GENRE: Visual Artist. MEDIUM: Painting. STYLE: Ava, a master artist, explores art in many diverse styles from realistic to abstract to dimensional expressionism...in all forms of expressing energies. FROM: Boston, MA. Now calls San Francisco and San Diego, CA, home. EXPERIENCE: 50 years of prolific creativity. AWARDS: Recent recipient of the Artist Advance MainStage National Treasure Award which highlights less known artists whose mastery, artistic gift and careers of 40 years or more are of such quality that they deserve high praise and acclaim.. WELL-EDUCATED: Originally known as Pamela Jeanne Weston, Ava attended University California, Berkeley, and received a Bachelors and Masters in Architecture from the University of Oregon. She has created and helped execute many revolutionary concept designs in architecture including resorts, temples, commercial projects, and shopping centers worldwide. NOTEWORTHY: Has artworks in over 80 museums world wide, numerous private collections, and over one hundred major corporations. Website:www.avaportal.com MySpace: www.myspace.com/avatheartist
Artist, architect, pilot, poet, and humanitarian, Ava is a Renaissance woman. Exuberant and sharp-minded, she is deeply spiritually connected to life and to her art. Her career spans nearly fifty years, covering the globe, and her works are in numerous museums and private collections. Yet she is less well known to the general public because her methods have taken her primarily outside of the conventional world of art.
I first met Ava in 2005 when on a road trip with my friend Rand. Returning across the desert to San Diego, CA, he spontaneously called a friend of his about swinging by to stay a night with her. And so I met Ava in her current Production Retreat estate in northeastern San Diego county. Surrounded by 750 acres of beautiful park lands, the majestic home was built but never inhabited by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Ava had filled most of the rooms with her breath-taking works in progress. What an amazing discovery Ava was! On canvases eight feet tall and 4 feet wide, the energy and color of the pieces literally vibrated with life and form. I was completely pulled into these vital celebratory pieces. Then, looking through the numerous volumes of documenting portfolios, I was stunned by the scope and reach of her work over time. Richard Frey ISA - a highly acclaimed art appraiser - said it well, 'Whether painting the unknown or the known there are the elements of the depths of insight, perception and skill that makes Ava a Master Artist.'
Ava's life story, if available in a book, would inspire artists everywhere to not simply make art, but to truly live a successful creative life. One of her missions has been to change the way artists fit into the world economy. She has been able to blend her passion with her creativity to work and live as an artist without being limited by the capricious currents of the system. She has invented unique methods of producing and exhibiting, unique forms of exchange and currency in art, and unique ways of connecting to audiences in countries around the world.
Her paintings have diversely graced many venues from the billboards on Sunset Strip in Hollywood and Beverly Hills, to the Library of Alexandria in Ciaro, Egypt. They have been traded for gemstones, homes, even a Swedish airline! Her studios - living museums as she calls them - are frequently hives of creativity. She has often worked in enormous warehouses with over a hundred apprentices. On one occasion, Ava created thousands of pieces in a deserted palace in the jungle of Thailand, shipping two full containers of art back to the USA. She lived in the penthouse of a San Diego high rise for two years, using the entire next two lower floors for her studios and displaying one thousand paintings. She has been the sole occupant of many vacant high-rises where she used numerous floors for her studio and the elevators for paint supply stations that moved easily between floors. In eight separate locations in Dallas she created an impressive body of work, holding a grand finale event simultaneously at all eight areas, featuring not only her work but local musicians and performers as well...thousands attended. Stomp brought their Broadway show to one of those events. In a huge Masonic Temple in Vallejo, CA she painted prodigiously, holding open houses for simultaneous art and musical events on the weekend...it was a Bay area happening. She has taken possession of hundreds of thousands of square feet of shopping malls, churches, business buildings, and large homes, always creating impressive series of art, finishing with large scale event shows at the locations, and then moving on. In the process Ava has assisted thousands of artists to develop innovative careers, following her personal commitment to help artists expand their understanding of how they develop their careers. No bio begins to briefly summarize the life and work of this great painter.
