COFFEE IN THE COE: PAT VILES
On Thursday, April 11, artist Pat Viles was host to Hickory Museum of Art’s Coffee in the Coe group in her gorgeous home and art studio. A decades-long resident of North Carolina, Pat’s resume includes exhibitions around the globe. The permanent collection at Hickory Museum of Art is fortunate enough to contain three painted silk works by the artist. Her silk works give an appearance close to that of stained glass, evident in the stained glass version of one of her pieces in her entryway.
Pat has traveled the globe to create her works. She shared her completed works, sketchbooks, and works in progress. Many of the sketches she shared were from Greece and the Mediterranean. Works by her peers were also created all over the world. She discussed working as a translator in France, asking only to be compensated with a work from the artist.
In the studio, Viles shared various works and techniques for watercolors and silk collages. She included a work that used the resist painting method, where a substance is used to prevent the paints from absorbing into all parts of the painting. One of the pieces shared included imagery from the local baseball team, the Hickory Crawdads. In this work, the colors are vivid and the resist used is black instead of a more traditional colorless boundary, resulting in a vibrant work to behold. Many of Pat’s works include local subject matter such as the baseball team or downtown Hickory.
