A Traveling Dialogue

Ronald R. Miller Art Gallery

Meridian Community College
Meridian, Mississippi
September 29 - October 30, 2008

Verde Art Gallery

Yavapai College
Clarkdale, Arizona
October 17 - November 15, 2008
A Traveling Dialogue

This catalog is a companion to two simultaneous

exhibitions bringing together work by artists Clive
and Virginia Rood Pates, who have spent the past
five years traveling from the U.K. and Europe to
the Gulf Coast, the Southwest and Mexico. Clive’s
paintings are a Plein Air record of their travels,
while Virginia’s ceramics are constructed from the
materials that created these same landscapes.

The work in this exhibition has been funded in part

from grants from the National Endowment for the
Arts, the Mississippi Arts Commission, the Andy
Warhol Foundation, and the Elizabeth Greenshields
Foundation.
 Education

1999 MFA in Ceramic Art, University of Wales Institute at

Cardiff, Wales, UK.
1995 BFA, Emphasis in Ceramics, Mississippi State
University, Starkville, MS.

Selected Exhibitions

2008 Traveling Dialogue, Meridian Community College,

Meridian, Mississippi.
2008 Traveling Dialogue, Yavapai Community College,
Clarkdale, Arizona.
2008 Domo Arigato: Thank You, Mississippi Clay
Ceramics Invitational, George Ohr Museum, Biloxi,
Mississippi.
2006 Mac and Andy Show, Mississippi Arts Commission
Virginia Rood Pates and Andy Warhol Foundation, The Cedars, Jackson,
Mississippi.
b. 1969, Memphis, Tennessee
2006 Faculty Exhibition, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community
College, Gulfport, Mississippi.
2006 Oracle Arts Auction, Rancho Linda Vista, Oracle,
Arizona.
2003 Alumni Invitational, Mississippi State University,
Starkville, Mississippi.
2002 Rood Contemporary Fine Art, Bristol, England.
2002 Colours, Bristol Arts Guild Gallery, Bristol, England.
1996 Mississippi Collegiate Art Competition, (juried).
1996 Mississippi-Alabama Bi-State Competition, (juried).

Awards

2008 Mississippi Arts Commission Mini-Grant.

2008 Mississippi Arts Commission Business Grant.
2007 SouthernArtistry.org, Invitational Membership
2006 Andy Warhol Foundation Grant.
1995 Donovan Dodd Memorial Award for Excellence in
Ceramic Art, Mississippi State University.
1995 Mississippi Collegiate Art Competition, Best of Show
in Ceramics.
1994 Michael C. Johnston Memorial Scholarship
for Achievement in Fine Art, Mississippi State
University.
1994 Mississippi Collegiate Art Competition, Juror’s
Award in Ceramics.

Paintings
Clive William Pates
b. 1965, Worcester, England
Education
1996 Post-graduate work in figurative studies at the Art
Students League, New York City.
1995 MFA study in figurative art at the New York
Academy of Art.
1993 Post-graduate Degree, (Drawing and Foundry),
University of the West of England, Bristol, England.
1991 BFA awarded with First Class Honours, University of
the West of England, Bristol, England.
1983 Foundation Degree in Art and Design, Cheltenham
College of Art, Cheltenham, England.
Selected Exhibitions
2008 Traveling Dialogue, Meridian Community College,
Meridian, Mississippi.
2008 Traveling Dialogue, Yavapai Community College,
Clarkdale, Arizona.
2007 40 for 40, 40th Anniversary Exhibition, Rancho
Linda Vista, Oracle, Arizona.
2007 The Will to Endure, George Ohr Museum, Biloxi, Mis-
sissippi.
2005 Mississippi Invitational, Mississippi Museum of Art,
Jackson, Mississippi.
2004 Clive Pates, Mississippi University for Women, Co-
lumbus, Mississippi.
2004 Clive Pates: Twenty Minutes of Light, Gallery 119, Jack-
son, Mississippi.
2003 Clive Pates: From the Sea of Cortez to the Tombigbee
River, Delta State University, Cleveland, Mississippi.
2003 Clive Pates: The Light in August, Sylvia Schmidt Gal-
lery, New Orleans, Louisiana.
2003 Clive Pates: Portraits, Rood Contemporary Fine Art,
Bristol, England.
2002 Clive Pates: Recent Work, Department of Art Gallery,
Mississippi State University.
Awards & Residencies
2008 Mississippi Arts Commission Mini-Grant.
2006 Andy Warhol Foundation Grant.
2006 Mississippi Arts Commission Business Grant.
2005 Mississippi Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellowship.
2005 Guest Artist, Rancho Linda Vista, Oracle, Arizona.
2004 Elected to the Mississippi Artists Roster.
2002 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.
2001 Robert Fleming Residency, Hospitalfield House,
Arbroath, Scotland.
2000 Roundstone Open Arts Residency, Connemara,
County Galway, Ireland.
1999 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.
1999 Juliet Gomperts Tuscany Residency, Casolé d’Elsa,
Tuscany, Italy.
1996 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.
1995 Fulbright Scholarship, New York Academy of Art.
1995 Andy Warhol Foundation Scholarship.
1995 Posey Foundation Scholarship.
Clive William Pates
Every thing we look at, as it is apart from us, is
a purely abstract subject. Our conception of the
world or a landscape painting represents a lifetime
of learnt experience about how to look. The first
thing that a painter has to accomplish is to unlearn
the mass of experience and preconception, and look
at pure tone and colour as unlabeled shifting fields
of light. Next, the painter has to consider form and
evolve a way of seeing and inter-
preting that information that is
not too invasive. In my own paint-
ing, I try to be economical with the
information I provide, represent-
ing the necessary series of marks
to interpret the subject painted.
These marks represent a record
of my experience, small points of
perception that form a completed
vision of the landscape. The mark
or gesture has the utmost impor-
After the Chubasco, Baja 2003.
tance for me, but as a single mark
it represents my process of under-
standing and would be abstract and meaningless
to the casual observer. Many people look at my
painting at a distance, and are drawn to what they
see as incredible detail. Finding on closer inspec-
tion that the detail dissolves into splodges of paint.
The splodges of paint are the emotional record of
the experience of painting and have no part in a
rational interpretation.
As a painter, the area I’m working from becomes
embedded in my memory, and for many months,
sometimes years, looking at a completed picture
will place me back at that same location. I experi-
ence a layered vision of the scene I have painted
with a very real landscape flashing beneath it. The
emotional experience at the time of painting, my
thoughts and day to day routines are all recorded
there in the picture. I spend a long time looking
at the pictures after I have finished painting them.
A large part of the intellectual and emotional pro-
cess that I have learnt over many
years of painting, becomes an un-
conscious and automatic process,
I guess to give the space and abil-
ity to paint without getting over-
whelmed by the complexity of the
subject. For many weeks after the
picture’s completion, I have mini
revelations about why I chose to
develop certain compositional ele-
ments, or why I combined a certain
colour combination. This for me is
a rewarding and interesting part of
the picture making process. In the
same manner, some of my older paintings strike
me, many years later, by the quality of a particular
emotion. Maybe this is a perspective attained that
allows me to judge the image with greater neu-
trality; Perhaps some of the deeper emotions are
slower and become apparent over longer periods
of time. The pictures I paint will always contain
something of myself and in this sense every pic-
ture, even landscape, is a self portrait. I must admit
to preferring the landscapes that I find to be least
intrusive in terms of this evidence of me.
iii. Jez’ebels Garden, Bristol, England
Oil on Linen, 18” x 21”, July 1997
David Leach Porcelain & Sushi Rice Glazed with Tin, Soda Ash, Copper & Chrome
Δ 8 Oxidation, 4” x 6”, November, 2000, Bristol, England.
Coleman Porcelain with Pearlite Glazed with Barium, Chrome, Dolomite & Rutile
Δ 8 Oxidation, 6.5” x 5.5”, September 2008, Clarkdale, Arizona.
Vi r g i n i a R o o d P a t e s

Dirt is my medium.
I am an experimentalist, and fascinated by the
character and behavior of ceramic materials. Like
all experimentalists, my work builds up gradually.
I use simple forms to throw into relief the varied
behaviors of the clays and glazes.
As a clay and glaze chemist, I create traditional
surface glazes as well as building inclusions into
clay bodies to create reactive surfaces. With no
prejudices, I use both refined commercial materials
as well as substances mined by myself in the
natural world.
I travel often and I work with what is available. I
have thrown bone china in England; built a kiln
in Mexico to make bone ash from the seagulls,
pelicans and porcupine fish that I found washed
up on the beach in Baja; and sieved black granite
dust for gold from arroyos in Arizona. My current
Clay Tests, 2006
work is evolving from the crushed granite debris
of a parking lot in the high desert.
Complements fascinate me, both in color and
clay. I see the natural beauty of contrast in the
combination of Porcelain stuffed with coarse grog
and thrown to its thinnest point or Bone China
wedged into Crank and somehow convinced to
hold together.
Prange Porcelain with Oracle Ant Dirt Glazed with Dolomite, Rutile, Lithium, Cobalt & Copper
Δ 8 Oxidation, 4.5” x 6.5”, April 2008
v. The Riverside Park: A Bradford Pear Tree by the Tombigbee River, Columbus, Mississippi
Oil on Canvas, 24” x 32”, August 2002
I arrived in Mississippi at the height of summer
and from my experience of Italy at this time,
expected to be confronted by a rich array of burnt
reds and ochres of a dry and parched land. To
my amazement the land was green and alive and
very similar to the English landscape I had just
left. The comparison to my home country was
however limited, the verdure of the Mississippi
landscape was completely transformed by the
intensity of light and filtration effect of the dense
moisture in the atmosphere. The shadows were
deep and barbaric, and the light, lensed by the
atmosphere, created a depth of colour I had not
previously experienced.

The composition of the landscape also

challenged my expectations. I have been used
to a formalized landscape, as the European
landscape has been modified by centuries of
land management and every part of the scene
before you has an historical implication. The
European landscape is subservient to the human
need and possesses a quietude. The Southern
landscape is surly in comparison. I felt not so
much a distance, but a mutual respect between
the people and the land, almost a stand off
between the natural world and the inroads
made by civilization.

Of course, as a painter I hope that the emotion

I experienced is more purely represented in
my work, and am constantly surprised when I
look back at the work, how meaning bypasses
the intellectual process, becoming imbedded in
the work only to be gleaned on a rational level
Mulege, Baja, 2003. months or years later.
i. Looking West-Northwest over Motley Slough, Lowndes County, Mississippi
Oil on Linen, 26” x 24”, November 2003
iv. Looking West-Northwest over Motley Slough, Lowndes County, Mississippi
Oil on Linen, 32” x 24”, March 2004
Journal from the Sea of Cortez
June 1st, 2003:
Clive was determined to paint the cliffs at Punta Chi-
vato. We drove about 25 miles down Mex 1 from Santa
Rosalia and turned off at a washboarded dirt road that
took about 45 minutes to cover 15 miles. At the end we
found a small airstrip, the Punta Chivato Hotel (run by
Italians), several ex-Pat houses and the most beautiful
beach and turquoise lagoon crossed by volcanic out-
crops covered with brown pelicans. We pushed further,
still.
We dropped off our trailer on the beach to explore.
We crossed over some steep hills and almost careened
down a road with a four foot deep washout at the bot-
tom. We got out to explore on foot and found just over
the hills the most gorgeous double-curved bay with
beaches and cliffs on either end and an outcropping of
rock in the middle. The center was a perfect camping
spot – high above the beaches and water – but some-
one had already thought of that and put an RV (cara-
van) there. However, the residents must have long ago
moved on because the whole thing had been burnt out.
Oh well, I figured that it was like having a bit of Mis-
sissippi next door. We decided to try to get there with
the truck and trailer. (Our trailer is a tiny utility trailer
– I have no idea how someone got that hulk of a motor
home there. Airlifted?)
Things were a bit hairy. There was another way through
next to the washed out gully, but I thought I should
do the driving here. (Clive, with his Welsh mountain
training, was brilliant on the unbelievably narrow
highway with steep drop-offs at the edge of the crum-
bling asphalt, but I thought this road needed some of
my flying-like-a-bat-out-of-hell technique.) After Clive
got out the shovel and, more ceremoniously than prac-
tically, moved some rocks around, I took a deep breath
and launched the truck. Brilliant truck! We haven’t
told her yet that she isn’t a four-wheel drive! Well, we
made it over and back. After Clive moved some more
dirt around, we hooked up the trailer and resigned
ourselves to spending the rest of the afternoon getting
ourselves unstuck. Didn’t happen, though. We almost
gracefully made it over to our little bit of paradise (with
the burned out trailer, which is starting to sound like a
Jimmy Buffet song).
So here we are, though we do have to go over the hills if
we want to wash in fresh water. So far salt water bath-
ing is nice, but clothes don’t dry well because the salt
in them absorbs any bit of humidity! I’m getting used
to – almost enjoying – the taste of salt in my coffee. And
as for eating.....
The first cast I made into the Sea of Cortez when we
set up camp landed a nice Red Snapper! We ate well!
Since then Clive has caught most of the fish (probably
because he spends at least 10 times as much time fish-
ing as I do! I have to get out of the sun in the middle of
the day, but he just plugs along and is getting brown
as a chestnut. Once again he proves that saying about
mad dogs and Englishmen.) - striped sea bass, cabrillo,
corbina, ladyfish (no good to eat), stone scorpionfish
(watch out!) and even a very weird cornet fish.
Today things are changing, though, as Clive has
stretched, sized and primed canvases and has started
painting as I write this. Now he can only fish for about
5 hours a day.
June 15th, 2003:
Finally! The wind has stopped and the weather is
beautiful. We’ve arranged to stay here for the whole
two months.
One morning Clive has great fishing and catches a pair
of spotted corbina and a cabrilla. I’m not fishing be-
cause I’ve had a bit too much sun and I’m relegated to
the shade for the day. In the afternoon Clive primes can-
vasses and I go to the little store for supplies and study
fish recipes for the evening. However, high on his good
luck (or skill, as he would have it) Clive finds it neces-
sary to fish some more, and he is so determined that he
stays out late in the night until he is far too exhausted
to clean the fish he caught earlier. We have egg fried
rice for dinner. We are wakened in the night by various
scurryings outside the tent, accompanied by clanging
and things falling over. I get up and find nothing but
Prange Porcelain with Playa Negra Sand Glazed with Dolomite, Rutile, Barium, Lithium & Copper
Δ 8 Oxidation, 4.5 x 5.25, April 2008
iv. The Larger Conical Hill, Punta Cerotito, Baja California, Mexico
Oil on Linen, 28” x 28”, July 2003
the curious sight of the cooler - still closed - lying up-
ended. I put it back and classify the event as Baja night
life. However, the next morning we discovered that the
cooler was still full of ice, but the fish were mysteri-
ously gone. Now we were getting worried about what
creature might open coolers, steal fish, then close the
cooler back up again. Another vegetarian day.
Well, fishing droughts never last in the Sea of Cortez.
I was brown again, rather than red, and so back on fish-
ing duty. Last night we went to the store for beer and
ice and had found them out of both, so imprudently
we bought a bottle of vodka and a carton of orange
juice. Therefore, on this particular day Clive wasn’t
any good for painting and we spent the whole time
fishing. Numerous bites and inedible fish later (puffer
fish, cornet fish, porcupine fish), I was reeling in my
lure when sometiing darted out from the base of the
rock I was standing on and grabbed it, and I pulled in
the biggest fish we had caught so far - a nice, tasty, four
pound spotted sea bass. Now I held the records for
both the first fish and the biggest fish (not that we were
keeping records, but you do notice these things), and I
went running back up to camp for the fillet knife and
board before it got too dark to see. It was dim when I
returned, but I could see Clive bent over something on
the rocks. I came running up and Clive stopped me just
as I realised it was a stingray. Well, it was technically a
fish and, at thirteen pounds, well outweighed my sea
bass, so Clive made sure we kept it! That night we ate
sea bass fried in cornmeal and drank beer - both with
lots of lime. In the morning Clive filleted the stingray
and, having read that they were excellent eating, I fried
it in butter and garlic. However, I never could enjoy it.
It had a strange metallic taste. Maybe it was just my
ego catching in my throat.
By the 6th of June, Clive has underpainted the com-
positions on all four of the Punta Cerotito paintings.
They are very complex and exhaust Clive completely.
His underpainting is mostly complementary colours to
what he is seeing in order to give the finished surface a
vibrancy through the layers. So, at the moment the sky
is pink, the beach is blue and the water is orange. it’s al-
most enough to make you worry about him. All of this
light and colour tires Clive’s eyes out, so in the evening
we drink beer and listen to the radio as the sun goes
down and we don’t bother to light the gas lamp. We
suddenly realise we have a visitor who hasn’t noticed
us sitting there in the dark. We scramble for a flashlight
and finally see our demon. His bushy, ringed tail gives
him away immediately as a raccoon. Of all the strange
and foreign creatures in the world we are plagued by
exactly the same beasts as who steal all the cat’s food
at my mother’s house. Being familiar, this discovery
is relaxing and we forget about dinner and Clive falls
asleep in his chair.
One of the fateful circumstances of our arriving in Pun-
ta Chivato is related to a book on geology. Clive likes to
study the geology of the landscape he’s painting, so I
bought him the only book on Baja geology that I came
across on Amazon.com:Discovering the Geology of
Baja California, Six Hikes on the Southern Gulf Coast
by Markes E. Johnson (University of Arizona Press,
Tuscon, 2002.). When we reached Punta Chivato (guid-
ed by a photograph in another book), we were amazed
to find that Dr. Johnson’s book was specifically about
this 9.5 square miles of Baja! On the 8th of June, with
Clive unable to paint and frustrated by renewed winds,
we decided to try out one of the walks described in
the book. Well, I said “walk” just then, and it declares
“hike” in the title of the book. It’s the little details that
sink ships. It was definately a “hike”; maybe “march”
is a better, more British, approxomation of the event.
It was a strong (albeit fascinating) five or six miles of
climbing up and down and skittering along tiny coy-
ote trails along the edge of huge dropoffs to the raging
surf below and up a boulder and thorn strewn arroyo
to a 150 foot hands-and-knees climb straight up - and
that got us little more than halfway! We ended up mak-
ing it to the hotel by dusk to have several margaritas
on parched throats and empty stomachs, and to make
friends with the other bartender, Paul, before wander-
ing the couple of miles back to camp by the light of the
quarter moon. We decided that Dr. Johnson is a true
geologist.
i. The Smaller Conical Hill, Punta Cerotito, Punta Chivato, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Oil on Canvas, 26” x 32”, July 2003
iii. The Larger Conical Hill, Punta Cerotito, Baja California, Mexico
Oil on Linen, 32” x 40”, July 2003
 Black Pepper Stoneware Glazed with Barium, Rutile & Copper
Δ 8 Oxidation, 4.5” x 6.5”, August 25, 2005, Gulfport, Mississippi. Four days pre-Katrina.
 Alligator Porcelain with 8m Grog Glazed with Dolomite, Tin, Copper, Barium & Nickel
Δ 8 Oxidation, 4.5” x 8.5”, October 2005, Gulfport, Mississippi. Six weeks post-Katrina.
 Coffee Creek, Gulfport, Mississippi
Oil on Canvas, 32” x 26”, November 2006
After Katrina
It has now been three years since Hurricane Katrina
washed out our Mississippi Gulf Coast, and I am still
trying to understand the experience.
Clive and I only moved to Gulfport a couple of weeks
before the hurricane hit, and I had only been teaching
for a week at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community
College. We left town on the Friday before, but not
to evacuate. At this point no one was worried about
Katrina, who had just crossed the Florida Peninsula
and arrived in the Gulf headed west as a small storm.
By the time she turned and grew and we realized the
danger, the contra-flow was in place on the highways
and it was too late to return to Gulfport, and then we
weren’t able to go home again for two weeks. We were
out of town celebrating our anniversary, which is on
August 29th, the Monday the hurricane came ashore.
Our college began holding classes again in the middle
of September, as quickly as possible, to try to bring
some focus of stability to the community. We restarted
classes, and started over with the few students we had
left. I have to say that those were some of the most
dedicated students I have ever had the pleasure of
teaching. I think we were all clinging to each other for
some sanity, which was in short supply.
Living in Gulfport was what I imagine it might be
like living in the aftermath of a war. It looked like it
had been bombed, especially the scary blocks South of
the railroad tracks where the surge of the ocean had
literally scrubbed everything down to concrete slabs.
Debris was caught all the way up to the tops of the live
oak trees, at the height of the tops of the power lines. I
almost got a choking sense of vertigo standing on the
streets and seeing how high the water was. I felt like I
was on a very high floor of some skyscraper that had
been bombed, with the ocean as the edge I might fall
over into since there were no longer any walls or safety
rails to protect me. That is, when I could manage to
talk my way through the National Guard roadblocks
surrounded by razor wire to get to the beach. I found
it ironic that we were blocked from the beach when the
ocean was the only visual calm for hundreds of miles. I
eventually scheduled my life in Gulfport so that I saw
the ocean at least once a day.
The combination of blocked roads, missing road signs
and landmarks threw me into a state of constant
confusion. I hadn’t even lived there long enough to
know my way around before the destruction, so the
next year or so was utterly hopeless. Combined with
such issues as finding gas or food, life in Gulfport could
be best described as surreal.
Clive says, “The scenes and devastation are reminiscent
of the post war ‘Blitz Landscape’ of much of Europe
and London, where artists, such as William Coldstream
and C. W. Nevinson, actively tried to find some kind of
order and reason within the devastated landscape.”
Clive repeatedly tried to paint in Gulfport, but not only
was the entire scene of the Gulf Coast depressing, but
it was also in a constant flux. The hurricane itself was
in some ways only the beginning of the destruction.
Clive sat down to compositions, only to find a new
pile of debris and a bulldozer the next day. He looked
for an island of stability and found a clump of trees
surrounded by bulldozed city blocks. During his fourth
painting session, the inevitable bulldozer arrived. But
the driver, interested in the painting, delayed the work
order long enough for Clive to finish the painting. In
the three years after the hurricane, Clive completed
exactly two paintings of Gulfport.
Posada de las Flores Hotel Bar, Punta Chivato, Baja California Sur, August 2003.

Downtown Gulfport, Mississippi, April 2006.

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