Today we’d like to introduce you to Amori Bieller

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

I am Amori Bieller. I am 24 years old and a Junior at LSU. I major in Renewable Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Conservation Biology focus, and my two minors are in Oceanography and Environmental Science. I was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and moved to Baton Rouge in 2019 to pursue school. Growing up, art and nature were staples in my development and personal solace. My time was either spent outside fishing, catching bugs, trying to build things with sticks, or drawing. Now, all of that has come full circle. I spend a majority of my time studying wildlife and global cycles, and every free moment thereafter is spent making art about it. I realize now that what I spent time doing outside as a child was scientific in nature– observation and discovery–, and I used art as a way to compartmentalize occurrences that I found fascinating or did not quite understand. That is largely what I do now, only much more technical and structured.

Strange Fauna started years ago, between 2020 and 2021, when I fell upon hard times and much of my belongings were handed down to me. At that time, I craved to feel like myself again, so I started up-cycling everything I had. I cut up and painted all over my clothes, painted on decorations around my apartment, and made everything “mine”. It wasn’t long before I started getting comments on my clothing and paintings. People complimented my work and asked where I got it from, and this sparked the idea that other people may want and benefit from having the art I make. So, I started by making custom clothing and paintings and gifting them to the people around me, which turned into making commissions, which later became my introduction to local maker communities in Baton Rouge.

I remember doing my first event, the grand opening of BellyFire Studio, and I needed to come up with a business name. Looking back at my years of artwork, nearly all of it was themed around nature’s oddities and I totally gravitated toward the strange little guys. I liked the decomposers, like worms, crawfish, flies, and I painted about them and their role in ecology constantly. It was a collection of strange fauna, those forgotten, dismissed, and considered pests. That, “Strange Fauna”, fit my work like a glove.

Through developing that idea, Strange Fauna really became a brand completely embodying my life. From my interests to my passions to my personal development, it is all in my work and message.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

It has not been a smooth road by any means. I dealt with many road blocks along the way, including my mental health and negative collaboration experiences. Burn out can be inevitable in these situations, so I had to learn that my artwork is a product of passion and inspiration; my motivation does not come from making the most money as fast as possible with the cheapest possible materials. I have to operate slowly for my motivation to be sustainable, and that is okay.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

Strange Fauna creates art about ecology, using anthropogenic wastes. Using upcycled materials, I make art, with little to no waste production, to create wearables and decor all with a common theme; conservation and sustainability. This process is made easy and cost effective with donations, trades, and second hand purchases. Through this structure, I receive everything I need to make my art; food scraps, seeds, paper, jewelry, and clothing. Each craft is representative of a different area of human waste production and made to highlight an important topic within ecology.

Using food waste, like turmeric, cabbage, onion skins, and beets, I render pigments from them and use them to dye second hand clothing. Food waste, being a monumental source of greenhouse gasses and landfill waste, are put to use here. On these pieces of clothing, I often paint or print animals, insects, or abiotic ecology themes on them.

Several local businesses give me their shredded paper to be used in seed bombs. I process the paper into a pulp, add seeds, and add the slurry to a chocolate mold. I source my seeds from a local native plant nursery and eco boutique. They provided me with native wildflower seeds, which are sold in several stores in Baton Rouge.

I often get unwanted jewelry through donations and trades. With these, I disassemble them and turn them into new pieces.

For my paintings, I often use whatever I can get my hands on. I have painted on discarded wood, cardboard, and records. I upcycle picture frames for my paintings on paper and this leads me to my favorite part of the work I do! Paint making.

I have been experimenting with paint making for the past year and have a wide variety of watercolors and gouache made from plants, flowers, rocks, and berries I forage myself. I create lake pigments with these and use them in my watercolor paintings. I decided to do this after learning that paint is one of the most abundant microplastics in our oceans and that acrylic paints are typically petroleum based. Both of which are huge concerns of mine academically. So, instead of buying new paint in plastic bottles, I have been replacing them with ones I make myself. Slowly, I have incorporated more of these colors into my paintings and my plan is to exclusively use them one day.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?

In my early formative years, I was a quiet daydreamer. While my classmates focused on lessons, my mind wandered to animals, plants, and dream-like landscapes. I was endlessly fascinated by nature and would use art to “study” or compartmentalize concepts that I didn’t realize were scientific at the time. Art became my sanctuary—a silent confidant where I could capture the beauty and wonder I found in the natural world. Nature, with its quiet wisdom and gentle rhythms, offered solace amidst the turmoil of a tumultuous upbringing.

As a teenager, I would go through prolonged droughts followed by intense periods of creation. This ebb and flow of motivation resulted in work I felt was too personal to share. My most proud pieces were depictions of myself at my most vulnerable and I felt distastefully exposed when showing them to people. Guarding my artwork was one thing I had control over.

By 20, I didn’t have much, material or otherwise, but I DID have a desire to find me and never lose her again. So, I worked hard and began pursuing a degree in conservation biology. With time, patience, and reparenting my inner child, I finally made contact with that compassionate girl.

The pieces of her identity are so deeply rooted that she couldn’t pretend to be interested in something she didn’t like even if she tried. She has an innate empathy for living things- from the trees to the bugs. She was the one who boldly stood up for the girl being bullied. She loves to be outside, talking to birds, catching fish, and feeding squirrels. Driving past industries and watching smog billow into the atmosphere made her well up. She knew nature was to be respected and protected. She found comfort in the silent wisdom of her 30 year old horse. She walked barefoot everywhere and was fascinated by bushcraft. She made an anatomy chart for her goldfish who had a tumor. She would sit quietly next to her garden to watch the blind armadillos scuffle around. Then, she would paint about it. Little by little, adult me learned to embrace child me, and I began seeing color in the flowers again.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sites.google.com/d/1Z4UbvTNsYxAwemHbMvz6hEcrLkq_oBGM/p/1sGTPlmK24c2nNAQ_igVTYW3txFRWvCE8/edit
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strange_fauna
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/strangerfauna/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRn6wcyaEDMx-QdoeegFgHw
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@strange_fauna?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc