Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Pamela Pinkston. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Pamela, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’ve love to hear an interesting investment story – what was one of the best or worst investments you’ve made? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

I didn’t start publicly showing my art until this last year or so. In that time, it has been a learning experience on the back end of creating (editing, printing, pricing, etc.) I’ve used a couple of different materials and methods of printing. After speaking with a fellow photographer who has more experience, I decided to use a particular printing company that made the project more expensive. It was so worth the cost! The choice of paper and method of printing brought my vision to fruition. I don’t know that I will do that for every project but it is definitely nice to have that option.

Pamela, 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?

I am from Macon, GA but I spent my formative years going back and forth between my divorced parents in Georgia and Kentucky. Any creative/artistic endeavors were not encouraged for various reasons but mostly because those things would not find me a productive career. I grew up very logical and rational. I spent 10 years in the Navy and once I separated from the military, finished my degree in Psychology at Wesleyan College in Macon. In all those years, I struggled with mental and emotional instability and had several instances of homelessness. All of these things influenced my art without me truly realizing it. The first time I realized that I had any talent or any eye for photography was after a trip to San Diego where I had used a disposable camera to document the trip. I simply took pictures of things that caught my eye and told the story of my trip. My stepmother mentioned that my pictures were very good in the context of art and it made me go back and look at them in a different way. My style has always been to pick up on the little things that most people miss or pass by. I dabbled in taking photographs of people but I could never get them to look the way I wanted. In 2010, I moved to Utah after going through a psychotic break and really got into hiking. Not only did the hiking do a lot of good for my mental and physical health, photographing those little things that made me happy helped tremendously. I even did a little series of daily postcards to my family and certain friends that technically was my first focused project. I continuously downplayed my talent because I compared myself to others, didn’t have access to more sophisticated tools and methods, and didn’t see photography as a means to being productive. Over time, as I kept playing, failing, and learning, I realized that it didn’t necessarily need to be productive. It was my creative outlet and while I enjoyed sharing it with other people, it could be just for me. Once I moved back to Macon where there is a great art community, I wanted to start putting myself in more vulnerable positions and that included putting my art out where others could see. I began surrounding myself with people in the same position as myself and those that I admired. I started playing with other mediums and taking myself out of my comfort zone. I listened to the experiences of others and learned what I could. I gained friends in all these different spaces and it gave me the confidence to start to apply for shows. I’ve also gained more inspiration. My latest project broke away from nature and I focused on hands of people I care about in different settings and positions and it turned out even better than I was imagining. This has sparked ideas for future endeavors. I still love capturing those tiny things out in the woods and that will always be a part of my work but I love being in a space where that is branching out and challenging me.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in exploring other mediums besides photography is that there have to be failures in order to learn. If everything turns out perfectly every time, you will get stuck. Play is a very important part of this. I began learning this when I signed up for a local art journal group. We were told what materials to have on hand, which spanned a wide range of mediums. Each month had a different theme and the idea was to do a different journal entry each week based on those themes. We also had a meeting with the organizer each month to gain some guidance or be able to ask questions. Besides these things, there really wasn’t any structure or formula to follow. We could choose whatever mediums we wanted, go in whatever direction our creativity wanted, we could share our entries or keep them to ourselves, we could even deviate from the theme if that is where our inspiration took us. I am a very literal person and not very good when it comes to sketching or drawing so all of this really took me out of my comfort zone. I had to let go of a lot of preconceived notions as the year went on. However, this taught me that no matter how talented someone is, if you don’t open yourself up to new experiences and those things that you don’t have a natural talent for, the learning process can stall.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I have had an entrepreneurial mindset for quite some time. It didn’t have anything to do with art until more recently however, the learning process is still the same. I took an entrepreneurship class while getting my degree and that was extremely beneficial. It breaks down the process from idea to opening a business to keeping that business going. It has a lot to do with reading/knowing the marketplace and being able to adapt rather than being rigid with the initial idea. Our ideas are rather personal to us and we tend to guard them as something precious. This means that the natural instinct is to not be open to criticism of those ideas, having fears of someone stealing those ideas, or comparing our ideas to others. This only closes us off to the improvement of our ideas and their eventual realization. One of the best things I’ve done so far was to build collaborations within my community. As a hike guide, I’ve built partnerships to get more people outside. one of those collaborations is with a local art studio and we lead an art hike every month. It is one of my more popular hikes. We’ve done watercolors, sketching, cyanotypes, and mandala hikes with plans to expand and build on that. So, I recommend taking classes, whether those are physical or virtual. Also, talk to those people who have started a business or brand, even if it isn’t in the art world, find out their successes and failures. Also, look for those people or organizations that can be mentors and or collaborators. Finally, find your art community. Find a community that supports one another rather than breaking each other down. None of this can be done in a vacuum.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @dragonflypaws

Image Credits

These are all my own photographs – DragonflyPaws