Pamela Rubin

Pam was born March 8, 1949 in Baltimore Maryland to the late Paul Selig Rubin and Muriel Lefkowitz Rubin. Pam’s abundant visual talent was apparent early, and by age 12 she was already taking college painting and drawing courses at U.C.L.A. She was especially interested in painting the human form in her teens and twenties, and produced a great many boldly expressive, richly colorful paintings before she graduated from high school. Pam was also an avid reader from a very young age and throughout her entire life, and she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in 1972 from Pitzer College in Claremont California before deciding to resume focusing on art. In 1976 she moved from Los Angeles to Chicago, to attend the School of the Art Institute, where she soon met her future husband Jim DeMartino. Pam received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing in 1980 from the School of the Art Institute, after which she and Jim rented studio space together in downtown Chicago for three years and pursued their mutual passion for painting. In 1983 Pam and Jim moved to New Haven Connecticut where they both attended graduate school at the Yale University School of Art. Pam received her Masters of Fine Art in Painting from Yale in 1985. Although her paintings by this time had become completely abstract, there continued to be a strong human presence implicit in all of her paintings that was intensely psychological, and barely discernable yet undeniably there, underneath a web of geometric mirrored planes and bright colors.

Remaining in New Haven after graduate school, Pam realized she had another great passion, and began teaching rigorous drawing and painting classes to college-age kids and adults of all ages, from the mid-1980’s through the late 1990’s, teaching at Creative Arts Workshop for many years, and later at Southern Connecticut State University.

Beginning in the early 1990’s Pam became increasingly interested in spirituality and meditation, which gradually became the focus and center of her life, and continued so throughout all her remaining years. In 1998 she and her husband Jim moved to South Fallsburg New York where they lived and worked on staff for two years at a meditation ashram, before eventually returning to Connecticut.

Pam will be dearly missed by her loving husband Jim, and her memory will also be cherished by her brother Daniel Rubin and his wife Terry Desser of Palo Alto California, as well as her brothers Darryl Rubin and Jeremy Rubin and her mother Muriel Rubin, all of whom currently reside in the greater Seattle area. Pam also leaves behind many exceptionally dedicated caregivers, and her love and heartfelt gratitude extends to the entire extraordinary palliative care team at Smilow Hospital in New Haven, and also to her wonderful nurse Julie and her great companion Yolene.

A private memorial service will be held later, at the convenience of the family.

In lieu of flowers, Pam requested that any memorial donations in her memory please be made to:

CT Hospice

100 Double Beach Road

Branford, CT 06405

To leave an online condolence, or to visit Pam’s tribute, please visit www.GlastonburyFuneral.com.