William Merritt Chase had tried in 1882 to form the first pastel society in the United States which was named Painters in Pastel. Unfortunately, that only lasted six years. PSA was formed to give pastelists an exhibition space, to enhance the prestige of the medium, which is a direct, vital, vibrant, permanent and legitimate medium in its own right, equal in standing to oil, acrylics and watercolor, requiring no preparatory measures. The artist is the direct interpreter between vision and execution. No brushes, No water, No oil, No anything, but pure pigment and imagination.
Pastel is pure pigment.
It is the same used in making all fine art paints without a liquid binder that may fade, yellow, crack or blister with time or exposure to light. The advantages of pastel as an artist's medium of great spontaneity and versatility are many. It is a consistently opaque medium of the purest pigment, which reflects light only form the surface. The need that exists in liquid mediums, particularly oils, to preserve the luminosity of the white ground by carefully controlling the transparency and thickness of the layers of dark colors is thus eliminated. Unlike most other mediums in progress, pastel can be applied immediately over dark and opaque, or light and transparent surfaces with marvelous results.