As an artist, Pamela Price Klebaum of Ventura, a retired attorney and college professor, explores many media. Her particular interest is how an artwork in one medium can inform another, making “serial transformations.”
So “Crossover,” a Sept. 10- Oct. 5 solo exhibition at the Buenaventura Gallery in downtown Ventura, will feature art glass, textiles, etchings and photography by Klebaum with shared — and transformed — imagery. On display will be about 35 pieces, from an 8-inch-tall vase to a 36-by-24-inch textile.

She will attend a reception 4-7 p.m. Sept. 21 and plans a 6:30 p.m. presentation about her process and the often-surprising results on Oct. 4 during Ventura’s First Friday Gallery Crawl, which goes from 5-8 p.m.

“I will talk about how an image can morph almost serendipitously as it appears in glass, textile, printmaking and photography,” Klebaum said. “I love to explore the element of line. My work explores how this element transforms when it is expressed in different media.

“I photographed my three-dimensional art vase and digitally created a two-dimensional, abstract design. I printed that design on fiber and stitched it. I scanned detritus from a fallen tree and used those images on glass, in textiles, and in creating solar etchings. In all these works, the medium changes how the image is perceived,” she said. “As the process evolves, I often find new ways of seeing the image, and the works evolve in a delightful and unpredictable way.”

She grew up in the San Diego area, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history at UCLA, then met and married Noel Klebaum while both were in law school at Loyola Marymount University in L.A. Soon after they passed the Bar Exam, she bore their son Nicholas (now 35). She was an editor for a legal journal and studied stained glass, quilting and calligraphy “when Nick was but a wee lad” before starting her law practice.

While in general practice for 15 years in Ventura, she also taught legal research and legal writing at the university level and “found it much more rewarding than working in an adversarial system.” That led her at age 46 to trade the courtroom for the classroom, and she returned to grad school.

“I have always been fascinated by language, particularly its use in advocacy,” she said, “so I earned an M.A. in linguistics and finished all the coursework for a doctorate at UCLA. I concentrated on neurolinguistics, how the brain processes language, and discourse analysis, how language is used in different situations, with particular emphasis on forensic linguistics, language in the legal system.”

She went into teaching: scientific writing for biomedical researchers at UCLA and linguistics and law-related courses at the Osher Institute at CSU Channel Islands, where her brain and language course proved so popular it needed a larger classroom.

Throughout her law and teaching careers, Klebaum continued as a traditional quilter until 2007, when she discovered more exciting fabric art possibilities at Quilters’ Studio in Newbury Park and owner Eileen Alber’s monthly Extreme Quilters group. Then, for a better grounding in art principles, she took courses at Ventura College in figure drawing, head drawing and digital imaging and learned to create fused glass art. In 2010, she left teaching behind.

“The changes were so I could pursue something I enjoy,” Klebaum said. “I pursued art seriously once I had the time to do that — studied, took workshops.”

Most recently, she took a course in art glass at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington and “that was another transformational experience — glass is a very technical undertaking, and I learned a lot about the technical side as well as design.”

A few examples of Klebaum’s art are on the Web at http://pamprice.blogspot.com.

Many more examples will be on display at “Crossover” in the Buenaventura Gallery, 700 E. Santa Clara St., which is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. For more information, visit the nonprofit Buenaventura Art Association’s website, http://www.buenaventuragallery.org, or call the gallery at 648-1235.