by Kristine Doherty
Pamela's father worked for the West India Improvement Company and, as such, her family traveled often to Kingston, Jamaica and New York. Their base was in Manchester, which is where Pamela spent her formative years. At the age of 10, the whole family moved to Jamaica and lived there for several years. This was to be an important time in in Pamela's life and she learned much about Jamaican folklore, which was to figure prominently in her work.
Since Pamela's mother had died when Pamela was still young and her father traveled abroad frequently, the Lyceum Theatre Group in London helped to look after her. The Lyceum Theatre Group had three very influential people working for it -- Sir Henry Irving, who was not only an actor there but who managed the company; Bram Stoker, who was the Lyceum's business manager; and Ellen Terry, one of the most popular and highest paid actresses of her time. It was Ellen Terry who bestowed upon the young Pamela the nickname "Pixie," and Pamela spent some time living with Ellen Terry's family and became lifelong friends with her daughter, Edith. During Pamela's teenage years she spent a fair amount of time touring around the country with the Lyceum, which undoubtedly helped to influence her later artwork.
In 1893 at the age of 15, Pamela moved to New York to be with her father in Brooklyn and enrolled at the Pratt Institute. The Pratt Institute advocated training which educated the whole person -- creatively, intellectually and morally. Pamela was trained under Arthur Wesley Dow, who had been influenced by Japanese art and taught that pictures could be composed in much the same way that music was.
When Pamela was 19, she had a feature exhibition at William Macbeth's art gallery. This exhibition was reviewed in the New York Times, and four of Pamela's watercolors were sold.
There are conflicting reports as to whether Pamela graduated from Pratt or whether she left beforehand. Either way, in June of 1899 she headed back to London. She soon became a theatrical designer and illustrator, and had her written and illustrated books published. Pamela's books were based around Jamaican folklore, something she was well acquainted with, and includes 1902's "Annancy Stories," a story about African folk figure Anansi the Spider. Other books that were published are "The Golden Vanity/Green Bed" and "Widdicombe Fair."
Pamela was introduced to poet William Butler Yeats, who was impressed enough to ask her to illustrate some of his works. Through Yeats, Pamela was introduce to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which she joined in 1903. This is where she first met Arthur Edward Waite.
Shortly after Pamela's initiation into the Golden Dawn the group split into different factions, with Waite taking over as head of the Isis-Urania Temple. Waite's group called themselves the "Order of the Independent and Rectified Rite."
Arthur Edward Waite had spent a lot of time working on building a tarot deck and needed a good designer and illustrator. It was clear to Waite that Pamela was the artist that he had been searching for, and the two began working together to design what is today the most popular 78 card tarot deck in existence. While this deck was intended to have wide appeal, at the same time he wanted it to also have occult overtones. After much work, the tarot deck was finished and finally published in December 1909.
That same year, Pamela joined the Suffrage Atelier in London and worked hard to promote the vote for women. She contributed posters, postcards and artwork dedicated to furthering a woman's right to vote.
After the first World War had ended, Pamela received a sizable inheritance that enabled her to rent a house she called The Lizard in Cornwall. Cornwall was inhabited by many artists at the time and Pamela felt right at home there. Through the years, Pamela continued to illustrate and write, although her public output dwindled and not much is known about the end of her life.
Pamela converted to Catholicism in 1911 and died on September 18, 1951 in Bude, Cornwall.
Sources: http://home.comcast.net/~pamela-c-smith/bio.html, http://www.controverscial.com/Pamela%20Colman.htm, wikipedia