​Pamela Hobart Carter
While We Listen, 2025
Any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper

Artist Statement

For the past several years I've been making a lot of any-side-up abstract pieces. Often I begin marking the surface with ink or brush, pencil or pastel in my non-dominant hand. At intervals I rotate the paper or canvas. What am I after beyond the shunting aside of my judge-y-ness? I'd love to make something that I want to look at again (and hope others want to look at, at all), that feels as if something is going on—even if it's not representational, and that gets across a sense of celebration because I am happy to be on this planet. "While We Listen" was about not stopping early. I made myself keep adding and marking and experimenting.
 Spring 2026
Poet
​Photo by Omar Willey
Natural shapes and environments often inspire Pamela Hobart Carter’s current obsession with creating any-side-up abstractions. She paints semi-realistically when creating scenic flats for Drunken Owl Theatre in her home, Seattle. When she was in first grade in her childhood home of Montreal, she won the SPCA’s national art contest. Her artwork has appeared in The Seattle Star, Moon Water (a Spell Jar Press anthology), and The Lavender Review and has been shown in several galleries. Trained as a geologist, with an art minor, Hobart Carter also writes and teaches.