Artist: Pamela Staker

Date: 2014

Dimensions: 15 x 22.5"

Medium: Oil on gessoed paper

As is true for many artists, Pamela Staker has been making art ever since she could hold a crayon. She also went to school for it. Her mom, a painter who focused on realism, still life, and folk art taught her from a very young age. Staker loved painting and reading and found out in school that she also had a talent for math. Staker attended the University of Illinois, where she had a short stint as a math major. Pamela notes, "I always liked my math teachers and thought maybe I would teach too. It became clear by sophomore year that my first love was still art, so I transferred to the art department, where I received my BFA in painting." Early in her career, Pamela was awarded several grants, including an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship and a CAAP Individual Artist Grant from the City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs. Her paintings are represented in numerous private and corporate collections, including The Sophy, a boutique hotel in Hyde Park, Chicago, IL; the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN; Capital One, Chicago, IL; WeWork, Chicago, IL; and Cascade Hills Country Club, Grand Rapids, MI.