“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”
– that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.
–John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

Growing up, the meaning of that line from Keats’ poem haunted me. As a teenager it was all about outward physical beauty and the endless attempt to achieve it. Many years have passed and I have come to peace with this statement. Outward beauty is so transient and changes from day to day and from generation to generation. Although I still admire the handsome creatures that inundate popular culture, today I see truth and beauty more in the everyday, the ordinary, the extra-ordinary, creativity from past generations, the interesting nameless faces of people that filter in front of me online each day. I draw upon these many interests to compile into my dimensional pieces.

The one advantage of being my age is that I have a lifetime of influences and experiences to draw upon. From my past as a commercial artist, I draw upon love of the letterform and great graphic design of the modern era. As a college professor, I learned as much as I taught about art history and the process of drawing, painting, and creative thinking. As a lover of past pop culture, I have a great appreciation of design, style, furniture, architecture, cinema, toys, and ephemera from the art deco era to current day. I am influenced by many portrait and figurative artists that include the Impressionists, Viennese Secessionists (most notably Klimt and Schiele), and many more. I admire the structure of modern architecture and industrial design in its use of simplified form to the whimsy of the Dadaists and constructive nature of Nevelson and Stella. I am humbled by the ever changing creativity of Picasso.

I like the process of constructing a scene, a possibility, a moment captured into a multi-layered design creating figures and objects that seem to come alive and break free of the standard boxed canvas. I construct and deconstruct as needed. I make no distinction between my graphic background and the fine arts. I am a collector of things of value and discard that I find beautiful. If I have something at hand, there is a good chance it may end up in a piece of my art.
-Pam-ela Harrelson