2022, 63"h x 24"w x 24"d, Media: Earthenware / Terracotta, Mixed Media, Non-clay, Stoneware, Firing Process: Electric, Oxidation, Surface: Engobe / Slip / Underglaze, Glazed, Non-ceramic, Oxide, Unglazed
Top of sculpture rotates slowing (on an electric turnstyle). Option of audio track: Distortion of President George Bush giving Mission Accomplished speech over Osama Bin Laden's Call to Jihad speech.
2022, 19"h x 24"w x 24"d, Media: Earthenware / Terracotta, Firing Process: Pit / Saggar fired, Surface: Unglazed
2021, 9"h x 9"w x 3"d, Media: Earthenware / Terracotta, Firing Process: Electric, Surface: Engobe / Slip / Underglaze
2019, 12"h x 8"w x 9"d, Media: Stoneware, Firing Process: Electric, Surface: Engobe / Slip / Underglaze, Glazed, Non-ceramic
2019, each 10"h x 6"w x 5"d, Media: Non-clay, Stoneware, Firing Process: Electric, Surface: Non-ceramic
Gold and silver leafing on black steel stands
2019, 27"h x 17"w x 18"d, Media: Stoneware, Firing Process: Electric, Surface: Non-ceramic
2019, 27"h x 20"w x 19"d, Media: Stoneware, Firing Process: Electric, Surface: Engobe / Slip / Underglaze, Glazed, Non-ceramic
2021, 14"h x 8"w x 8"d, Media: Earthenware / Terracotta, Non-clay, Firing Process: Electric, Surface: Engobe / Slip / Underglaze
2021, 27"h x 24"w x 14"d, Media: Earthenware / Terracotta, Mixed Media, Firing Process: Reduction, Surface: Engobe / Slip / Underglaze
2023, 16.5"h x 18"w x 30"d, Media: Mixed Media, Stoneware, Firing Process: Electric, Surface: Non-ceramic
Artist Statement
What drives me into the studio is the exploration of modern distortions and playing on them from a burlesque perspective. Coming from an animator’s training, my work is frequently cartoon-inspired. My generation was the first to learn about their culture by watching cartoons and synthesizing those stories and their archetypes.
As a female animator, I experienced the lack of women recorded in the history of animation, art, and science (to name a few). The loss of history for people of color, people across the gender spectrum, or the range of economic status has falsified the record. Our culture is constructed on hierarchy and competition, domination and greed, but there is a longing for connection and mutual cooperation that may ultimately prove to be more survivable. Luckily, new voices challenge the status quo.
I love to poke the bear—the so-called arbiters of what is of value in our society at a time when more diverse perspectives are finding voice. Whether it’s personal or political, my interest is in visual encounters to challenge our relationships with one another and what we value.
Bio
Pamela Belding is an artist in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After receiving an MFA from the California Institute of Arts as an experimental film animator when the first Star Wars film appeared, she returned to Minneapolis. She worked as the first video paintbox artist, designing special effects and motion graphics, 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 had put personal work aside for a number of years, then began painting in her basement (having stockpiled unused art supplies for years). As she began to exhibit her paintings, she discovered ceramic sculpture and was hooked.An offer to be creative director for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on the Panama Canal put the pursuit of personal art on hold for nearly seven years. Belding returned to Minneapolis. She 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.