Pamela Colman Smith

[greatdane]

Thank you all for your posts....

It still saddens me to think that someone who gave so much to the art world, and the tarot world in particular, should not have something more. I know it is not practical to feel this way if there is no way to find her final resting place, but I just think there should be SOMETHING somewhere, some marker or memorial near where she last lived, from her fans. Maybe if there was only a marker in the area she's buried....there are all kinds of plaques, markers, statues dedicated to people all over the world, not just where they happen to be buried. There are a lot of people who were never found, but that didn't mean they didn't deserve some type of memorial.

I know people can say her work lives on, she's been immortalized in some ways, but I think the woman deserves MORE, ESPECIALLY since there's no way to really find her final resting place. I would certainly donate to some type of small memorial or something like that. I think she is one of the most important influences in tarot through her art and one of the ones, if not the one, who got really the least out of it when talking recognition or money....at least until recently. With the Commemorative deck out, and the timing, I think a hundred years is long enough for her to wait to get more.....just my thoughts.

 

[roppo]

I've been commemorating PCS in my own fashion and this topic is really interesting one for me.

We all know it's very difficult to locate her burying place and I'm afraid simply we can't. Well then, how about a little blue plaque on the wall of a house or a building once PCS lived in? Those we often see on the London streets, for example, "Charles Dickens lived in this house from 1856-60" etc. Probably there is a legal regulation for it, but it would be great if we could manage to set PCS commemorating plates (with some drawings from RWS) on the walls of her related places.

 

[Cerulean]

Yes Dante Algheri does in Florence...

I've been reading vintage reviews of her in Scribner's The Critic and she projected her lively caricatires seen on Roppo's site and delighted notes on her travels.artwork with stage personalities..nothing on tarot. Ironic but I am glad to have read and shared when I could my own appreciative attempts.

Only very recently have I heard or read more of her in academic publications in contexts with other historical partnerships. I mean within the past five years she has been remembered as an artist.

It will take awhile to register historic sites where she did her art.

Cerulean

I've been commemorating PCS in my own fashion and this topic is really interesting one for me.

We all know it's very difficult to locate her burying place and I'm afraid simply we can't. Well then, how about a little blue plaque on the wall of a house or a building once PCS lived in? Those we often see on the London streets, for example, "Charles Dickens lived in this house from 1856-60" etc. Probably there is a legal regulation for it, but it would be great if we could manage to set PCS commemorating plates (with some drawings from RWS) on the walls of her related places.

 

[Lillie]

I believe that one of these was the building she was living in when she died.
I assume that they were divided into flats then just as they are now, but I don't know for certain.

 

[brightcrazystar]

my reverance for her.

An oath she took at one point, reads

"and if I break this oath,...., may I die alone, impoverished, and be laid in a unknown grave with no stone as a marker."

This is exactly what she endured.

I am not calling her an oathbreaker////////////
The thing is an oath is broken in the ritual it is taken in. It is part of the masonic model of ritual and the reason is the liminal state of a mind turned against itself allows a clarity that is not reasoned - it is realized. The "dread penalty" is actually the reward if you actually get it. I think she attained the city of the pyramids and was left to ash and dust, whither not she did not care. But if her grave was her, it would be a SHRINE a mecca if you will, and she would be fettered here by that poison of the soul called "idol worship".

She gave her light to the world, she lived Alone, and she died old.

Practically, and in modern eyes, and even to her own ego, where all seek a common financial ground and a good living, her story is atrocious, and her end is not fair. It is easy to see she would be diagnosed with synesthesia, as would likely many of us here. But, beyond ego and this modern idea of success by portfolio, we can see clearly to the brilliance of a woman who took as her Motto: Quod tibi id alliis, Latin for "whatever you would have done to thee, do unto others." This woman's aspiration, spiritually, was the Golden Rule.

Her poem "Alone" speaks so much to the sorrow of the True Supernal Mother which reflects in the Mourning of Isis:

Alone and in the midst of men,
Alone 'mid hills and vallies fair;
Alone upon a ship at sea;
Alone - alone, and everywhere.

(I think of these as her life as markers easy to see in her art. Her illustration of Dracula at sea, her scenes of posh society, and her sweeping landscapes. Her youth, life, and her seniority. 5 alones is a pentagram of sorrow. We have an infinitely mobile and solitary force - the Pangenator of The Breath of Life.)

O many folk I see and know,
So kind they are I scarce can tell,
But now alone on land and sea,
In spite of all I'm left to dwell.

(2 of disks, better than ever put before or after. This is the manifestation of the force of the interplay of yin and yang. Supernal consciousness.)

In cities large -in country lane,
Around the world - 'tis all the same;
Across the sea from shore to shore.
Alone - alone, for evermore.

(This woman was in the sorrow of realization of "All is Sorrow". Magister Templi - entrance to the Third and Great Inner Order where none living can dwell. Where Enoch, Lao Tzu, Solomon, and Siddhartha all dwell - the legends and lore of our race. A place this woman saw with a clarity few possess.)

 

[greatdane]

My Goal here

is just to acknowledge her in some small way. It just seems fitting to have some small memorial, plaque, something, put up by her tarot fans, who I don't think I'm exaggerating, when I say we are legion! There are sooo many of us who enjoy her work daily.

I would be all for putting a plaque or small memorial or marker somewhere where she lived or loved to visit (perhaps there was a place she loved to go).

I know she doesn't "require" this, for me, it's more about me acknowledging what she has given to me, my own way of a small tribute to honor her.

If there are others who feel the same way, I don't see why we couldn't come up with something....

Blessings,
GD

 

[brightcrazystar]

There was a house she lived in as part of a artists collective. I forget name but that to me might be a suitable place for such a suitable marker, in my mind.

I agree commemoration is a good idea, and would contribute. I just think it should be modest and in her spirit. Please don't take my speculation as discouragement or diapproval.

 

[Richard]

Memorials are for the living, not the dead. Abraham Lincoln is not around to appreciate (or despise) the Lincoln Memorial. It was erected in his memory, a reminder to us (the living) of his life, work, and ideals. I don't think it is appropriate to impose religious or metaphysical beliefs on such a mundane matter.

If PCS wished to be forgotten, she failed big-time. A memorial, simple or elaborate, cannot possibly do any harm. Her creative work has had a profound and extensive effect in the world and certainly warrants such recognition.

 

[greatdane]

Hello LRichard and brightcrazystar

You have both echoed my sentiments in so many ways. My goal is merely some small tribute as being an admirer of her work and feeling her memory certainly deserves some token of the respect many of us have for her. Whether a plaque or some gesture like that, doesn't really matter to me. It is the thought and the intention that I thought of to recognize her work that matters to me. And while I definitely agree many things are for the living, not the dead, I can't help but think she would have approved and enjoyed having some of us remember and honor her in this way.

For me, it is more about the gesture, than the form it will take.

Blessings and thank you both for your comments. I think you understand where I am coming from with this.

GD

 

[brightcrazystar]

Memorials are for the living, not the dead. Abraham Lincoln is not around to appreciate (or despise) the Lincoln Memorial. It was erected in his memory, a reminder to us (the living) of his life, work, and ideals. I don't think it is appropriate to impose religious or metaphysical beliefs on such a mundane matter.

If PCS wished to be forgotten, she failed big-time. A memorial, simple or elaborate, cannot possibly do any harm. Her creative work has had a profound and extensive effect in the world and certainly warrants such recognition.

I strongly agree with this, but every time I see the washington monument, I think of how much that one self educated man did by being true to himself and how much better the world might be if that went to support those who do the same.

To leave one person who carries on in your spirit is greater than to remind the whole world of who you were if it changes nothing. This is why I would favor a foundation in lincolns name for self developed curriculum driven learning examples; people who seek to accredit themselves as he did. That would shake the boughs of this tree of instituted learning and indoctrinated but not digested data that is the fast food learning of today.

I would love to see an art school foundation, or one that represents what, aspiration, she practically deserved for her efforts in respect of the impact on western occultism, thought, literature and art. I feel this way about alot of people who suffered a same fate or worse.