Finding Joy in Collecting Art

It wasn’t until Pam Speer was in her forties that she began to assemble what she calls “outside art.” Her collection began with an old sign her daughter gave her. It greets those who enter her kitchen with the message “Be nice or leave,” and it’s framed by pop bottle lids. It appealed to Speer, who says she has always loved offbeat things. 

Another piece that she added in her earlier collecting years was Betty Sue.  Speer spotted the piece on a trip to see her daughter in Memphis, when they visited a big art fair at the Pink Palace (a.k.a. the Memphis Museum of Science & History).  It’s a unique sculpture by a folk artist named Morris Johnson, who is known for combining found materials with paint, wood and metal to create stories. Betty Sue’s body is made of wood, her head is a trash can, and she carries a tag that reads, “Betty Sue has always wanted to be a baton twirler.” 

Since then, Speer has continued to add a treasure trove of art to her unique collection. She has several pieces from an artist named Chris Roberts-Antieau, a well-known American female fiber artist who creates tapestries by sewing and embroidering. One is called Big Pants and another is a giant jar of insects. In a bedroom devoted to all things canine is another piece by Roberts-Antieau of three women walking their dogs. 

Speer is quite artistic herself, although she may not want to admit it. She displays a colored pencil drawing she created of her dog, Boo, who had passed away. She’s a bit of a wordsmith too. Perhaps it’s all the years she worked in public libraries or her deep love for poetry as a young woman. Her art feels a bit like poetry itself, telling of tall tales and eccentric stories. 

In addition to pencil drawings, Speer does needlepoint and crossstitch—a hobby she picked up when she was living in Colorado and was desperately homesick for the Ozarks. She began working on a sampler, a piece of embroidery or cross-stitching produced as a demonstration or a test of skill in needlework. Samplers often feature the alphabet, or the name of the person who embroidered it along with the date it was made. On this specific sampler, Speer wrote her initials, P.H.S, and then 1989 Castlerock, Colorado. Her embroidery then read, “Who with every stitch, dreamed of the green hills and hollows of the Ozark mountains.” She has needlepointed and cross-stitched several pieces since then, often called to either memorialize a time or event or to honor another piece of artwork. Hanging along her staircase Speer has a series of pieces she has cross-stitched as reproductions of legendary artist Clementine Hunter’s paintings. Hunter is a self-taught black folk artist known for her thousands of vibrant paintings. Speer is drawn to her work for its childlike quality, and its pureness. “It’s like old country music, like George Jones or Loretta Lynn,” says Speer. “It has soul.” 

Speer’s collections aren’t for everyone. She collects what she loves and is absolutely unapologetic about it. “You can spend so much time caring about what people think when you’re young,” says Speer. “I just don’t have time for that.”