We were lucky to catch up with Amy Harms recently and have shared our conversation below.
Amy, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
The core of my artwork is about weaving sentimental bits and pieces of albums/songs/items into my artwork…so all of my works tend to have some sort of a tangible meaningful element. But the piece that sticks out to me right now is a commission I started the year with, it was a surprise piece of art from my client to her husband. This couple own a couple of Nashville companies, they are deeply embedded in the music community and were shutting down one venue to focus on some new ventures. The business they shut down was a music/wine bar venue that held concerts and they had created dozens and dozens of concert promo posters for all of their events. Essentially my client gave me all the posters and I cut them up and wove them all into one of my paintings…embedding the soul of their event venue into one piece of art for them to cherish forever. The look of surprise and wonderment, the tears from both of them when they were going through all the tiny bits of pieces of their past…they were thrilled to have something beautiful for their home that they could also commemerate the closing of a chapter in their lives. It makes my heart happy to know the deeper level of meanings all my commissions have with my clients, when they look upon my weaves it has a whole elevated level of sentimentality to them, more than anyone else.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a visual artist, my paper weaving art series has turned into what I do full time since 2020, but I’ve always been in the art and design and also music world my whole career and even my young life. I actually started my creative life as a musician, going to college on a piano scholarship, singing around the world in a touring choir and teaching piano privately. After graduating, over the years of my professional career I fell into the art world by working at and managing some art galleries. I continued to teach piano privately, along with continuing my professional career as an Art Consultant in Chicago. I was able to work alongside many artists, I helped curate some fantastic commissions on the commercial side where I matched up artists with large scale projects…I loved diving into their studios and watching their process of creating their works. I think this was the point where I started creating and experimenting with my own art.
Over the last 10 years I have gone from dabbling in my own artwork while teaching 25 piano students weekly…to eliminating my piano studio (covid was the start of that) and doing my artwork full time. By some act of God, magic, a higher being, something I will never fully comprehend…I started cutting up and destroying my paintings. I took all these strips of my paintings, then I rearranged them and started weaving together new paintings. New paintings that were evolved in texture and form. A record collector had recently donated to me 300 vinyl records in the name of art. I started cutting those up too and weaving them into my artwork. Then my clients were asking me to weave in little sentimental bits of things, like albums, into their commissioned pieces.
Even though my techniques have been self-taught and learned, my weaving, my destruction of my works and then weaving them into their true art form…this is what sets me apart, no one else that I have ever come across as an artist does what I do. The most special thing to me is that I’m creating pieces that are not just pieces of art, but sentimental heirlooms that will be passed through family generations.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of my art practice is having the ability to work with my clients on the story of what meaningful element I’m weaving into their work, and then the moment their final piece is revealed to them. Just the looks on their faces and feeling the warmth of the impact of the piece, what I have spent weeks weaving my heart and soul into…seeing it all come together is something so special that I don’t think I could find that in many other careers. It’s kind of like I’m seeing into their souls, then I’m putting my soul into a piece of work, and it all comes together into our souls are woven together into this beautiful work for them to enjoy forever.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
I have recently read, and re-read a few times, The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. Highly recommend. I would put this out there as a “bible”, of sorts, that all artists should read as a way to clear their heads, start their art practice with his fresh perspective. It’s really helped me get over some battles that were going on in my artistic journey, and gave me some mental exercises to think about things differently. Rubin gets into the philosophy, psychology and even spirituality of living as an artist, which is something that really gave me a lot of important things to think about at the point of my own creative journey. There was a point where I was having a lot of “interference” which is what Rubin describes as subtle energetic information the universe broadcasts (through others, surroundings, even voices from within yourself), and how to tune those out and hone in on your own intuition to create.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amyharms.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amyharms.art.studio/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyharmsartstudio/
Image Credits
Photos by Christian Taylor Photography