Southwest Art Magazine

"Cafe Society" is an article written by Bonnie Ganglhoff for the October 2005 issue of Southwest Art Magazine. 

For Pam Powell, get-togethers in cafes are modern-day happenings that in some sense have replaced old-fashioned church socials. The association first occured to her when she was living in San Francisco because so many of the plans she made with friends centered on hooking up at one of the city's abundant coffee shops. "Cafes were the places where people interacted and you got to know them," Powell recalls. 

She now lives in a small town north of the Bay Area but still relishes the atmosphere of these urban hangouts. "Just being the voyeur that I am, I'm interested in eavesdropping on people's lives," she says. As a teacher at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, she frequents the city regularly and also has easy access to a pool of models. "I set them up and create a story for myself around them," she explains. "It makes the process fun." The cinematic narratives often take on a life of their own, Powell says. She recently posed a handsome young man in a black leather jacket in a cafe--a model who conjured up romantic images of the late actor James Dean. Soon she was adding different models to the mix, arranging senarios in which he was conversing with friends, meeting new girlfriends, or sitting alone at a table with a bouquet of flowers. "It's a fun little hook for me," Powell says. " It's like an ongoing story with the same characters."

Although viewers have responded well to such works, Powell says she is more concerned about what amuses her and pleases her own artistic eye. For inspiration, she turns to Edward Hopper, with some qualifications: "I want my people to be a little warmer and more interactive than Hopper's people," she explains. Powell is represented by Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, CA, and The Peterson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.