User:Stacepaprocki/drafts-BronzeFonz

Bronze Fonz, is a public artwork by Wisconsin artist Gerald P. Sawyer, located on the Milwaukee River on the riverwalk just south of Wells Street in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin U.S.A. Bronze Fonz is made of bronze and is a statue of Henry Winkler the Happy Days T.V show character Arthur Fonzarelli also known as Fonzie. Bronze Fonz is a statue of Fonzie standing up straight in his character's leather jacket and jeans and giving a two handed thumbs up.

Description
The Bronze Fonz is, of course, made of bronze. It is the actual size of Henry Winkler, the actor who played Fonz in the show Happy Days. The television show started in the 1970's it was a sitcom about a family in 1950's-1960's Milwaukee. Arthur Fonzarelli, Fonzie or Fonz, is in his character's clothing a leather jacket and jeans. He is giving a two handed thumbs up, which was a gesture he often used in Happy Days. The inscription shows all the donors to the Bronze Fonz.

Historical information
The artwork was made to bring tourism and business to Milwaukee. Other places in the United States of America have erected statues that have been dedicated to 1950's - 1960's television characters. These statues have been Mary Richards from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Ralph Kremden from the the Honeymooners The tourism group Visit Milwaukee raised over 85,000 dollars was raised to commission the Bronze Fonz. The Bronze Fonz was unveiled on August 18, 2008 was attended by most of the Happy Days cast; such as Henry Winkler (Fonzie) Marion Ross (Mrs.Cunningham), Tom Bosley (Mr. Cunningham), Erin Moran (Joanie), Don Most (Ralph Malph), and Anson Williams (Potsie). The unveiling also included Culver's, a fast food chain, giving a free custard social and also the Intercontinental Milwaukee made their hotel rate for visitors a $129 rate. -->

Location history
First, the statue was located on the intersection of Wisconsin and Water Streets. This location was trouble to a local gallery owner and executive director of Milwaukee Artists Resource Network (MARN), Mark Brenner. He planned on closing his gallery, Hotcakes, and resign as excutive director of MARN if the Bronze Fonz was erected on the corner of Wisconsin and Water Streets. A member of Visit Milwaukee, Dave Fantle, explained that location that the Bronze Fonz will be located on the Milwaukee Riverwalk next to Rockbottom Brewery. However, the final location was on the Milwaukee River just south of Wells Street. -->

Acquisition
This piece was comissioned by Visit Milwaukee. Visit Milwaukee is a non-profit group that is involved with making Milwaukee a place for tourism and interest. 85,000 dollars was raised by Visit Milwaukee to comission this statue. Some of the groups that make up Visit Milwaukee are the Riverwalk District, the Spirit of the Milwaukee, Downtown B.I.D #21, East Town Association, West Town Association, CBS 58/WMLW, Culvers, AT&T, OnMilwaukee.com, and Miller. .

Artist
Gerald P. Sawyer has been working for thirty years in three dimensional and two dimensional Art. He has lately been casting in mostly pewter and bronze. The casting techniques he uses are centrifugal casting and lost wax casting He uses and builds his own molds for sculptures which range from very small to epic sizes. He teaches casting to many people and even co-authored a book called The Art and Science of Centrifugal Casting. --if there's an article about the artist, replace "Artist" with the name of that article, else remove/comment out the template-->