Information for ...
What's it like ...
to be on HGTV?*
What would you do if producers at HGTV (Home and Garden Television) e-mailed you to be on one of their programs? Would you wonder if they had the right person? Just say yes? Second-guess your decision? Pat Forbes '67, a native of Silver Spring, Maryland, who has lived for several years in Albuquerque, did all of that - and ended up thoroughly enjoying the experience of being featured on the network's coast-to-coast contemporary craft show, That's Clever!
"I decided - midstream - that I didn't want to do it," said Forbes, an MBC art major who returned to painting in the early 1990s after a career on the fringes of the art world and raising her daughter. "Then they called back with details and I couldn't say no."
It wasn't the first time Forbes' art was featured in the media - she beams in a picture that accompanies an article in a 1967 issue of the Richmond Times-Dispatch about her senior art exhibit at Mary Baldwin College, and she has talked with members of media for other publications. With this show, though, she was about to go national.
Forbes likes to change her art focus frequently, and lately she has been cultivating what she terms Uppity Art. "It's not meant to be snooty. Actually, the name is a play on the way that some people regard art as inaccessible," said Forbes, who studied art in Paris while at MBC. "I chose Uppity Art because it's sculpture, and I like to say 'It's art that stands up for itself.'" At her Uppity Art Web site, www.UppityArt.com, one will find boldly painted columns, trees, planters, and other unique items.
The HGTV production featured Forbes creating a pre-Uppity Art piece, an asymmetrical textured mirror frame made with wood, molding compound, and acrylic paints. Filming for the show, which aired last October, began at 8:30 a.m. and ended at 3 p.m. on a chilly January day. The final run time on her segment on the half-hour program was about 7 1/2 minutes. "It was a project I thought would be doable for people who are moderately crafty, something that I thought I could show how to do pretty simply," Forbes said. Preparation included having a mirror ready for each stage of the creation - which worked out to about six total. "I kept making frames over and over ... I didn't make those frames for quite a while after that," she said.
Forbes said the shoot went mostly the way she expected it to, although "they did ask me to do a few things I thought would be goofy, like throw paper up into the air, and comb my hair with the tool I use to create texture. But those shots worked into the segment well in the end." A text and photograph version of the program can be seen online: From www.UppityArt.com, click on the That's Clever! link.
The show did not catapult Forbes to celebrity status - she did not expect nor crave it - but visits to her Web site did spike dramatically the day it aired. "Lately I've been running into friends and acquaintances who tell me they saw the show, and that's fun," she said. It might not get her a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but being on HGTV builds her credibility with the public and in the art world - and it was one-of-a-kind, she said.
*originally published in the fall 2006 issue of The Mary Baldwin College Magazine
Photo featured of Forbes is by Pat Barrett
Update 2008: In December 2007 Forbes was selected as Best Local Artist for 2007 by Albuquerque The Magazine. She also contributed a cradle for The Cradle Project supporting orphans in sub-Saharan Africa in honor of her new granddaughter. Forbes is also starting a line of greeting cards featuring her figure drawings and sayings empowering women. All of this, and more, can be seen on her Web site www.PatriciaForbesArt.com.