"As an exer­cise draw a com­po­si­tion of fear or sad­ness, or great sor­row, quite sim­ply, do not both­er about details now, but in a few lines tell your sto­ry. Then show it to any one of your friends, or fam­i­ly, or fel­low stu­dents, and ask them if they can tell you what it is you meant to por­tray. You will soon get to know how to make it tell its tale.- Pamela Col­man-Smith, "Should the Art Stu­dent Think?" July, 1908"
"A year after Arts and Crafts move­ment magazine The Crafts­man pub­lished illus­tra­tor Pamela Colman-Smith's essay excerpt­ed above, she spent six months cre­at­ing what would become the world's most pop­u­lar tarot deck. Her graph­ic inter­pre­ta­tions of such cards as The Magi­cian, The Tow­er, and The Hanged Man helped read­ers to get a han­dle on the sto­ry of every new­ly dealt spread."
"Colman-Smith-known to friends as "Pixie"-was com­mis­sioned by occult schol­ar and author Arthur E. Waite, a fel­low mem­ber of the British occult soci­ety the Her­met­ic Order of the Gold­en Dawn, to illus­trate a pack of tarot cards. In a humor­ous let­ter to her even­tu­al cham­pi­on, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Alfred Stieglitz, Col­man-Smith (1878 - 1951) described her 80 tarot paint­ings as "a big job for very lit­tle cash," though she betrayed a touch of gen­uine excite­ment that they would be "print­ed in col­or by lith­o­g­ra­phy... prob­a­bly very bad­ly.""
Pamela Colman-Smith completed eighty color paintings in six months that formed the world's most popular tarot deck. Her graphic interpretations of cards such as The Magician, The Tower, and The Hanged Man provided visual narratives that helped readers understand newly dealt spreads. Arthur E. Waite commissioned the deck while affiliated with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and supplied some astrological guidance for imagery. Colman-Smith accepted modest pay but welcomed the opportunity to produce color lithographs and enjoyed substantial creative leeway within Waite's suggestions. She was known to friends as "Pixie."
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