Contemporaries of Pixie's time

Debra said:

KariRoad, my friend, I respectfully disagree. Both decks are gorgeous and in that sense similar, but I'm not seeing enough parallels in composition, body posture, coloration, gesture, faces to draw any solid line between the two. I don't see any reason to think the Dotti was more influential than any other deck that Colman Smith might have examined. The Sola Busca cards are certainly a partial influence--hard to deny that 3 of Swords.

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I certainly can't argue with endlessly repeated conclusions. Did then Pamela Colman Smith "copy" the Sola Busca card for card from the British Museum? I guess the answer is yes, if you want it to be. The 3 of Swords was probably a Roman tattoo, copied from the Greeks, who got it from the Egyptians. Hallmark probably has a card with the same design today.

Teodoro Dotti created a version of the Tarot; Pamela Colman Smith created a version of the Tarot. Did PCS "copy" line for line Dotti's designs? No. She intentionally translated her source of inspiration, artistically, but made it clear to anyone who cared to look that she was paying homage to a master. Tarot is a living tradition, and as much as PCS was inspired by Oswald Wirth, she also followed her vision with joy and delight from the images she knew and loved by Dotti.

The bottom line is, Pamela Colman Smith didn't COPYRIGHT her images, she presented them to the world. But nowadays, a few folks with sticky fingers lay claim to every detail, and suppose to tell the world all about what she did, herself, in her own way, for her own reasons and our eternal benefit. Copyright free, and bless her Pixie heart

If I were your lecturer, I would ask you to explain further.

How would one assess your essay based on such ambiguous aims and objectives - of which one seems rather highly subjective.

You are not accommodating the subject with the kudos it duly deserves, as it encompasses far more than a simple two thousand word essay could embrace.

Stick to the usage of pretty colours.

GRAFLIX1 said:

Stick to the usage of pretty colours.

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Education only suffers when teachers use red ink

No worries.

I just saw Cerulean has already said what I was going to say.

GRAFLIX1 said:

If I were your lecturer, I would ask you to explain further.

How would one assess your essay based on such ambiguous aims and objectives - of which one seems rather highly subjective.

You are not accommodating the subject with the kudos it duly deserves, as it encompasses far more than a simple two thousand word essay could embrace.

Stick to the usage of pretty colours.

Click to expand...

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KariRoad - 'Copy' is such a horrible word to use when looking at her wide source of influence (even though it's rare to create a real original work of art these days). Like I said earlier, she was a professional artist and a great symbolist. I do find your trail of thought about the 3 of Swords interesting. However, tracking down card for card of the 'original' symbolism could go forever though and may be difficult. My essay is only the odd 6 k words, hehe.

On that note, my tutor has turned my question on it's head now. He thought my question was a little too narrow, so I've tweaked the title (which will still include how she became so successful). He looked at what my current research was and said it probably would be better to look into the origin of WHY and HOW this deck was created for a product of it's time e.g. mysticism was becoming a hit, WW1, literature (Yeats), philosophies etc. In a nutshell he thought this question could be something like this...

"What is the culteral, historical, and social background behind the Waite-Smith?"

OR

"How and why was the Waite-Smith tarot deck created from social, historical and social stand point?"

I could attribute how her deck became so successful either from the beginning or towards the conclusion. You can't really debate or deny that her deck wasn't succesful, can you? My question still feels like an analysis though. Still...getting some good research and help from here though.


Thank you everyone!

Lady_Cerridwen said:

"What is the [cultural], historical, and social background behind the Waite-Smith?"

OR

"How and why was the Waite-Smith tarot deck created from social, historical and social stand point?"

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Please (somewhere) in your essay, include a reference to the fact that, in a man's world, a woman created the most powerful Tarot deck the planet Earth has ever known, which has since been usurped by men, claiming it to have been "a work for hire" under the direction of a man, and marketed by men as the "Rider-Waite" deck, ie; Mr. Rider and Mr. Waite. And then please too, if you will, ask also, why women have not objected to this "defeminisation" but rather embraced the fuzzy notion that it must have been "some guy's idea" all along.

And if I may ask, what is the title of the course for which your research is being conducted?
(Please don't say History.)

KariRoad, you might laugh at this, but I'm doing a BA in Illustration. When I suggested my title / subject, I could almost feel a silent laughter emanating from everyone, hehe. It's really interesting though. For a great body of work Pixie created (and getting none of the royalties), it's a bit ironic for someone who helped the suffraggettes. I'll have to make a note of threading that in somewhere.

The 2007 book Modernism & Feminine Voice: O'Keefe and Women of Stiegliz Circle

by Kathleen Pyne comments that PCS (also referred to below as "Smith") circa 1909-10 as a novelty in Stieglitz's marketing view had 'worn off' - sad in our modern eyes that it was her youthful aspect that had been played up rather than the perspective of artistic vision and mystical painting talent coming into her own...

Backing up:
PCS met photographer Gertrude Kaisbier while studying with Arthur Wesley Dow at Pratt in Brooklyn, New York during 1893-7; .Gertrude Kaisbeir was showing at 291, owned by Alfred Stieglitz . Gertrude photographed PCS in 1899. Kathleen Pyne's study on Kaisbeir and Smith in the section "The Woman Artist as the Mystical Voice" is excellent in comparing both of them and their treatment by Stieglitz.

It was artistic and novel to portray mystical dreaming imagery from the 'naive womanly artistic instinct. Kaisibeitrs 1899 photo portrait of Smith was really more dreamy.

Somewhere in-between there was also the "Asian" influences that one can read about in the New York magazines of the time. PCS as an art student of Arthur Wesley Dow, the Lamp Magazine 1903 image, her work with the different Yeats brothers, etc...

Smith showed at 291 three times from 1907-1909.

"...Smith's fantastical, dreamlike art appeared in New York when Freud's essay on dreams had not yet appeared in English translation, but the intelligensia of Greenwich Village were already fascinated by cultural artifacts they regarded as direct manifestations of the psyche...Smith's actual appearance at the gallery completed the image of the artist as the mystic..."

Modernism and the Feminine Voice: O'Keefe and the Women of the Stiegliz Circle: Pages 47-60

The exotic turban photograph of PCS circa 1912 and was more in line with the young maturation of an image cultivating the 'gypsy' or 'West Indian' attire.

There's lots to cover in a biography of her time as an art student and running an art press, but Stieglitz dropped her work...he went on to sponsor his more "exciting" find, Anne Brigman and his Camera Work magazine, etc...

"Living in London after her 291 exhibitioins, Smith could not sustain her income as an artist...her correspondence with Stieglitz...financial concerns and pleas for reimbursements for drawings sold, rather tan any exporation of mutual spiritual concerns that might be imagined as uniting thier interests in the mysteries of art and soul..."

Her poster designs for women sufferage, Red Cross WWI work, converting to Roman Catholicism in 1911 and living in the Cornwall coast where she rented part of her home as a vacation retreat for priests were mentioned in Kathleen's Pyne's work. PCS did inherit a small legacy that allowed her some income and died in 1951

The part about her inheriting a legacy and things above is referred in other biographical pages you'll find elsewhere, as well.

Best,

Cerulean

Every artist uses source pictures for quick reference for example, costumes of the period etc. for accuracy. Does anyone know what sources Pixie used? I mean, the woman was originally from Jamaica not England - she would have had to study her English subject matter somewhere.

You can read her bio here and it may assist you

http://home.comcast.net/~pamela-c-smith/bio.html

There was also travel from Manchester, England in her childhood and she studied and lived in New York, the U.S. as an art student.

Sorry, the question of asking PCS' art sources seems a bit vague to me with only reference to her Jamaican connections...I apologize if I am not referencing anything but basic information. I seem to be busy these weeks, but hope some of this information will be helpful. Others with specific references will probably be answering you, as well.

Perhaps first searching for a separate thread in the aeclectic archives asking the same specific questions...and noting any references you might have already looked at, so we do not repeat anything that might have studied already...

Do not forget to look for threads by Roppo, or net links that reference Frank Jensen, as their collections and historical work seems to surpass many previous works as of 2010...

Best wishes on your good research and studies,

Cerulean