Visual Artist

The Merry Days

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So far I’ve made it through hauling Christmas regalia out of the attic, hanging stockings, and standing by with a ready hand while my husband lifted and settled the tree. We have dinner plans — scratch that — we had dinner plans, but then the bottom fell loose and now I have no idea what the rest of the day holds. And I’m okay with that. Really. When you see your brother once a year, you smile, hug, and take what you can get.

And what’s change really? Life is never set in stone. N E V E R. I learned that lesson at the age of four.

So I pulled out my attic stash, rounded up the pink twinkle lights that keep me happy and sane, and dove in. And yeah, it took hours, even with our small four and a half foot tree. Because, well, you know. We all know, and it just ain’t easy. One side of the living room window is a bit smashed across the glass, and once I limb the ladder, I can’t really lean in far enough to extend the lights from one end to another. I’ve been doing this for years and always took the time to make it perfect. Now I’m just happy to see the lights at all. “I grow old, I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled ….” Oops, sorry to run off course.

When I was growing up, we always kept Christmas a secret. I was in my early twenties, my sister 3 years younger, and my brother quite a bit younger when the three of us walked into the living room together — my sister and I in tights and a top and my brother — ever the creator — walked in fully dressed in his own handmade Santa suit. Yes, I said Handmade Santa Suit.

I’ll never forget the awe of it, and I’ll never forget how much we can accomplish if we take a bit of time to drop the everyday and and add a bit of creativity. .

P.S. Apparently Jingle Bells was never intended to be a Christmas song, but hey, it sure worked.

Happy Holidays to all!

Pam Goode

SeeSaw

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You are the plank.
You are an even-hewn and sanded length
that reaches end to end, your hand upon
my temperamental arc.
You are diameter aimed clean
into the heart of me.
I turn as on a spit of steel
(your steel)
except that
I am flame and meat at once the same.
You are the planet firm in heaven’s sea,
and I the tempest-tossing test
of earth’s humanity.
You are the moon.
I am the tides that pout and turn and then return
in love’s remembered ache.
You are the balance
and I am
the dance.

Pam Goode

Pamela Goode Mosaics, Set 2

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Artwork Top to Bottom and Left to Right:

The Wishing Tree: SOLD, 8″ x 8″, Glass, Millefiori on Wedi Board.
Colorado Dawn: AVAILABLE, 7″H and 13″ W, Mexican Smalti, Mexican Smalti Tortillas, Chopped and Divoted.
Mirrored Wall: NOT AVAILABLE, 33″H x 15″W, Hand-Cut Mirror and Colored Mirror; Outdoor Installation for Ciel Gallery (now demolished).
Wasteland: SOLD, 18″ x 18″; Agate, Mirror, Stained Glass, Unglazed Porcelain, Aquarium Gravel, Pewter; This mosaic began with a dream. Because the image is so void-like, I included lines from T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland and The Hollow Men using small pewter beads that crash into the deep. The mirror-backed “void” reflects the viewer. From the center, spirals of poetry and blank human faces form a rough heart shape, balancing the sense of desolation with a touch of hope. From the central abyss, the tesserae become less defined and increasingly chaotic, until in some spots there are no tesserae at all, but only a gouged space remaining.
He Said, She Said: NOT AVAILABLE; 12″ x 7″ Drawing on Paper (created for a future project that didn’t happen).
Sunbather: NFS, 10″H x 10″W by 5″ Deep; Crystal, Beads, Agate, Glass, Shell, Copper on Stone.
Wild Hearts: SOLD, Unglazed Porcelain, Clay, Beads.
Sunflower Table: SOLD, 46″ rectangular mosaic partially shown, Glass.
The Boy with a Moon and Star: SOLD, Glass on Wedi Board.
Late Bloomer: AVAILABLE, 10″H x 36″L x 18″W; Selected by and displayed at the Society of American Mosaics 2010; Glass, Metal, Mineral, Shell, Beads, Carborundum, Wire, Hand-Carved Styrofoam base by me; Through art, I hope to capture and momentarily magnify archetypal awakenings that resonate with the human spirit. I’m drawn to create with mixed materials because I want, above all, to create as full an image as I can manage. Late Bloomer pulls from the miscellanea of life — sometimes messy, sometimes arbitrary, always fascinating, always more cluttered than we had imagined. The pruning and fitting together of disparate materials becomes a way to order my own thoughts, emotions, and priorities, allowing the finished piece to serve as a kind of talisman.

Call to Artists: Contemporary Mosaic Art 2010

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It’s that time again! Ciel Gallery is pleased to announce a Call to Artists for the 2010 edition of Contemporary Mosaic Art, an international juried exhibition celebrating the scope and artistry of mosaic art created today. A full prospectus and entry form is located at http://www.cielcharlotte.com, or you may contact me for an email version. Pictured above is last year’s winner, The Visit, by Kathy Thaden, Colorado. Entry Deadline is Monday, August 9.

Call to Mosaic Artists: Flights of Fancy

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Show us your Whimsy! Bees’ knees, purple trees, humongous nests, the witch of the west, broken crockery birds or a chair made of herbs — go mythical, magical, fanciful and fabulous to give your imagination free reign on 2-D or sculptural pieces that defy the humdrum. Art in any medium, style or size, will be considered. Exhibited work is not limited to mosaic but, as always, mosaic art is especially welcome.

For a full prospectus, go here and click on Flights of Fancy. Digital submission deadline March 1. International Juried Exhibition runs April 2 – May 21, 2010 with receptions Friday, April 2 and Friday, May 7 at Ciel Gallery, Charlotte, NC.

Shown above, Jocasta, by Australian Artist Marian Shapiro, from her series of Forbidden Fruits.

Tickle our fancy. Seven weeks left to pull out the stops and splash a little whimsy across these winter blahs.

Winter Whites at Ciel Gallery

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Kaye Iverson, Aspens in Winter

Kaye Iverson, Aspens in Winter

October 5 is the deadline for Ciel Gallery’s November/December juried exhibition, Winter Whites. With entries already in from Australia, Cyprus, Monaco, Canada, and the US, this show promises to rival our current Contemporary Mosaic Art 2009 in its international-ness. Primarily fine art mosaic, the exhibition will also feature textiles, watercolor, acrylic and photography. For a full prospectus, go here.

I’m avalanche-ally excited about this show. Last year’s Simply Red was a bonfire-al success. The artists loved creating the heat and visitors basked in it. This year we’ll put the chill on. With an almost total absence of color, Winter Whites will be a textural banquet, and a deliciously apt follow-up to our neighbor Charlotte Art League’s October exhibit, Art Beyond Sight — that which tickles the four less used senses rather than the rods and cones of our retinas.

I am an unabashed color slut, but these Winter Whites are tickling my fancies big time.

Submit; Partake; Revel; Glean; Go Forth.

Art: Not (Just) a Pretty Picture

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Ciel Gallery’s exhibition entitled The War Against Peace presents the responses of artists across the nation as they ponder the question of why we continue to cry for peace and simultaneously continue to wage war. Best of Show winner Janet Kozachek, whose Fallen Floyd is pictured above, illustrates the emotional and physical torture of war in stone and handmade ceramic. Phil Fung‘s War and Peace depicts a hundred or so maniacal Continue reading →

Mosaic Howl

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Okay, random things first. In between my too-many pursuits, I finally finished Howl, my mosaic protest piece, just in time for the opening of The War Against Peace Exhibition at Ciel Gallery. I chose to work this piece in a folk-art style, because it is so often the “child” within us that reacts most instinctively to the atrocities around us. The image depicts a Peace Angel howling in anguish over the current state of Man and Earth. Alphabet Millefiori spell out her howls as she flies over the land surveying our lives below. This piece uses vitreous, smalti, millefiori, glass beads, and shell. Click on the image to enlarge and read the messages.

Community Mosaic Project Gluefest 1

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The great thing about mosaic artists is that they just never want to put down the nippers. So what starts out as “just finishing this one little section” ends up with you staring zombie-like across a cup of steaming tea while a Dear One utters words that sound oddly like, “What happened to you? You never came to bed last night?” Hence the Premier Gluefest of Charlotte Art League’s Community Mosaic Project was a howling success, Continue reading →

Mosaic Maestro Giulio Menossi to Jury Contemporary Mosaic Art

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I am such a huge fan of Master Mosaicist Giulio Menossi, that I would consider it the highest honor to be plastered with smalti and embedded into one of his wholly fantastical three-dimensional works, just to have the honor of hanging about in his studio and watching this genius at work. Continue reading →