Workshop One: 21st – 23rd Oct, 2011
Pamela Allen
Under the Influence … how NOT to copy your favorite artist
- Top: Landscape with Yellow Birds – Paul Klee Bot: Klee Influence – Pamela Allen
Most artists look at and admire the work of others.Therein lies a dilemma however, in that how can one learn to appreciate, absorb and make use of our visual knowledge without appropriating that artist’s vision and imagery? How can one achieve a personal content to our work and avoid the dreaded label of “derivative”? In the genre of fabric collage/art quilt, Pamela will help the student to translate a work of art into an original and personal vision. There will be discussion and critiquing of the nature of art history and how it can benefit the student by broadening her visual vocabulary. At the same time, there will be exciting hands on translation of that influence into a small art quilt with the emphasis being placed on a personal expression rather than copying.
Pamela Allen has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1982) from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Since graduating, she has been lucky to maintain a studio and a full time vocation making art. She began as a painter and has evolved over the years to explore many other media all with the intention of exploring the theme of the child in all of us. Trips to Europe, the desert southwest and Mexico have all nurtured her penchant
for bright colour and “folky” imagery. Another great influence has been her contact with
school children and their aesthetic as she participates almost yearly in an Artist in the Schools program funded by the Ontario Arts Council. Pamela has also taught painting and drawing at Queens University both in the Fine Art department and for the Aboriginal Teachers Education program at MacArthur College. The latter have taken her through some amazing adventures on remote First Nations Reserves in the far North.
If you haven’t taken a class with Pamela Allen, you must do it. She is awesome!