We recently connected with Ami Maki and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ami, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Being an artist means being vulnerable.

I grew up a privileged, beautiful, white girl in a safe town with a huge support network of family, friends and educators. I lived in a big house on 7 acres of woods and fields, played soccer, swam on the swim team, played the cello and barely worked for my decent grades. I even discovered in high school that I was a rather exceptional artist; I was commissioned by the Portland Trail Blazers at 16 to create Clyde Drexler’s retirement gift, a 3ftx5ft charcoal piece. Despite all of this my self-esteem was very low. Sadly, I was convinced that my body was the wrong size.

I started dieting when I was 13 even though I didn’t need to. My 5’2″ frame was solid muscle and normal puberty pounds added some roundness that, in the early 90’s, was absolutely unacceptable. I bought what the media was selling and believed I was only valuable if I was thin. I spent so much time worrying about my diet and exercising that I completely lost track of what really mattered. My aptitude for art was a gift that I took for granted. I quit pursuing a fine art degree after two years even though I knew art to be my path to happiness but didn’t know how. After obtaining a BS in Communication Studies I took a part time coffee shop job that gave me access to health insurance so I could try my hand at building a pet portrait business. I was able to successfully support myself for a year doing exclusively portraits, but burned out when I discovered running. Half marathons helped me stay small, but damn were they time consuming! Next I tried marriage, maybe I could focus on art if I didn’t have to work. I didn’t focus on art, I got depressed and ate my feelings. After my (second) divorce I discovered the actual secret to thinness – quitting sugar! I had the body of my dreams! I was working at a bookshop, I wasn’t doing art, I wasn’t fulfilled. I developed a binge eating disorder and gained the weight back and more. I went into a 12-step program for food, lost all the weight again, fell off the program and gained the weight back and even more. I wasn’t addressing the actual issue. I am an artist in a body, not a body doing art. I needed art as my focal point.

In 2023 I spent the year creating a 45 piece series of 7ftx5ft charcoals of fat women.

Ami, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a 43 year old queer, poly charcoal/mixed media/ tattoo artist. I am small fat and after a lifetime of self-torture am I able to acknowledge my extreme privilege. I created my body of work, “Obese Landscapes” in an effort to normalize fatness, to desensitize and spotlight it. Fat is an adjective that doesn’t need to be loaded with bias, racism and demonization. Being fat does not equal lazy, unloveable, unattractive or any of the other negative associations commonly attributed to it. “Obese” is another word loaded with bias from the outdated BMI scale and I like how it clashes with the gentle, calming, neutral term “landscapes”.

The larger-than-life scale of the 45 pieces I created have a sculptural texture that resembles stone is some and dirt in others. Some can be hung upside down or horizontally to create abstraction to the point of looking like an actual landscape depiction. Bodies are as natural as the earth, no matter their size and could be just as neutral without groups or societies to diminish them based on how they look.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The goal driving my creative journey is to live as authentically as I can and as a result to inspire others to do the same. We all have vulnerable parts we want to keep hidden, but keeping it in the shadow hides the easiest access to connection with people around us. My journey to self acceptance was long and embarrassing, but my struggle was not unique and my hope in sharing it alongside my work is that it inspires others to reflect upon their own journey.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Being an artist allows me to create my own path to connection with the people around me. I get to create the narrative that represents who I am and I get to reflect upon my influences and include the ways they’ve helped and hindered me. My work is an accumulation of media I’ve consumed, books and articles I’ve read and people I’ve encountered, all filtered and re-presented on a platter of authentic material. To me there’s nothing more rewarding than having the ability to visually communicate abstract subject matter in a concrete form.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @amimakiartist

Image Credits

Portrait of artist Ami Maki by Aymie Reynolds
All artwork photos taken by Ami Maki