Banner Painting Workshop with Toni-Lee Sangastiano

In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore the bold visual language of traditional sideshow banner painting. The workshop will cover canvas prep, techniques, image transfer options, color choices, and storytelling through spectacle. All supplier contact info will be shared along with how I have modified my techniques depending on space and climate. Participants will leave with their own gessoed small banner, a color sketch for their banner to paint, and an understanding of how this historic form of American folk advertising blends illustration, typography, and performance.

Bio: Toni-Lee Sangastiano is a contemporary painter and one of the leading sideshow banner artists in the United States. While studying at Fairleigh Dickinson University, with Marie Roberts and Dick Zigun, she painted her first banners for Coney Island’s Sideshows by the Seashore in 1996.

Her work and the tradition of the American sideshow banner have been featured on Ink Master, Sideshow: Alive on the Inside, The Discovery Channel, Atlas Obscura, Poozeum, and in Smithsonian Magazine. Her paintings and installations have been exhibited at the Yale School of Art, the Shelburne Museum, the Robert Hull Fleming Museum, and the Tate Modern in London.

She holds an MFA from Montclair State University and a PhD in Visual Arts from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.

 *Students will go home with their own prepped mini banner, the design sketch laid out, painting begun and the knowledge of how to prep and complete full size banner projects. Mini canvas, gesso, brushes, colored pencils and paints provided.