Diane Pearl is one of those people that it is a joy to be with because they radiate love. Searching for where this quality came from, she told me that she thought she had gotten it from her mother's womb while her mother followed her passion of teaching Hebrew to Jewish children. She went with her mother to the classes as a child too, absorbing the universal principles of Judaism. The child who identifies with her gifted father, and follows in her father's footsteps, uses observed skills and has a foot up in her own career. Diane's father was a tool and die maker, and Diane is no less a mechanic for being a jeweler and painter. She has synthesized what she learned from her parents into life led as art, in clear and gentle beauty.
She came of age in the seventies, a super achiever with art at the center of her being. She studied at Hartford Art School, then drove her little put-put from Connecticut to San Francisco. On the trip alone, she took time to see all the interesting sights along the way, from Lake Michigan and Chicago, to the Rockies, to the desert floor of Death Valley, amazed at the diversity outside of New England. She knew she wasn't in Kansas anymore when tall corn gave way to oil wells, and that she was in Texas when men became charming. But she was home in the San Francisco of the seventies, Haight Ashbury and all. Today she is very much a business woman, but a flower child still echoes through her personality.
Terpsichore was the Greek muse of dance, and it is of the Greek muse that I think when envisioning Diane Pearl as she traveled around the USA, turning first to one kind of job, then to another, a typical career path for an artist. She worked as a scuba diver, worked the Renaissance Fair, in California, did scroll work for a carpenter in Boston, modeled for three years for David Brooks, and spray painted and silk screened for fourteen years, in New York City. She has designed and manufactured her own line of furniture, and made prototypes for others,' and she opened the first art gallery in Port Angeles, Washington. With more creative energy than most of us, she once had had a martial arts class, a performing arts studio, a gallery, and a musical instrument repair business, all going at the same time and in the same business space.
Five years ago, she came to Ajijic, painting, and doing beautiful scroll work jewelry. The landscapes and weather impressed her, but it was the Jewish community that provided the glue for her to stay. The Universe presented her with the opportunity to open shop at Ocampo 1, the best corner of Ajijic. With other craftsmen, she opened Arte Uno, a jeweler's cooperative. Artist's cooperatives open and close like mushrooms, and the shop has morphed into Diane Pearl's Collections. She put the business plan together with her partner, Gerry Krause. It was he who taught her to close a sale, and it is to him that she gives much of the credit for her success. Art and infatuation inform each other.
She has local exclusives with many craftsmen. They include Kathleen Schomp, who makes beautiful, low key, jewelry, and Stacy Girton, who makes bold jewelry of Sterling silver, Turquoise, and red coral, and Gail Rooney---Hot Mama---puts together iridescent gold hued beads, dicroic in abundance. Diane's nonrepresentational paintings in floral colors hang on the wall alongside David Hernandez Tiburcio's earth toned abstract paintings of Middle Earth creatures, and Prudencio Guzman's powerful carved and painted masks that depict the scourge of smallpox on the indigenous people of the New world. Jacqueline Stewart and Gillian Hanington both have lovely fused glass pieces hanging in the shop; Jacqueline has a Japanese minimalist style, while Gillian's are earthbound, jewel colored masses. Fuenzalida pottery has earth toned geometric designs in various shapes, inspired by Mata Ortiz and other traditions. Ramon Edwardo Castro Lopez has a zoo of African animals in hollow stainless steel in the shop. A collection of glyphs carved in bone, limestone, and amber, and portraits of Mayan kings, burned onto leather, by craftsmen of Palenque, and Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, are there thanks to Paul Boorah, professor, photographer, and traveler. Puebla is represented with Talavera dinnerware painted in elaborate traditional designs.
Walk into the gallery expecting a sensual experience, for it is a feast for the eyes, fingertips and feelings. There are cases of outstanding jewelry, paintings, fused glass assemblies, Talavera ceramics, sculptures, vases and artificial flowers. Everywhere there are beautiful colors in artful combinations and tasteful design. Walk into the gallery, and walk into a hub of the community, for Diane's presence draws the best of the best to her shop, and it is a wonderful place to see friends and to meet new people. Walk in and experience Diane Pearl, for she gives of herself to everyone, even offering treats to friendly dogs.
