Baby Pam.  Baby Dream.  Baby Starfish.  Pamela Breece grew up in all-American Annapolis, Maryland where the small town feel of horse-filled pastures, clapboard farmhouses, green grass, and nearby Atlantic ocean inspired her during her formative years.  By age five, Pamela was designing and selling stationery under the name “Starfish Art” to her charitable neighbors.  Pamela painted her way through adolescence and college, applying her colorful designs to everything from store signs to flower pots and mailboxes.

Big Pam.  Big Job.  Bigger Dream.  After college, Pamela moved to Arizona to obtain an MBA and join the ranks of corporate America, all the while dreaming about becoming a full-time artist. Upon graduation, she realized she had spent twice as much time designing the artwork for her thesis cover than she did on the actual content.  With that epiphany, Pamela decided to chase her dream.

Big City.  Big Deal.  Big Starfish.  At the 2001 National Stationery Show in New York City, Pamela debuted her art with an inaugural line of greeting cards and stationery products.   At the show, she was discovered by Marie Osmond’s company, Marian LLC, and chosen from among hundreds of artists to enter into a licensing agreement to create an extensive portfolio of designs for scrapbooking products.  Pamela returned home, hugged her boss goodbye, pawned off her business wardrobe on her sister, and acquired the necessary materials for her new career – ponytail holders, flip-flops and loads of art supplies.  And, so it happened that 25 years after her first stationery sale, Pamela re-entered the greeting card industry and orchestrated the re-birth of “Starfish Art.”

Big Dream Comes True. Starfish took off running and hasn’t slowed down since – well over a quarter million Starfish Art cards were sold in 2006.  In addition to growing her enchanting line of stationery products, Pamela has licensed her artwork to a variety of companies including the Jel Sert Company (makers of Otter Pops!), gourmet cookie company Good Fortunes, and Sonzogno Editore, an Italian book publisher.  Products sporting her designs are sold nation-wide in retailers large and small including Target, Sak’s 5^th Avenue, PETsMART, and The Stationery Studio, one of the largest stationery retailers online.

Home sweet Starfish.  Pamela moved into a cottage-style home in the historic Willo district of Phoenix, an area that is reminiscent of her East Coast roots and the source of her childhood inspirations.  Her cottage is filled with the beachy air of seashells, distressed furniture and creaky wood floors.  The home’s carriage house was lovingly converted into her personal workspace, and Pamela bounces back and forth between this location and that of Starfish Art's main office and production studio. This cozy yet state-of-the-art studio space is also a renovated historic property in downtown Phoenix.  It is in this wonderland that Pam continues to create the art that puts smiles on thousands of faces every day.  Pamela is kept company by her creative studio assistants, a little peanut named Macy, two crazy dogs, Max and Ray, and a very large hay-eating friend, Levi.

Pam can be reached via email at pam@starfishart.com or at 602-955-5871.

text copyright, sean healy 2007