Pamela Belding ( she/her/hers )

I feel the American people shaking, demanding a hearing. Digging into clay helps me work it out on both cultural and spiritual levels. Social issues that pull focus are man’s love of weapons, women’s erasure from histories, the current instability of our world, and how people still rise, even after being erased. My sculpture is frequently cartoon-inspired, having been an animator, and from a generation that learned how to identify/behave through cartoons, synthesizing those stories and archetypes (considering the historic writers’ beliefs). The work frequently reveals itself as it progresses. Juxtaposing the surreal with the mundane, mixing in some subtle art history references, playing with sinister, and poking the so-called arbiters of what is of value in our society while rooting for more diverse perspectives to grab the mic. Whether it’s personal or political, my interest is in visual encounter to challenge our relationships with one another and what we value.

Pamela Belding is an artist in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After receiving an MFA from the California Institute of Arts as an experimental film animator (Star Wars era), she returned to Minneapolis. In that city, she was the first video paintbox artist, designing special effects and motion graphics. She had two sons, divorced, and spent ensuing years as an animator producer, animator, illustrator, graphic designer, videographer, photographer, and mostly a creative director. As a single mom, she set personal work aside for a number of years, then began painting in her basement (having stockpiled unused art supplies). As she began to exhibit her paintings, she discovered ceramic sculpture and was hooked. A job as creative director for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on the Panama Canal put the pursuit of personal art on hold for nearly seven years. Returning to Minneapolis, Belding began working with clay in earnest in 2018. She retired from creative direction in 2021, and works full time in her studio. The kids turned out alright.