Name: Pamela Wolfe
Date of birth: 1 June 1950
Place of birth: Reading, England
Now living in: Freemans Bay, Auckland
- What is your favourite food?
- Italian
- What was your most embarrassing moment?
- When I was about ten years old getting my foot caught in the scenery during a ballet performance and bringing part of the background down on the dancers!
- How do you relax?
- Gardening and walking.
- Who inspired you when you were little?
- 'Peter Pan' and the drawings of 'Grimm’s fairytales' (which were far too scary to read, but had wonderful illustrations). My parents, who had a circle of artistic and fairly eccentric friends who aroused my interest in art. And especially my mother who also painted, and encouraged me to go to Art School.
- What were you like at school?
- Very shy and extremely disinterested in sport. A bit of a day-dreamer and very sensitive. I used to spend most of my time drawing and making things.
- What was your favourite/most hated subject at school?
- Most
favourite thing was Art.
Most hated was Maths. - What was the book you most loved as a child?
- 'Peter Pan'.
- Which person from the past would you most like to meet?
- Dora Carrington (or anybody from the Bloomsbury Group.) Dora Carrington was an artist in the twenties, who had a colourful life and was part of the Bloomsbury Group which included artists and writers such as Duncan Grant and Virginia Woolf.
- Who is your favourite author/children’s author?
- Maurice Sendak.
- Why did you want to be an illustrator?
- When I was a child I had always wanted to illustrate a book of my own - but I needed someone to write the story - so it just happened that I married a writer - but it took a long time - about 25 years before we got around to it!
- Do you have a special place where you illustrate your books?
- In my studio at the top of the stairs in our house in Freemans Bay.
- What’s the best thing and worst thing about being an illustrator?
- The loneliness of long hours without talking to anyone, but since my husband Richard has been working from home, this has changed, and has now become the best thing as I have a colleague to discuss ideas and have fun dreaming up stories together.
If
you weren’t a writer, what would you like to be?- An opera singer or rock star!
- What advice would you give to aspiring illustrators?
- Don’t get discouraged if an idea is rejected. Just persevere and learn from mistakes.
- Read some books written by Pamela Wolfe
- More information about Pamela Wolfe