Athens artist Noah James Saunders is best known for his large-scale, three-dimensional portraits shaped from everyday wire. Often suspended so they are free to gently spin or sway, these prism-like sculptures cast an infinite number of shadows resulting in the illusion of subtly shifting expressions.
His latest body of work, “Ode to a Watering Hole,” represents his expansion as an artist, shifting in both scale and dimension to further push the limits of wire as a medium. Ephemeral in nature, these intimate “wire drawings” of hair-thin copper wire depict bar scenes preserved between sheets of fused glass.
Showcasing this innovative new approach through 22 works, “Ode to a Watering Hole” will be on view during a pop-up reception at tiny ATH gallery on Thursday, Jan. 16 from 6–9 p.m. The images capture how the mood of a bar can morph from hour to hour and day to day.

“Every sculpture is a direct inspiration or amalgamation of related thematic memories of what I’ve seen over the years in Athens bars,” says Saunders. “Over the years, I have seen the types that one finds in a bar: the sad young man, the jaded single woman, the nervous one waiting for a second date to arrive, the old sage looking for his next student, the warm motherly type, the one who is too cool to realize just how magical this particular night is. Many of these characters make it into our singer-songwriter songs. They can be found in most bars across America, but here in Athens I feel we make ample room for these folks to fill these roles. In fact, I’m getting old enough to have seen one person fill in the same character type as played by someone of the previous generation. Even sitting in the same barstool and wearing similar clothes. It’s like in Athens bars we are all acting out an ancient play, the roles must be filled!”
Though each individual work was created with a specific location in mind, Saunders chose to lean into the universality of bar culture by instead naming each piece with the day of the week and time of day that the scene envisions. By doing so, he invites viewers to relate and reminisce about their own experiences.
“An Athens Bar on Monday at 3 p.m. is nothing like Friday at midnight,” says Saunders. “Even in the same bar, if I go for a drink at about 5 then go to dinner and return at 9, I am always struck at how different the place feels. Like a classical symphony that starts off gentle and ends much later in a smashing crescendo.”
The seed of inspiration for these portraits was planted several years ago by Christie Moody of Blue Heron Glass Art, who encouraged him to consider the fact that copper and glass have the same expansion rate, meaning that glass can be melted around copper without cracking. After some trial and error, Saunders and Moody refined a process for preserving his “portraits of moments” in glass.
In preparation of his first solo exhibition in Athens in over eight years, Saunders reached out to carpenter and musician Joe Willey about how to best display the works. Drawing inspiration from how museums often display artifacts, they devised a way for the works to be framed and mounted on top of a slightly textured white gesso similar to the textured quality that the glass takes on in the kiln.

In recent years Saunders has sustained his creative endeavors by breaking out of the retail art model and seeking the support of patrons through pre-sales and donations. Last January, he spent 100 days in Los Angeles as part of a residency at Creature Comforts Brewing Co., and in 2018 he studied art in Italy for a month after being selected as a finalist for the Luxembourg Prize. For this specific exhibition, he set a goal of raising $7,700 to cover material costs, framing, photographic documentation and out-of-pocket expenses as he created the work over the course of six months.
After the first few works successfully came out of the glass kiln this past summer, Saunders headed to Normal Bar to celebrate and gather feedback from the bar’s regulars. Fittingly, this is where he ran into Camille Hayes and Linda Macbeth, the outgoing and incoming curators of tiny ATH gallery, who invited him to share his new series.
This month marks a major milestone in the gallery’s history, as founder Hayes has officially transferred ownership to Macbeth—a decision spurred by a serendipitous happy hour at Hidden Gem.
“After five years of what started as a passion project and effort in creating a new gallery space and brand, I’m ready to pass the torch,” says Hayes, who works as the director of marketing for local branding agency Kaptiv8 in addition to running her own freelance graphic design business. “I was extremely fortunate to connect with Linda so she can keep the gallery going. As an artist and a former director of the Science & Discovery Center of Northwest Florida, she definitely has the experience and passion to keep it going and make positive decisions for the gallery, artists and community.”
Moving forward, the gallery plans to continue showcasing a different artist each month, primarily locals, but now with the potential of bringing in artists from New Orleans and other cities Macbeth has connections to. In addition to the gallery’s staple receptions held during Third Thursday, Macbeth also hopes to begin hosting small classes.
Hayes says she’s most proud of “creating a space where people loved to come and support artists they were already friends with or learn about and support artists they’d never heard of… I loved when people would come at the beginning of an event and stay and chat with the artists and other community members the whole evening.”
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