Pearl Ollie
Acrylic | Watercolor | Sculpture | Pastel / Charcoal | Oil | Murals | Mosaic | Mixed Media | Glass | Fiber Art | Digital Art | Clay / Porcelain
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Biography
I started sculpting and painting when I was a child and by 16 years old 1969, I was working for a sculpture company in Hamtramck , Michigan owned by Bob Stone who bought my original sculpture made from plastilina (modeling clay) and reproduced them in Portland cement for furniture stores. I made life size sculptures of lady’s, animals, columns and more. I worked as a sculpture instructor at age 17 for a summer at Camp Maple Hurst, Kiwadin, Michigan teaching younger children to work with clay. That fall I attended an art college, The Society of Arts and Crafts now Center for Creative Study in Detroit, Michigan majoring in ceramics and then sculpture. I learned to work with clay, bronze, glass, mold making, metal shop, wood shop, plastics, fiberglass, painting, drawing and print making. I taught myself to sculpt in marble and other stone. I worked for Jerry Drouillard making more clay originals that were reproduced in many materials.
When I moved to Florida in 2002, I worked for Brevard Ornamental Studios in Rockledge, Florida for Roy Kirby working on Portland cement sculptures doing repairs, painting and creating sculpture. Each year the Brevard Zoo in Rockledge, Florida had a temporary installation of sculpture show called “Animal Houses of the Imagination.” For 3 years I exhibited. One year I did a 24’ x 8’x 6’ giraffe and house, another year I did a baby rhinoceros and house which was 8’ by 8’ and another year I made a miniature tamarind village using as many natural materials as I could in all of them. I was elected by Brevard Cultural Alliance to do an artist in residency at South West Middle School, where I taught school students to help build a 7’ x 7’ cement bronco horse with a bronze patina as a permanent installation. I was commissioned by CBL Property Management & Associates, Inc., to make 4 cement sculptures for the Hammock Landing Shopping Plaza in Palm Bay as a permanent installation.
At Riverside Memorial cemetery stands a 6’5” Afro American angel of a soldier who died in Pakistan that I made from Portland cement and colored oxides. At Health First, Viera, Florida in the lobby sits a 2’ cement sculpture with bronze patina of Mike Means and Larry Garrison, founders of Cape Canaveral Hospital, Holmes Regional Hospital and Health First Health Centers that I was commissioned to do. I have been commissioned to sculpt other people including My Harrison, FBI special agent. As well as being a sculpture, I am a painter in all mediums, working on canvas as well as murals on walls. I have been a host of a local TV show “Focus” on art in Brevard, channel 49, NASA station on Bright House. I also was a board member of CAFOB, Creative Arts Foundation of Brevard. My most recent project a 10 foot bronze sculpture of Juan Ponce de Leon, helping artist Rafael Picon with all phases of making the sculpture, molds and pouring of the sculpture. It is displayed at Ponce de Leon Inlet in South Melbourne Beach.