How About This presents Pamela Marie Pierce
The Saint John, New Brunswick artist answers a few questions
For Atlantic Canada Mondays we’re back with a new interview featuring Saint John, New Brunswick artist Pamela Marie Pierce (you can find her on Twitter and Instagram).
Here’s Pamela!
Your website mentions that you are a self-taught artist and I believe you've mentioned that you drew a lot as a kid. Was art a choice you made or a calling you heeded?
Calling, need, choice. Maybe it’s like being a fish, and feeling called to/needing to swim. Any choice to stop would unavoidably be a choice about more than swimming. Note: I have not been approved to speak for fish.
Is your art completely based on physical materials or have you also experimented with electronic/digital art? Pros or cons?
Physical materials only. I can’t seem to move around gracefully inside digital materials, so it’s best left to those who can.
What kinds of jobs have you had prior to focusing on art?
Gigs have included bartending, barista-ing, and being a truly terrible waitress. It’s hard work. Please tip your server.
I remember that you and your good friend Julia once published a zine, Hard Times in the Maritimes, based out of Saint John, NB. How did that start and how did that story end? (note: Julia Wright wrote about Hard Times in the Maritimes in this interview, for reference)
That story will never end. But it did start, and it started on Twitter. She had reached out to ask if I’d like to do some illustrations for her previous zine, The Tempest, and one thing led to another. The rest is a story I could only tell with her.
Tough to beat sitting with JW in a freezing cold studio for hours on end, sketching and inking and cutting and typing each issue. So many glue sticks fell to our cause.
Do you do any creative writing, journaling, etc? Is there anything there that you would ever publish in some manner?
I do write, I feel an urge and need to write (see: being a fish,) and have shelves of journals and other works, but I don’t often choose to share them. Writing and visual art do not feel very far apart to me.
On Twitter you've indicated that you are highly introverted and thus very comfortable with your own company. Has this caused problems with your ability to maintain relationships with other people or are you cool with it all?
That’s an interesting question. I’m not introverted by choice, so I’m not sure that I’m cool with it all so much as that’s just how things are. I’m certainly lucky to have wonderful people in my life who love me for who I am, and who respect my needs, and how I move in the world. And vice verse.
Ava (your cat) features prominently in your Twitter feed. Have you always been a pet person? Any other treasured pets in your past?
I’ve always enjoyed and required the company of animals, and they are often tolerant of me back (including Ava, who is perfect.) I don’t think of her as a pet so much as just a sentient being and friend, but I’m pretty sure she thinks of me as a pet. Michel de Montaigne once wrote some great stuff on the matter (‘When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me rather than I with her?’) And yes, there have been other animal friends in my life, loved and missed.
Did social media destroy the world or is there still hope?
It would take more than social media to destroy hope.
You're originally from Nova Scotia but you've been in New Brunswick for some time. Do you prefer one over the other? Would you recommend both or either as a good place to live?
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick both have great people, seasides, and forests. Both frustrate and sadden me sometimes. Both impress and inspire me sometimes. Both have dulse. Pretty even split, really.
Pretend you wake up one morning and the Internet has been destroyed. What's the first thing that you do?
Make tea.
Thanks to Pamela for agreeing to be interviewed!
Fun interview. I checked out Pamela's Twitter and she passed the "puts a grin on my face" test, so I followed.
P.S.: I'm a sucker for Artsy Twitter.
I love Pamela’s work so much. Her art is on my list of “Local Artists Whose Work I Must Have Someday”, and she expresses herself in writing so economically but whimsically.