We recently connected with Pam Dexter and have shared our conversation below.

Pam, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

I grew up surrounded by dirt and palm trees. The best part of NC for me is that I get to live in the woods, surrounded by nature.

When coming up with business names, I wanted to include some kind of mythical creature that you could someday find in these woods. I was originally leaning toward mushrooms, moss and fairies when my favorite kitty jumped into my lap for some love. So I added “cat” to my online search for magical creatures.

That’s when I found the Splintercat; a fearsome creature that was part of Lumberjack Lore. When lumberjacks would come across a tree that had been exploded into bits, it was said that a Splintercat had headbutted the thing down into tiny splinters.

Turns out the exploded trees had simply been struck by lightning – but I had found my special woodland creature and named my business SplinterCat Creations.

Now, anytime I hear booming thunder outside, I picture this big, tough SplinterCat strolling through the trees; simply knocking down anything that stands in her way.

Pam, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi! My name is Pam and I create art and jewelry as SplinterCat Creations in Sanford NC.

I started my creative journey by experimenting with pour paintings – a fluid art technique where you layer paint on a canvas or in a cup, then find different ways of moving the paint around to make flowing designs. This technique typically makes a lot of waste from the excess paint pouring off the canvas. In an attempt to use up the excess paint and keep it from going to waste, I learned how to seal it under glass and turn it into decorative magnets (but I got bored with magnets pretty quickly).

The real fun started when I discovered how to wire wrap jewelry and combined the multiple techniques to create one-of-a-kind wearable art pendants. I started sealing the excess paint from my paintings under glass, then wrapping the painted glass in wire so they could be worn as jewelry. As much as I loved making my art pendants, I couldn’t quite find the right market for them.

So, like most wire wrappers, I ended up falling in love with crystals – and now I wrap mostly pendants with crystals in them. My typical styles range from bright and shiny to dark and spooky (depending on the season), and many pieces are inspired by nature (lots of plants and animals).

But when the mood to paint strikes lately, I’ve been making art sets: a wire wrapped art pendant to accompany its original canvas painting (the pendant is made from the excess paint that ran off of the matching canvas). I haven’t seen anyone making sets like this and hope to be able to add more of them into the mix along with my crystal pendants in the future. The best part about these sets: One piece decorates your home, the other you can wear and take with you.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

To be honest, my business began as a form of self-preservation. I went from working in a busy microbiology lab to being a stay-at-home mom, and that was a difficult transition for me. As lucky as I was to be able to stay home with my baby, I struggled for a long time with postpartum depression and kind of lost myself along the way. Then covid hit – and while I had always been introverted, I started to become a total recluse.

So I started creating as a way to find myself again; to make a little bit of my own happiness. I randomly found fluid pour painting and wire wrapping tutorials on YouTube©, and they were true lifesavers. I tried out the tutorials and had something new to focus on and learn. I found that I really loved creating beautiful art and jewelry, but needed to sell some in order to get more supplies. So I started my business, and now I’ve met some really amazing people thanks to SplinterCat Creations and some of my jewelry is floating around in four different countries – something I’d never expected or thought possible.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I graduated high school, I wanted to go into the legal field. I took some classes at the local college and landed a job drafting bankruptcies for an attorney.

Then life happened, and I had to take a break from school to work full time and pay the bills. Five years later, I had become disheartened by some of the court decisions that were technically legal, but felt so unfair. I couldn’t afford to go back to school at the time (I lived in California, and life was pretty expensive) but I was burnt out and desperately needed to go in a different direction.

So, in a moment of madness, my husband and I decided to leave the town we grew up in and move across the country. My husband had family in NC, so we ended up here and I was finally able to finish school. But instead of studying the legal field, I learned all about science. I was fascinated by microbiology – and lucky to land a job in a lab shortly after graduating.

We had taken a huge risk moving across the country, but luckily it all worked out: we found jobs that made us happier, and landed in a really beautiful place.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://splintercatcreations.etsy.com/
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/thesplintercatcreations
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/SplinterCatCreations/
• Other: https://linktr.ee/splintercatcreations

Image Credits
Pamela Dexter