Pamela Poole's Blog - Posts Tagged "painter-place"

It's such an incredible experience to be able to combine my life as an artist with being an author. When my publisher wanted to use a painting I created for the novel as the cover, it was more than I could have dreamed of!

I wrote "Painter Place" as a challenge when I was so frustrated with finding the kind of books I wanted to read. I had dreamed the basis for it when we still lived in South Carolina, and written it down as notes when I awakened. A couple of years later, after returning yet another book to the library that I stopped reading, my son told me I should write the kind of books I wanted to read. I pulled out the notes from my dream and began working. "Painter Place" was born, and it took on its own life to become a series. The second book, "Hugo," is now being reviewed by my publisher, and the third, "Jaguar," is in the research phase and pouring out of me!

I've always felt that creativity is a gift that spills over from being created in God's image, and just as He would use it for good, so should I. Everything I create is meant to be enjoyed by all ages, with no offensive language. If fans of the Painter Place series would like to watch some of the writing process, they can follow my inspiration boards on Pinterest at my page, PamelaPooleArt. I will be posting a lot of information about the series on my artist business page on facebook, Pamela Poole Fine Art. Using photos, paintings, drawings, and quotes, I will share snippets and insider tips from the series. I would love to interact with friends and see some fan art inspired by the books on my page!

Painter Place has a public playlist on Spotify, featuring the many songs mentioned in the novel. Since the setting is in 1985, there are many oldies and classic rock selections within the story.

I am available to speak to libraries, women's groups, and youth groups. Please contact me if you'd like more information.

Most visitors to Charleston, SC will recognize the Palmetto Rose, sold at the historic Market and often by young vendors around the Battery. Charleston tradition says that Southern Belles would give their true love a Palmetto Rose as a token to keep them safe from harm as they rode into battle. Handcrafted woven roses are still popular keepsakes that symbolize everlasting love.

Palmetto Roses are skillfully created by hand, typically using four fronds from the Palmetto tree, which is on the flag of South Carolina and is the official State Tree. Since each leaf has a unique color and appearance, no two roses are ever exactly the same. Even their natural colors may vary from dark green to yellow or tan. The personal style of each person who crafts the roses also makes them unique.

One of the delights of living in Charleston was when my husband and I took walks around White Point Gardens at the Battery, where young vendors would sell their palmetto rose handiwork. I keep my roses out on a table all year to remind me of those wonderful walks, and created a painting of a trio of my roses that can be seen on my Fine Art America website at:
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/ch...

Palmetto roses play a role in Part 3 of my novel Painter Place, where they are purchased twice during romantic walks on the Battery and represent passion and everlasting love. If you would like to learn more about how Charleston's palmetto roses are made by hand, there is a video and step-by-step article on them here:
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/ch...

When I created the settings for my novel Painter Place, I knew what I wanted. I drew from my experiences of living in the Charleston, SC area and many visits to the coast north of the city. However, writing almost thirty years from the time of my story, I also knew that many things had changed, even in an old historic setting. One of those things is the change in the popular Pavilion Gazebo at White Point Gardens on the Battery in Charleston, SC. Since the gazebo was the setting for two important scenes in Part Three of my novel, I knew I had to get it right.

On any given weekend in Charleston on the Battery, weddings are taking place on the pavilion gazebo, and passers-by watch as the events unfold. Until 2010, the wedding photos were taken on a structure with a six foot tall foundation, but the new structure is now three feet off the ground. The new version wasn’t built until the year after we had to leave Charleston, so I still do a double-take when I see it instead of the taller one. Painter Place is set in the summer of 1985, and the gazebo foundation could be leaned against because it was as tall as a man. This is the description I used in the novel.

According to information on Wikipedia, the pavilion bandstand was built in 1907. In 1934, the structure was raised three feet and restrooms were installed under it (they still need restrooms on the Battery!). Because of law enforcement issues, the bathrooms were locked at some point. The city restored the bandstand and lowered it to the original height of three feet in April, 2010.

There is nothing like the experience of strolling under the tall palms and oaks on the Battery, especially at sunset. If you’ve read my novel Painter Place and get the chance to enjoy stepping up into the gazebo, just remember that it was much taller in the novel than the beautiful new one is today.

Visitors and locals to Charleston, SC, can vividly experience settings described in my novel Painter Place, which launches the Painter Place saga Painter Place. Readers will enjoy scenes that take place downtown and in the area, such as the Battery and Middleton Place. In the next novel of the series, Hugo, they can taste something of what it was like for those who lived through the devastation of this direct hit to the old city and upper coastal area.

Some interactions in my upcoming novel Hugo bring up the iconic emblems of the original bridges over the Cooper River, the Grace Memorial Bridge (Old Gracie), erected in 1929, and her sister structure, the Silas N. Pearman Bridge, built in 1966. These bridges were to Charleston what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, or the Golden Gate Bridge is to San Francisco. When they were removed in 2005 after the opening of the fantastic new Ravenel Bridge, Charleston lost two significant historic landmarks. But they gained the third-longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It is designed to ride out winds greater than Hurricane Hugo and being shaken by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.

The old bridges spanned the Cooper River, a tidal river that joins with the Ashley River to form scenic Charleston Harbor, where the Battery is at White Point Gardens on the peninsula. The river has long been part of the history of Charleston as an important commercial waterway. Old Gracie was almost three miles long and built to handle cars the size of Model A Fords of the 1920s. The bridge made Charleston more accessible, and when it became overwhelmed by the increasing population and size of vehicles on US 17, the larger Pearman Bridge was built parallel to it.

Old Gracie was dubbed “scariest bridge in the world,” and you can only appreciate this infamous title if you have ever driven across it. To give you a mere taste of the experience, I’ve included two links within this blog of people recording their crossing. Many more are on youtube, a testament to the reputation of the bridge. When I lived there, I was told the bridge inspector himself wouldn’t go on it, and after Hugo, many wouldn’t cross it again. If you want some stories, read the comments made by people who viewed the videos, and imagine an accident on one during rush hour! I have a grown family member I won’t name who was terrorized by the thought of traversing Old Gracie.

I’m focusing mostly on Old Gracie because she’s the one my characters won’t cross after Hugo, either, and gets mentioned twice by name. By 1995, the year the third novel in my Painter Place series (Jaguar) is taking place, the bridge scored only a 4 out of 100 (4%), or an F, in safety. This was also the year it was in a notable movie, Die Hard With A Vengeance (not a personal endorsement of the movie). In the scene where the two main characters jump from the bridge to the ship, observant viewers will notice that instead of the tall buildings you’d expect in New York, the background is marshy. The bridges were used in other movie sets as well, including White Squall with Jeff Bridges.

Arthur Ravenel Jr. ran for SC Senate as a way to solve the problem, with a vision for an 8 lane bridge to replace the Grace and Pearman sister structures. Construction started in 2001 and the new bridge opened in July 2005, at which point the original bridges closed for demolition. Pieces of them are scattered for historic purposes around the area or dropped into the river as reef for fish.

I’ve traveled the old bridges and the amazing new Ravenel Bridge was built while I was living there. In fact, a highlight of any trip I make back “home” to Charleston is to cross the new bridge, which doesn’t even feel like a bridge to me. The photo I included with this blog on my website is my own viewed at this link: http://pamelapoole.com/blog/91257/som...

I snapped this photo from the perspective of the marsh at Patriots Point where the USS Yorktown is anchored. One of the older bridges is being dismantled in the shadow of the new one. You can find better photos and beautiful paintings of the original bridges online.

Now for the interactive part of this blog--you can watch some trips across the bridges on youtube! For credits, follow the links. The first ones are of the oldest of the Cooper River Bridges, Grace Memorial (Old Gracie):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8e0j...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-auv...

I love this one! Once this family is on the Pearman bridge, they turn the cameras so you have views of Old Gracie on the driver’s left and the huge new Ravenel Bridge on the right. They show the Yorktown in the harbor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJsK...

If you have some Cooper River Bridge stories, I hope you'll leave comments.

I watch the old movie "Pollyanna" annually to keep my perspective, and "The Glad Game" is often mentioned in my house. In one scene from the movie, the coffin maker snidely insults Pollyanna by saying that she's been running all over town pestering people with sunshine and happiness, and it was enough to make them sick. Never mind that is was lack of ability to find sunshine and happiness that created a sickness in town.

Pollyanna's wholesome attitude isn't due to privilege, but to her missionary father's life lesson. It was his greatest gift to her before he died, leaving her an orphan. He had little else, since they lived on what came out of the missionary barrels sent to them. She learned some things the hard way like other children do--then turned the consequences of her mishap, deception, and mischief into a greater good by seeing value and opportunity in them.

The first time I saw the movie, I was dismayed that she disobeyed and decieved her aunt Polly, and as a tree-climbing tomboy myself, I would never have dared that tree outside her window. She is not the perfect little princess sitting around in lace and doing needlework. But her ability to spring back, move forward, and find meaning in everyday life is an inspiration we could all do well to model.

In my novel Painter Place, an unscrupulous British photographer applies the Pollyanna label to American artist Caroline Painter, who is visiting his country. It will be up to the reader to decide if it was a rightly-placed description. Fortunately, others in Caroline's sphere of influence appreciate a wholesome, positive outlook when challenges come.

Some people have a different way of playing Pollyanna's "Glad Game." They call it making lemonade when life gives you lemons. Either way, the world needs more people who choose to live life making a difference for others rather than creating a bondage of self-imposed victimization.

After all, as Pollyanna's dad believed, God wouldn't have mentioned being glad and joyful so often in the Bible if He didn't think it was important!

It is with a full heart that I blog in tribute to the city I always consider to be home, Charleston, SC. I swing between tears for their loss and tears of pride and joy at their unity in the wake of the violence that took nine precious lives as they held a prayer meeting in church.

The photo reference for my painting Charleston Red Shutters was one that I took when my husband and I celebrated the release of my first novel and my birthday in February, 2015. The novel series, Painter Place, is set on a fictional island about an hour north of Charleston, with family interactions in the city. Some scenes occur at Middleton Place and on the Battery in White Point Gardens. My husband surprised me with a long weekend at Two Meeting Street Inn, just across the street, and we walked around town to map out an important scene on Church Street for the third novel in the series. I also photographed the rough cobblestones of Adger's Wharf, mentioned in the second novel, Hugo.

If you've ever visited Charleston and strolled the cobblestone streets, peeking into gates that beckon with curled iron fingers to look into quaint gardens, you know that Charleston Red Shutters is a typical example of the charm of Charleston. Among all cities in the entire world, she is the Belle of the Ball, the shining example of courtesy and kindness in a world spinning in a maelstrom of confusion.
Painter Place

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."

--Hans Christian Andersen, The Butterfly

In my last blog, I began my call for creative people to free themselves from the slavery of a little screen full of the latest and greatest technology and remember who you are. Inspiration is all around us and can come anytime, anywhere, conveniently or not. Don’t miss it—be ready! The world needs your detours from the new normal into your role as a “divergent.”

Pablo Picasso once said, “The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” Who talks like that anymore? Who stands still long enough to consider the sky or a spider’s web? We’ve been conditioned to have the attention span of a goldfish, and it is wrecking our relationships and other important aspects of our lives.

I was (thankfully) born before computers were household necessities in the United States, so I can say with conviction that had anyone told me how distracted Americans would be right after the turn of the century, I’d never have grasped that we’d have sold ourselves so cheaply. Sure, I’d read or heard about dystopian classic books, but naively assumed that since they'd explored so many possible consequences of losing what makes us human, society would consider themselves forewarned and would avoid the pitfalls of the road we were on.

That was in my younger days. Now absolutely nothing surprises me. Nothing.

Social satirist Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World, written in 1931 and published the next year, was written in reaction to his disgust in American values during a visit here. Outraged by the American culture of youth, commercialism, sexual promiscuity, and the obsessive, self-directed and inward-looking nature of so many citizens, he explored these pet peeves on a stage of general dystopian fear of losing individual identity in a world racing headlong into the technology of the future.

In that new world, Huxley set up the “World State” to establish a stable global society that permanently limits the population so that they are easily managed, conditioned to accept their station in the contrived life the State has ordered for them. Methods of controlling their lives include getting rid of natural reproduction and meaningful relationships, brainwashing children through education systems, discouraging critical thinking (serious books are banned, and movies have the added element of touch sensations and deal in pure emotion), and individual action and initiative is considered abnormal and reprehensible. The well-adjusted citizens in that society spend their leisure in communal activities that demand no thought.

Yes, you read that right--I did say he wrote that book in 1931. Don't take my word for it, use your critical thinking skills while it's still legal and go look it up. And while I personally can’t stop the train that the technology-driven masses are on, I can encourage creative people to smell the proverbial roses while they’re still growing. Better yet, go out and paint them plein air, or cut some to put in a cut glass vase and rise to the challenge to paint all the reflections in a still life! Poets, word-smith your observations on the delicate colors and textures in a rose, or the irony that such beauty comes with thorns. Musicians, craft a melody that makes us pause to listen to your interpretation, and make it so catchy that we hum it the rest of the day. Gardeners, brainstorm how to gift the world with a new variety of hardier roses. Architects, design a setting to show off roses to best advantage, and provide a bench where we can sit to contemplate their beauty.

Get out in the sunshine for a walk or bike ride, especially one that will likely take you to a bend in the road where you’ll stop in your tracks and gasp at the view. Think critically, be an individual, don’t follow the sheep glued to little screens while they follow one another off a cliff.

Embrace life as a divergent. Rise above the machines and show the world what it means to be human.


If you'd like to read some meaningful yet light adventures about creative divergents, check into my novel Painter Place and the upcoming new release HUGO in a few weeks on December 8. HUGO will take readers into Arles, France in 1989 for the Centenniel of Vincent's life there. For more synopsis of the series, check out my "Books" section on my FASO website at www.pamelapoole.com
Painter Place