What Question would you ask Miss Pamela?

ravenest

I would ask her if Waite gave her secret instructions to hide obscure Freemasonic symbolism in the minors - or if she 'channeled' that out of his head and did it herself ... of if she even knew if she did that.
 

tarotbear

I'd ask Pam if Crowley really was the weirdo, creepy guy everyone makes him out to be or if he was just a pompous ass ....
 

nisaba

The question I would ask Miss Smith would be: was he really as much of a pig to work for as I think he might have been?
 

Padma

She really was an amazing artist! I second Laura Borealis on that. If anything, it feels like her style was curbed and simplified in the deck...

I would like to ask her how she viewed the world.
 

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Leo77

She really was an amazing artist! I second Laura Borealis on that. If anything, it feels like her style was curbed and simplified in the deck...

I would like to ask her how she viewed the world.

Do these works come in the commemorative edition of the deck? The package says "extra artwork". I really like these drawings.
 

Padma

Do these works come in the commemorative edition of the deck? The package says "extra artwork". I really like these drawings.


click here for her bio!

Looks like there will be a book coming out featuring her art...I hope so! I saw it mentioned on another website (a blog) but darned if I can't find it now!

ETA The one with the two Russian/Eastern men on it came from her illustrations for a Russian Ballet pamphlet

ETA 2 I found the website! it is a review of the deck by Janet Boyer. Apparently there is indeed a 101 page book featuring her non-tarot art that goes with the Commemorative set :) http://www.janetboyer.com/Pamela_Colman_Smith_Commemorative_Set.html
 

greatdane

Love reading all the posts

While I don't know how much she was really into tarot, and I have also read it was a paid gig, I have read she did a turnaround later and kind of "renounced" that world. So whether she had a little, a lot, or no interest in reading, in the cards, I would really like to ask her. Even if it was just a paid gig, she may have had some interest and she was around Golden Dawn members and Waite. I would love to have asked her so many questions from her perspective about the cards, how much she was or wasn't into them, the Golden Dawn, what it was like to be a woman in the circle she was in. Women's roles were so different then and it must have been interesting to have been....unconventional....at least in some ways.
 

Laura Borealis

She really was an amazing artist! I second Laura Borealis on that. If anything, it feels like her style was curbed and simplified in the deck...

I would like to ask her how she viewed the world.

I love those examples, thank you for sharing them.

As much as I love and respect the RWS deck, it really doesn't reflect the delicacy of her drawings. She didn't seem to expect the decks to be printed well, either ("printed in colour by lithography - probably very badly!" she wrote). Perhaps that's one reason she distanced herself from it. It must have been grating to have been paid very little for a such a big job, and then have your artwork unskillfully traced over by some lithographer in a print shop. (What I imagine happened, that is.)
 

greatdane

I agree with you, Laura Borealis

Whatever her thoughts about tarot itself, this was a paid job, and a poorly paid one at that, according to what I've read. I have seen other examples of her artwork, as I think many of us have (especially if we got her commemorative deck set), and it would have been interesting to see what she would have done if given free rein, more time and money.
 

tarotbear

Which AT member has all the links to everything Pamela on his AT bio? For the life of me I cannot remember his name (Alzheimer's setting in, you know!)