Someone just may have to intervene and force us to enter a 12-step program to end our addiction to purchasing new art. After all, we live in a condo filled with antiques and primitives, yet we can’t resist fresh, new paintings that depict whatever area we are visiting. We have an uncanny proclivity to marine art even though we are not boaters nor have we ever owned a sailing vessel. We guess there must be something about the sea that pulls us away — and causes us to buy.
And so it was that as we were walking Aviles Street in St. Augustine, Florida, the night of January 2nd, 2015 — First Friday, as it were — we stopped in at Aviles Gallery. It’s an intimate place filled with photography, original art, and wood-turned bowls — all tasteful, artful, and enticing. But it was the watercolors of Pam Pahl that drew us to the side wall where we spent nearly an hour until closing time studying the compositions, bright colors, and squiggles. Yes, see those squiggles on the left side and beneath? New to us, for sure. And a technique that caused us to move in for a really close look.
But it was meeting the artist herself that made the difference. Pam Pahl, a petite soft-spoken woman, introduced herself. And the love affair began. Educated in England, she has lived in the U. S., no stranger to the boating world. As an owner of a sailboat in California and a traveler on numerous cruises and charters throughout the U. S. Caribbean, and Bahamas, Pam works from experience, using strong, graphic images and clear colors to develop her unique style.
Aviles Gallery, St. Augustine, Florida, on First Friday. Works by Pam Pahl on right wall. Photo from Aviles Gallery Facebook page.
Pam Pahl has been granted signature status in the American Society of Marine Artists and South Florida Watercolor Society. But she now can say she has a giclee of one of her original paintings hanging in a small dining room in Knoxville, Tennessee! We are proud to have met this talented artist and purchased a Pam Pahl painting — it’s our something new for 2015. And it just may spawn a redo of our decor. After all, wouldn’t a room in these colors make you happy, too?!!!
For more entries in this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: New, click here.
For more information on Pam Pahl, go to her website: www.ppahl.com.
Pam Pahl shows her work in Aviles Gallery in St. Augustine, Florida, and Art of the Sea, South Thomaston, Maine.
Photo credit: Facebook page of Aviles Gallery: https://www.facebook.com/avilesstreetgallery