My name is Pamela and I’m a cross-disciplinary artist and storyteller based in Dublin, Ireland. I have over a decade of experience creating imaginative and whimsical stories through drawing, stitch and writing. I don’t believe that an artist should limit themselves to a particular medium, rather finding the appropriate medium to suit a particular project or theme. I think that there is something innately gratifying about creativity and working with one’s hands that satisfies the mind, body and spirit. Through my artwork I hope to inspire others to engage with and create art. 

I have had my head in the clouds since I was very young and daydreaming is still my chief hobby. My childhood was spent exploring parks and mountainsides, learning the names of trees and birds, and searching for frogspawn. Why was my catchphrase, much to the annoyance of most of the adults in my life, except my ever patient dad who answered all of my questions and listened to all of my stories with a gentle heart and warm smile. Encouraged by my dad, and Maireád, my wonderful art teacher at school, I followed my curiosity all the way to art college. 

There I studied embroidered textiles at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Tucked away in the textile department, I embarked on an exploration of a whole new world of media through which to tell stories. While my practice remained grounded in and ever faithful to drawing, embroidery offered a rich new textured dimension to my work. The natural world and people are forever at the centre of the works I create: whether that was transforming my dad into a tin man, imagining a badger moved into our garden shed and made a craftsman of himself, or that an owl might knock on my window in the middle of the night and fly me away. 

There’s a long history of craftsmanship in my family, with the trades of upholstery and cabinetmaking going back several generations. Although he didn’t follow in the family trade, I grew up watching my dad make endless improvements to our house and garden. As such I have a great interest in objects and the people who make them. I explored this interest through my thesis where I looked at the tension in textile-based craftsmanship between hand made and machine based making practices. This research took me as far as India where I had the honour of seeing some of the most beautiful hand created textiles in the world. 

After university, I worked in design and branding at a beautiful Passementerie called A.Rubanesque, in the heart of Dublin city. There I worked as part of a tight-knit team and learned about all aspects of the industrious business. It was a truly beautiful store and safe-haven for creativity both for its staff and customers. In 2016 I decided to retrain in Computer Science at University College Dublin. The decision to move away from design was in large part a financial one, though the decision to move into software engineering in particular was driven by an interest in programming which I only discovered in my mid-twenties.

While being a challenging and ever-changing role, my job in tech gives me financial independence and the flexibility to maintain my art practice in my own time. Having said that “in my own time” almost has the ring of a death knell for creativity and too often I don’t spend as much time as I would like on my art practice. This website is a part of trying to change that and build a more consistent practice. If you’re interested in knowing more about my career in software engineering you can check out my Linkedin.

Thank you for taking the time to read all of or some of that, I hope you find something of interest here. If you’d like to stay up to date with what I’m working on you can subscribe to my newsletter over on Substack. 

Best wishes, 

Pamela.