We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amy Cheng a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

I am very happy to be a visual artist. I don’t wonder what it would have been like to have a regular job because I have had many of them. In my 20’s while going to grad school at Hunter College in NYC I started doing office work and moved into word processing, taking evening shifts to be able to paint during the day. In my early 30’s I got some university teaching jobs, finally landing as a painting/drawing professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz about 90 miles north of NYC. Like most artists I always had a “day-job”, and feel fortunate to have had a good, rewarding job teaching college students. I think if you are an independent fine art artist it is unrealistic to think you can go through life without taking on day jobs.

Amy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a visual artist. I received my BFA from the Univ. of Texas at Austin, and my MFA from Hunter College, City Univ. of NY. Going to college I intended to be a journalist, but it didn’t suit me. Since I had a graphic art skill I decided to try commercial art, but I fell in love with oil painting, and pursued that. I have a studio work practice that involves painting and drawing. About 20 years ago I more or less stumbled into the field of public art, so that has become a second artistic career. Along the way I got into teaching art at the college level and that was my third career. I am known in my field but I am in no way famous. The public art I made, about a dozen projects, are all over the country, from the Seattle Airport to Brooklyn Subway stations. I work with mosaics, tiles, art glass, terrazzo and other material. When people think of my work they probably think of color, patterning, and a cheerful kind of elegance. My studio work has developed and changed over the decades. I am currently making a series of small (9 x 12”) gouache and oil marker drawings on paper that imaginatively speculates about the mystery of the cosmos.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

What particular goal or mission drives my creative journey? I am in competition with myself. I want to do what I do better, with more conviction, more ambitiously, more adventurously, more excitingly. I want to keep surprising myself. I want to keep challenging myself. I want to get greater and greater pleasure doing what I do.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I am going to try to answer this question because I think non-artists have very little insight into what drives someone to become an artist and pursue a career that doesn’t. have a clear path and has very few signposts along the way to tell you how well or not-well you’re doing.

Because I have taught in college for over 30 years I have encountered many students and I can say that the students who pursue a career in art are not necessarily the smartest or the most talented, they are simply the ones who want it most. I don’t really know what makes some of us want it so much, but we do, which means that we persist, and if you persist at something you can usually get somewhere. I can tell you that it isn’t fame or money that drives me. I wouldn’t say no if I were offered those things, but they aren’t my motivators. I really feel challenged doing what I do. I think what I do is hard, but it is something that I can do. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of “flow theory,” but I know that when things are going well in the studio, I am in flow.

Contact Info:

• Website: amychengstudio@gmail.com
• Instagram: amycheng.studio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amy.cheng.18041
• Other: Threads: amycheng.studio Artful Home: https://www.artfulhome.com/artist/Amy-Cheng/4601

Image Credits
Jason Greer Amy Cheng Amy Cheng Amy Cheng Amy Cheng