Falls artist's NACC exhibit is on the dotted line

Imagine seeing a black and white picture detailed in such a way you would swear it came from a photograph. As you get a closer look, you find it is actually made up of nothing more than expertly placed dots.

That’s the kind of art you get from Alfred Ligammari, whose work will be featured at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center in the exhibit, “Fifty Years & Beyond,” The Pen & Ink/Stipple Works of A.D. Ligammari II.”

“Ever since I was a kid, my mom and dad (Leonora and Al, both artists) encouraged me to do art,” Ligammari said. “I spent junior high and high school in as many classes as I could.”

While going though some high school art textbooks, he was thrilled by the stipple dot style. Small dots are used to build up graduation of tone for an image, with more together showing a darker image. For the equivalent of an 8-by-10 inch photograph, Ligammari would spend 20 to 30 hours on it, with larger pieces taking upward of 100 hours.

“I created a self-portrait of me drawing and made a business card with that image,” Ligammari said. “I got a lot of clientele that wanted that style.”

After becoming a freelance artist, he first received attention from political campaign posters he made for Joan Wolfgang in 1975 featuring her with her daughter. After that, he got a lot of requests for people wanting drawings of themselves, children, parents and promotional material for bands.

By 1977, Ligammari’s pace was one piece a week, creating 50 that year.

In 1982, Ligammari became the Niagara County Community College art director, designing college promotions and catalogues and theater production posters. By then his clients did not want him spending 20 to 30 hours on a drawing and started using more photographs in his work. He returned to freelance work after leaving the college in the mid-1990s.

Sadly, in the late-2000s, Ligammari began a fight against glaucoma which would eventually result in the loss of vision in his left eye. He can only see about 5 feet in front of him in his right eye, relying on memory of certain things around his home.

“Once I got used to the inability to see what I used to, you adapt,” Ligammari said.

Because he did not think he could do anything visually anymore, he returned to NCCC to take up a degree in music composition. That led him to collaborate with musicians around the world through the internet, most notably with former Yes lead singer Jon Anderson and rock drummer Carl Palmer. Other musicians hailed from Australia, Germany and Japan.

It was not until this past September where he was inspired to return to his stipple dot style after being requested to create a band poster for a Toronto act. Instead of using pen and ink, Ligammari now uses a computer stylus and photoshop to create the style. With his vision issues, he zooms in on a particular area of the computer screen to work.

“It’s the exact same end product, except instead of using ink, its light and a screen,” Ligammari said. This resulted in getting more requests for portraits in the style, just like when he started in the 1970s.

In 2019, the NACC put out a call for entrees for an up-and-coming artists show. At that point, Ligammari had not done anything in the art world for the past 15 years, but he decided to submit a compilation together from about 50 different stipple dot drawings. He had never had a proper display for his work since a 2013 show at the Como Restaurant.

“The director asked me if I wanted to have a one-man art show,” Ligammari said, with tentative dates for either the spring or fall of 2020. After the pandemic subsided, the center agreed to do sponsor the show again this past May for a July opening.

For the exhibit, 25 to 30 stipple dot drawings will be displayed, six of them created in the past eight months. Some pieces have never been displayed or seen in public for over 30 years. Music Ligammari composed will play in the background, acting as an audiovisual show of his past 50 years.

To those seeing it, Ligammari hopes that his art will reawaken some memories of a past era in this city, hopefully all positive.

“It’s mostly art representing the community,” Ligammari said, with some pieces depicting Niagara Falls and Old Fort Niagara. “Hopefully people who come see something from back then.”

Ligammari still lives in Niagara Falls with his studio for all work in his home. Three of his four children, Al III, Colin and Dominic, live here as well while his fourth GiAnna works as a storyboard artist in Los Angeles.

The exhibition starts on Sunday in NACC’s Kudela Gallery on the second floor, with the opening reception going from 2 to 5 p.m. It will continue until Sept. 16, with the galley open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and noon to 4 p.m. on weekends.