Conversation: Pam Wishbow
We talk to Seattle-based illustrator Pam Wishbow about the magic of making.
Illustration (above) by Pam Wishbow
Can you tell us about the magical artefacts you make?
I’ve always loved charms, card decks, toys that predict things, or random grabs you get in coin dispensers. I also love history, learning how people from all over the world have little rituals or superstitions that continue in interesting ways today. I decided those were the things I could make – hell, I could make my own traditions and intentions along with them.
Because of the amount of time the process takes I put a lot of energy and intention into the objects I make. I do genuinely want to make things that are special for whoever receives them. I want to give people the opportunity to have small, special moments to themselves. I want to create a little slice of magic that is personal and can be interpreted however the recipient feels it needs to be. That’s what keeps me making them, trying to find new ways to create tiny pocket worlds for people.
Printmaking seems to inform your practice quite a bit – why is that?
It’s a mix of a few reasons! I started out loving the mid-century look and it made me limit my colour schemes. I found that I could increase my palette if I layered and mixed colours, as if I were printing. I never took a printing class or anything, but other illustrators working with a lot of screenprinting such as Meg Hunt inspired me and made me curious about how she was making work. Once I tried to do linoleum carving on my own because it was something I could do in my apartment, I was hooked.
I have never been a delicate person. When I draw, I wreck my sketchbooks from pressing down too hard. Lots of curled pages and broken pencils over here. This kind of limits shape-making in a way that makes everything a little chunky, a little exaggerated, and a touch messy. This, I found, worked kinda well with lino because it’s so physical. The subtracting of space gives a different way of thinking about shape and line and it's carried through into the way I work digitally.
What about your metal etching?
Both myself and my partner are people who like to tinker and make things with our hands. I started making etched work when I saw someone selling stamped jewelry with custom stamps. I wondered if I could do something similar – people only have so much wall space, after all, and I was curious if I could make things like coins or charms people could wear. Thankfully my partner has been blacksmithing since he was 14. Via YouTube and a few other forums I figured out some very rough and tumble ways to etch copper in similar ways that people etch PCB boards for electronics. A trip to RadioShack (RIP) and I was able to get some results on my first try! My process hasn’t changed very much since.
What have you enjoyed working on recently?
I’m writing this during a stay-in-place order for Covid-19 so I’ve been keeping myself busy by drawing backgrounds for apps like Zoom. I’ve mostly been doing interiors; a lifetime of playing The Sims has prepared me for this moment. It’s pretty soothing. Most of them are very work-friendly but I’m sure I’ll go weird soon enough.
What everyday magic do you see around you?
The act of making things is probably one of the most magical things we do day-to-day and I love it. I feel as if when we talk about magic it tends to be very nature based and nature forward, but I think the things we can do as creatures on this Earth are amazing. The time, the intent, so much goes into the things we create. If a friend embroiders you something, imagine how much time, how many individual stitches went into the cloth. What were they thinking about during every pass of the needle? What were they listening to? Was the sun on their face and were they thinking of you when they did it? If I give my husband a rod of steel, like a chunk of rebar found on a trail, he can, with force, intention and a whole lot of practice, forge it into a hanger for my plants or a charm for my pocket. That’s amazing! That’s magic to take one thing and transform it into something altogether new.