Collection: Artist: Fred Mead

Fred Mead showed an early interest in art and was taught to paint in oil at age 12 by his father, also an artist/industrial designer. Flying lessons and a student pilot license were accomplished before driving a car. Fred's early paintings done at the Cranbrook Art Institute and were sometimes a view from the cockpit of a plane.

In 1974, Fred entered Columbus College of Art and Design graduating in 1979 with a Bachelor of Fine Art, with a double major in painting and sculpture and a minor in photography. In 1980, Fred moved to North Carolina for the climate and to begin an art career. He has maintained an art studio while working at "Adventure House" as a Rehabilitation Specialist/Program Coordinator since 1989.

Fred states, "My works are mostly based around nature with a spiritual interpretation. I like the unusual and beautiful things in the natural world. The sun, moon, and stars are often represented. Shapes and ideas combine as in "Quasar Shell" where a seashell and a Quasar are shown as one gleaming glass sculpture. All things are connected and as nature points up again and again how all living things are connected and interdependent for their survival. I like to exemplify these connections from the smallest to the vastness of the universe. In my highest ideal I hope to help others to find a more spiritual connection between their world and the world around them. To me it is a reassuring feeling to believe that there is order in our world and we are part of the order."

"All life is connected. We all come from a common source physically, born from the matter of the stars. Imagine that you are an interconnected part of the Universe."