Pamela Steele
For more than forty years Pamela Steele has read the Tarot, and for more than fifty she has drawn, painted, and dreamed in pictures. An award-winning artist and the creator of the Steele Wizard Tarot and Eternal Seeker Oracle, she is the one teacher at Global Spiritual Studies who guides students through the making of a deck rather than the reading of one, from first pencil sketch to finished, published cards.
Biography
The Language of the Soul
Pamela Steele is an award-winning artist, author, and professional Tarot reader who has spent more than four decades with the cards and a lifetime with a pencil in her hand. Among the thirteen voices at Global Spiritual Studies, hers is singular: while every other teacher explores how to read the Tarot, Pamela teaches how to make one. Her work sits at the meeting place of art, craft, and commerce, where a private vision becomes a deck that strangers will one day hold in their hands.
Born in Oklahoma and now settled in western Canada, she grew up moving from town to town with few roots to hold onto, her grandmother an early and steady guide. A self-taught artist, she came to the Tarot at the blunt urging of a friend who told her, “Just read the damned things. You’ll figure it out.” She did. What began as a way to give shape to her intuition slowly became a lifelong craft, and the cards became, in her words, the language of the soul.
Her signature work, the Steele Wizard Tarot, had lived in her imagination for more than twenty years before a cousin · the same person who once put her very first deck in her hands · urged her to bring it onto paper and canvas at last. It grew into an 88-card deck nearly a decade in the making. She believed in it enough to sell her house to fund the first print run, then watched a first edition that “should” have sold a hundred copies sell close to five hundred in forty-eight hours. The deck is now in its third edition with Red Feather, an imprint of Schiffer Publishing. In 2020 she released the Eternal Seeker Oracle, a 33-card deck inspired by the Major Arcana, with a foreword by Benebell Wen and praise from Mary K. Greer. Her gentle Wizard’s Pets Tarot · the deck she first created for her young granddaughter · followed for younger readers. Along the way she has earned international Best of Show honors for her art and recognition as a Tarot Grand Master.
Pamela has spent as much energy lifting up other creators as making her own work. In 2011 she co-founded the Tarot Deck Creators group on Facebook, now one of the largest gathering places of its kind, and she served as Art Director of the Northwest Tarot Symposium from 2014 to 2019. A certified life coach and licensed massage therapist with a background in natural remedies, she brings a healer’s patience and an abundant, “we’re making the pie bigger” spirit to every community she joins.
At Global Spiritual Studies, Pamela opens that same door for anyone who carries a deck in their heart. Drawing on her own hard-won journey through self-publishing, traditional publishing, copyright, crowdfunding, and distribution, she walks students through every step of bringing a Tarot or oracle deck from first idea to finished creation.
Specializations
Areas of Expertise
- Tarot and oracle deck creation
- Visual art and illustration
- Deck design in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition
- Companion book and guidebook writing
- Self-publishing a divination deck
- Working with traditional publishers
- Professional Tarot reading
- Copyright, ISBN, and licensing for creators
- Crowdfunding a deck (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Patreon)
- Print-on-demand and short-run printing
- Distribution and getting decks into stores
- Merchandising and selling deck art
- Mentoring first-time deck creators
- Building creative community
- Oracle card systems
- From concept to launch: the full deck journey
Approach
Teaching Philosophy
Pamela believes there is no single right way to make a deck. Digital painting, pencil crayon, watercolor, photography, collage, found imagery: in her classroom every medium is honored, and the only real requirement is that you pour yourself into the work. “You pour your heart and soul into these things,” she says of finished decks. “They need to feel what you feel.” Her teaching gives students permission to follow their own creative path rather than imitate someone else’s.
She is also refreshingly honest about the parts of deck creation that romance leaves out. Drawing on her own journey, she speaks plainly about printing costs, copyright and contracts, distribution, crowdfunding math, and the genuine emotional toll of putting your art into the world. She shares her stumbles as readily as her successes, because she wants students to walk in with open eyes and walk out with a real, workable plan rather than a wish.
Above all, Pamela teaches with encouragement and an open hand. She came up believing that a rising tide lifts every creator, that the community grows stronger when its members help one another, and that “if some hick from Oklahoma can do it, you can too.” Whether a student arrives with decades of art training or a shoebox of sketches and a stubborn dream, she meets them with warmth and the steady conviction that, as she puts it, “if you believe in you, the rest of it will all work out.”
Bibliography
Published Decks
Each of Pamela’s decks ships with its own companion guidebook written in her own voice, blending card meanings with story, encouragement, and lived experience. Her artwork also appears beyond her own decks, including in Tiffany Crosara’s The Transformational Truth of Tarot Game. More than thirty years after her first professional commission, she continues to draw, write, and publish new work from her studio in western Canada.
Pamela’s signature deck grew, over nearly a decade, into an 88-card world all its own. Drawn by hand in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition and named for what she calls the language of the soul, the Steele Wizard Tarot pairs richly imagined cards with a companion book written in her own warm, encouraging voice. She believed in it enough to sell her house to fund the first print run, which sold nearly 500 copies in 48 hours.
Affiliations
Professional Affiliations
Beyond her own studio, Pamela is a familiar presence on the Tarot conference circuit, having taught and presented at the Bay Area Tarot Symposium, the Northwest Tarot Symposium, StaarCon, Medicine Hat College, public libraries, and New Age events across North America for more than forty years.
Tarot Grand Master · Certified mastery in Tarot
Pamela holds the title of Tarot Grand Master, a recognition of deep expertise earned over a lifetime of professional reading, teaching, and deck creation. It reflects not only her skill with the cards but her decades of service to the wider Tarot community.
Co-Founder · Tarot Deck Creators
In 2011 Pamela co-founded the Tarot Deck Creators group on Facebook, which has grown into one of the largest and most welcoming online communities for aspiring and established deck makers. As a long-time administrator, she mentors new creators, shares hard-won publishing knowledge, and embodies her belief that the community thrives when its members lift one another up.
Art Director · Northwest Tarot Symposium
For six years Pamela served as Art Director of the Northwest Tarot Symposium, one of the premier gatherings in the Tarot world, shaping the visual identity of the event while presenting and teaching alongside leading authors and artists in the field.
Published Artist · Red Feather / Schiffer Publishing
Steele Wizard Tarot · Eternal Seeker Oracle
Pamela’s work is published through Red Feather, the mind, body, and spirit imprint of Schiffer Publishing, which released the Eternal Seeker Oracle in 2020 and the third edition of the Steele Wizard Tarot in 2023. The relationship marks her transition from devoted self-publisher to internationally distributed author and deck creator.
Certified Life Coach & Licensed Massage Therapist
Healing arts and natural remedies
Alongside her creative work, Pamela is a certified life coach and licensed massage therapist with a background in natural remedies. This grounding in the healing arts informs the compassion and patience she brings to mentoring, where the goal is always to help a person bring their own vision safely into the world.
Learn
Classes by Pamela
Pamela’s classes are the only ones at Global Spiritual Studies devoted to the making of a deck rather than the reading of one. Drawing on her own decades of creating, self-publishing, and selling Tarot and oracle decks, she shares the full journey, from finding your artistic voice and writing a companion book to printing, copyright, crowdfunding, and getting your finished deck into the world.
Watch
Videos with Pamela
Short lessons from Pamela’s courses, each with a transcript, key moments and a path into the full course.
Tarot · 1:00 minHow do you design a Tarot deck people can actually read?Pamela Steele on designing Tarot images that speak across languages, and a deck a new reader can pick up and use.
Pamela SteeleCreating Your Own Tarot DeckWatch- Tarot · 1:13 minHow big should the original art for a Tarot card be?Pamela Steele's four-to-one rule for Tarot card art: choose the finished size first, then paint at four times that.Pamela SteeleCreating Your Own Tarot DeckWatch
- Tarot · 0:57 minDo Tarot cards have fixed meanings?Why Pamela Steele calls her companion-book interpretations guidelines, and what deck creators layer into every card.Pamela SteeleCreating Your Own Tarot DeckWatch
- Tarot · 1:07 minHow do you fund printing a Tarot deck?Pamela Steele once sold her house to print a deck. Here is how she weighs print-on-demand, bulk printing and crowdfunding today.Pamela SteeleCreating Your Own Tarot DeckWatch
- Tarot · 1:00 minHow do you handle critics when you create your own Tarot deck?Pamela Steele on meeting critics with a smile, and why a deck creator needs belief more than thick skin.Pamela SteeleCreating Your Own Tarot DeckWatch
Connect
Connect with Pamela
Visit Pamela’s website to explore her decks and readings, follow her art on Instagram, or join the thousands of makers in her Tarot Deck Creators community on Facebook. Then explore her classes here at Global Spiritual Studies.