Mini-muse 012: "Some people may like them"

On a letter from Pamela Colman Smith

Hi little coven.

Pamela Colman Smith, the artist behind the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck was born 147 years ago on the 16th of February.

Without her, I doubt my personal relationship to the tarot would have become the sustained flame it is for me now. Her artwork is the foundation for my work with the cards. In my book, Tarot for Creativity, which is dedicated to Smith, I credit her with translating the tarot’s enduring storytelling power into dynamic imagery. For A.E. Waite’s 1909 deck, she built on the more in-situ designs for the minor arcana first seen in the Sola Busca tarot to create the most accessible, narratively-led tarot deck available at that point. Her art lowered the gate to reading tarot for all of us, and stands as an enduring example of the power of visual storytelling.

But, in 1908, it was just another job. She was an artist with a brief. In a letter on exhibit at Tarot: Origins and Afterlives currently showing at The Warburg Institution in London, Smith tells a friend about the project, writing: “I’ve just finished a big job for a little cash - a set of designs for a pack of tarot cards - I shall send some over of the original drawings as some people may like them.”

I can’t tell you how long I stood over the glass case protecting this letter, where it lay alongside a pack of Pamela’s cards and some of her other artwork - including a card designed for the Suffragettes.

A letter from Pamela Colman Smith to Alfred Stieglitz, on display at the Warburg Institute

I’ve spent years with Smith’s tarot art work, but to engage with her in this way, to peek beyond the curtain into her life as a maker, was arresting for me. “Some people may like them,” she wrote about the cards that changed my life.

Like her cards stand as a reminder of the power of storytelling, these simple words have become a drumbeat at the back of my mind, reminding me that we rarely see the full impact our work will have. It’s a new prayer: When I make, let it be enough that some people may like it.

Stay tuned for more on the Tarot: Origins and Afterlives exhibition soon!

Tell me in the comments:

What’s your favorite card by Pamela Colman Smith?

What have you been musing about, lately?

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