Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Cunningham-Waltz.
Amy, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
My whole life I’ve always been making something. My poor mother who claims to not have a creative bone in her body (which I would argue against because she did make quite a few really cool Halloween costumes……a monarch butterfly, the centipede from James and the Giant Peach, ET….) always encouraged me in everything I wanted to do from crocheting to weaving to cooking. My parents were also 100% supportive of my transfer from a “normal” college (Northeastern) to Massachusetts College of Art when I just didn’t fit as a business major.
I went on to graduate from MassArt with a fine art degree in Photography. I mainly worked in black and white. I would often sandwich two negatives to combine two images or I would print through different textured tissue papers to create a unique look to what would ordinarily be a plain old still life or landscape.
When my kids were born I ventured out of the darkroom and into fiber art. Over the course of a decade or so I worked in hand-painted clothing and quilted wall art. This is where I started to notice how color and pattern were starting to be a focus in my work. I’m a big fan of indigenous artwork like Maori, North and South American, Pacific Northwest to name a few.
I’ve discovered that I don’t like to be dependent on a piece of machine to create. I now primarily paint mostly in watercolors and sometimes acrylic with a lot of ink details done with my favorite rapidograph pens. I’m a perfectionist so I get very absorbed in the fine detail part. I struggle to figure out making art on my computer. I’m not sure if it’s a generational thing or if I’m just that artist that’s lives to create with my hands. That being said I am trying to master maybe not creating the art work from scratch on my computer but at least taking some existing work and “tweaking it”. We’ll see how that works out….
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I paint with watercolors mostly. Most of my work tends to an abstract feel and often the initial painting is very unplanned and intuitive. The planning comes when I add the next layer of details in the ink. I use mostly rapidograph ink pens but will occasionally do fine details with a paintbrush.
I want people to look at my work and be drawn closer because of the details. The fine details don’t always translate as strongly in a photograph as they do in person but the over painting is pulls you in and the fine details intrigue. Inspiration for what I create comes from everywhere in my life but a major motivating factor is making something that is visually pleasing to the eye even if the content is sometimes dreary or intimidating or not generally thought of as beautiful. I like to challenge people sometimes to find and embrace the beauty of something they would have never considered beautiful before.
Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
I think social media and the internet have made is easier to reach a wider audience. However, for someone like me coming to terms with the amount of time I need to take promoting myself is challenging. I feel like you have to know people to know where to promote your art. Artists have a tendency to be solitary introverted people sometimes so forcing yourself to get out there to meet and make connections “as part of the job” is hard…. really hard
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I have a website www.acwaltz.com and I sell my work on Etsy. I post on Instagram and Facebook too – usually progress shots of a piece being created but I have sold a few pieces through private inquiries from both sites. I would like to do a few more art shows in the near future. I feel like the hardest part is getting people to find you and your art. You need to try to be as visible as possible and social media is helpful at doing that but I need to get out there in person too.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.acwaltz.com
- Email: acwaltz@yahoo.com
- Instagram: @acwaltz
- Facebook: Amy cunningham-Waltz
- Twitter: @acwaltz
- Other: www.etsy.com/shop/ACWaltz
Image Credit:
all images – ACWaltz
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