Pam's Contribution to Adjoa's Book: What's in a Name?

 

This piece honors my name and depicts both me and my mother as young adults and mature women. When I was a child, I didn't like my name much.  I only knew 2 other Pamela's in school, and people tended to call me 'Patricia' rather than Pamela (this still happens today)---I'm not certain why because they don't sound alike. One day in frustration I complained to my mom that I didn't like my name.  She looked sad and said, "I named you after me.  I didn't want to name you 'Patricia' because then people would get us confused." My mom has always been my guiding light, the person I wanted to grow up to be.  I greatly admired her and from that day forward took pride in my name.

Our middle names are "Anne" meaning 'favor' or 'grace' and this I knew was in honor of my great-great-great-grandmother, Anne Nichols.  In our family names are a source of pride and a way of honoring past ancestors.  Middle names are typically the maiden or first names of ancestors and family friends. 'Patricia' is an old English name meaning noble. 'Pamela' is the invention of English writer/poet, Sir Philip Sidney, who in 1580 used it in his poem, Arcadia. The name was later popularized by English printer and novelist, Samuel Richarson who in 1740 wrote a book titled, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. My logo, Pamela's Press, depicts me at a press in 18th-century garb--a nod to Richardson also a printer.  

The piece uses images of me and my mother made for an exquisite corpse game I created of us as children, young, and older adults.  I photocopied them directly onto the paper Adjoa provided. They were painted and their clothing is a collage from decorative papers. I then masked the figures and used a mouth atomizer to create a golden red background.  Red is my favorite color and symbol for blood relations.  Our names and their meanings are included using marker transfer.  The font used for my name is called 'Pamela' an old Letracet type font.