Photographs: Danielle Moir
Biographical Sketch
Marc Fasanella holds a PhD in Art & Art Education from New York University and was a professor of Art and Architecture, as well as Ecological and Graphic Design for three decades. He has worked extensively as an independent curator, design build specialist in wood and landscape, and served as an environmental non-profit founder / director.
Marc began his academic training in the New York State University system as an undergraduate in Industrial Arts, a program akin to Bauhaus education in that he was introduced to design philosophy and received technical training ranging from drafting to ceramics, graphics to electronics, metalwork to photography. His Masters degree from New York University in Post Secondary Technology and Industrial Education focused on teaching students to use industrial skill for socially responsible design. Marc’s concentrated interests were passive solar architecture and the British method of Craft, Design, and Technology education. As a doctoral candidate in Art and Art Education he studied aesthetics and the philosophy of nature. His dissertation, The Environmental Design of Jones Beach State Park, delved into the geology, economics, politics, environmental impact, and aesthetics of the park’s construction.
For thirty years Marc served as lead executor for the Ralph Fasanella estate collection. He has curated exhibits, written articles and lectured about his father, a self-taught social realist painter. Marc also authored the monograph Ralph Fasanella: Images of Optimism published by Pomegranate Press.
A skilled afro-cuban percussionist he has been a founding member of a jazz / world quartet, and quintet with whom he performed extensively on the East End of Long Island.
He recently completed the reconstruction of Friendship Cottage where he resided with his wife Anne Moyer for eight years. Friendship is a 600 square foot 1920’s cottage Marc re-envisioned in a craftsman style and framed within a .18 of an acre evergreen / perennial, naturalized coastal garden featuring extensive dry stack and mortared fieldstone masonry.
Marc now undertakes an Epicurean* life of creative, intellectual, and physical pursuit in the areas of Art, Craft, Design, Ecology, Essay, Food, Folk / Punk Doggerel / Poetics, Percussion, and Yoga.
* Epicurean philosophy was conceived in 307 BCE by Greek scholar Epicurus. Epicurians believe the greatest good is to seek modest, sustainable pleasure through achieving a state of ataraxia (tranquility and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of bodily pain) by gaining knowledge of the workings of the world. Classical Epicurians largely withdraw from politics that lead to ambition and frustration and pursue a simple life of virtue and peace of mind.
