Friday, October 7, 2005

Meet the presenter

Pam Jacobs goes back to original source


By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

Pam Jacobs helps hang her work at the Friesen Gallery in Ketchum. Express photo by Dana DuGan

Not everyone gets a second chance, and not everyone can reinvent herself. What looks to be a freakish chance at a second go-round is actually the result of a near death accident and a will of iron encased in pure intuition.

Australian native Pam Jacob is a survivor and an artist, although she prefers the term presenter. Her work, large tankas of vivid color and scope, is displayed at the Friesen Gallery in Ketchum during Gallery Walk tonight. One of her pieces hung on the stage Sept. 11 in Hailey during the Healing Address by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

But her story—one of courage, happenstance and restlessness—begins many years before she approached the organizing committee about using her work during the Dalai Lama's visit.

In 1988, she was in a brutal car accident on a Los Angeles freeway that left her with virtually no left brain activity. The brain damage resulted in near total lack of memory, speech, motor skills, and the ability to read or write or connect with others. During her years of recovery, she spent long periods of time sitting alone in a recreated African Savannah in Hawaii. By employing a camera without film she was able to focus her perception, thus cutting down the seizures and blackouts caused by excess peripheral information. Eventually, by putting aside even the camera, Jacob rediscovered herself through a reconnection with nature.

She also found that by letting herself just be, animals—from panthers, to lions and flamingos—would readily approach her, something humans were still not willing to do with her, or vice versa.

"In an organic environment nothing was asked of me," she explained. "They became my friends. It's like when you're a child and you're all right brain. I'll always remember those days. My heart was so open, and I would say 'you are so beautiful.' Every animal responds to that."

A therapeutic activity, suggested to her during her neurological retraining course, was to actually capture on film what she was experiencing. A photography course at a community college and several shows that included her work followed.

Soon, Jacob, who was still emotionally and neurologically unstable, began winning awards as well as a scholarship for a photography course at the Academy of Arts in San Francisco.

It took another 12 years for Jacob, who is a delightful, petite woman with short blonde air and a warm, vivid manner, to "get back to dealing with people. I knew what was going on more than they knew but I couldn't communicate. It was my mission, 24/7, to learn to dress normal, look normal, read and write, speak normally and ask for help."

The images that were "given" her during these experiences ultimately resulted in the Jacob Collection of Natural Designs. All the tanka series she creates have their origins in nature.

"There is nothing humans create that doesn't relate to the natural world," she said. "That is why I have such compassion for nature. As nature goes, so goes me. I am not the artist, I am the presenter. And I don't discuss the process (of my work). If I did, what happens is the left brain labels it. When you look at it with no preconceptions, the left brain stops and the right takes over and experiences it intuitively instead."

Indeed, her work is subtle yet vivid and colorful. She likes to say that there is a "fine line between what is too obvious and what is too abstract."

Jacob's life is somewhat like that as well. She came to the Wood River Valley this summer after a woman in Seattle saw her work there and told her she must come here.

"Why?" she laughs now. When she arrived she had no idea what to do, but almost immediately heard about the Dalai Lama's imminent visit. She offered her deity series to the organizers to do with what they wanted. When they told her they wanted to use her large "Peacock Bush Deity" piece on the main stage, she said she "freaked." But it was all falling into place. After all, her pieces are all meant as instruments of healing, and she considers them gifts.

As well, she has been befriended by residents who are now part of her expanding family, including Fred Burmester, whom she calls "my main man," Rod Jones, Perie and Jim Grossman, Barbie Reed and Andrea Friesen.

Friesen, who was on the advisory committee for the Dalai Lama event as well as the Sun Valley Spiritual Film Festival, donated her space to display Jacob's work. After the event there was no a public forum for them to be seen. Friesen is not selling the pieces. Rather, they can be purchased directly through Jacob.

"It's so in keeping with the Dalai Lama's visit," Friesen said. "My privilege is in donating the space. It's really important work. I'm thrilled."

Even the presenter herself, Jacob, who has regained her memory and all her social and motor skills, is thrilled. In fact, when she saw her "Peacock Sunrise Deity" hung at Friesen, she put her hands together and bowed to it.

"She demands respect," she said. Then Burmeseter who was up a ladder hanging the piece from the rafters said, "Meet 'Ham' Jacob." And they laughed.

"(This exhibition) is the bow on top of the gift," Jacob said.

Jacob is more than an artist or even a presenter. She's a philosopher.




 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.