Pamela L. Deaton, regionally renowned artist of figurative sculptures and installations, will give a talk at Athens Arts annual meeting on Thursday in the Fusion 54 building in downtown Crawfordsville.
Deaton will speak about her unique art and visit informally with the audience. The public is invited to take advantage of this special opportunity. The program will be preceded by a meet and greet with refreshments by Maxine’s on Green which begins at 5:30 p.m.
This appearance and talk by Deaton serves as an encore to [UNTITLED], Athens Arts Gallery’s nationally-curated art exhibition held last spring. That display showcased juried artists from more than 20 states who competed for numerous prizes and accolades. Deaton’s sculpture “We Dreamed They Understood the Sacred” was selected as Best of Show at [UNTITLED].
That extraordinary piece of mixed media drew every visitor’s eye as viewers examined the architectural, yet plant-like building that morphs into a dreaming human face topped with an elaborate headdress. The sculpture is both eerie and natural: to find a human face emerging from a sinuous building unifies us with all we are and are made of. With its windows and turrets and doors to peer at and into, the gray clay piece magnetized the crowd with its appeal and strangeness.
Now the community welcomes Deaton’s return to speak of her art, its forms and her creative methods.
“Art reflects, shapes and comments on our culture, our lives and on our past,” she said. “A ‘work of art’ encourages us to interpret, feel and remember connections to the collective unconscious we all share.”
For Deaton, creating art has been a passion since childhood yet, she realizes that finding her voice as an artist “didn’t come until I had experienced numerous traumatic events in young adulthood.”
At first it surprised her that when she began making art again after those difficult times that “loss kept appearing in my work in subtle ways without me even realizing it was there.”
As all of her pieces make clear, this deep work is heavily influenced by nature and by the human figure. This has led to the prominence of themes of birth and death, themes that are felt more than directly seen by viewers. Such universal themes seem to weave through each piece and “appear in ways that sometimes even I can’t see until the piece is finished.” The earthy, evocative clay substances she sculpts carry forth an idea that she feels very strongly about: “everything is connected and we are all one. On a biological level (animal, vegetable, mineral) we are all made up of the same substance. We all come into existence in some form and we all die, wither, break down, and return to the dust of the earth.”
Deaton has an affinity for the art of so-called “primitive cultures.” In harmony with those artists is her latest project sequence or “narrative” called “I am, We are.” It is inspired by the idea of who we are as a species on a primordial level. The work is a spiritual representation of all of us, moving through this time and place on earth. Our great journey together [moves us] from birth until death, as individuals and as a collective.”
The prized work of Deaton is in numerous private collections throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. A gathering of her work is part of Fairfield, Ohio’s Shared Harvest Food Bank Collection. Over the past 20 years, her work has been selected for juried art shows from Texas to California to Ohio as well as for many galleries in Indiana.
The talk and slideshow are free and open to the public.
