Amy Richard
Visual Artist, Sculptor, Paper Investigator
Studio 11 *ONLINE ONLY*
Bio
*ONLINE ONLY* Due to a family medical emergency Amy's studio will NOT be open during the tour this year. We encourage you to check out her workshop offerings on her website to learn more. We send our condolences to Amy and her family during this difficult time.
A native of Miami, my fascination with the natural environment began at an early age while exploring coastal waters and mangrove forests near my home. A passion for art was later set in motion at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas where I studied painting, drawing, and sculpture, completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1984.
Several years later, I discovered hand papermaking as a creative process and found myself returning to it repeatedly over the years, eventually completing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Book Arts and Paper at the University of Iowa. It was during these studies that I made the connection between papermaking and my affinity for nature.
Every single day, I marvel at nature’s miraculous energy—an invisible force that creates such exquisite designs and structures in every living thing around us, only to destroy them and begin again. Collecting and studying various relics from the marine environment (seashells, egg casings, exoskeletons, etc.) and distilling them into artwork is my way of “reading” nature and learning about its never ending transformation from one form to another.
Making paper is an integral part of this process; the act of harvesting and transforming plant fiber into artwork puts me directly in touch with nature in an intimate way. Like the relics that I am so fascinated by, my artworks are physical artifacts of an ongoing collaboration with nature.
Most recently, I’ve been working on a series of pulp paintings entitled “Conchology,” a celebration of the vibrant colors, designs and exquisite forms found in oysters, conch shells, and various whelks. The imagery is produced using a painting medium made with finely beaten paper pulp and natural pigments brushed onto handmade paper just after the sheet has been formed (while still wet), allowing the painting to physically become part of the paper itself.
My work can be found in numerous private and public collections including the Smith-
sonian, Newberry Library in Chicago, as well as special collections at the University of Iowa, University of Florida, and University of Miami, among others.
For more information: amyrichardstudio.com
Contact: amy@amyrichardstudio.com