Given Amy’s penchant for valley girl-meets-undertaker artworks, it was kind of weird when a recent phone call found her happily sitting in a raspberry patch. (“Yeah, the strawberries are over, but the huckleberries are coming up now.”) Turns out she’s visiting family and learning how to make stained glass in the hippy-dippy environs of Nelson, British Columbia, where she has also just scored a $60 half-ounce of weed. Dude.
And although there’s something a bit more heroin and angel dust about, say, Amy’s eerie paintings of dog and unicorn constellations, she is having a sunny time on her summer vacation in the “Amsterdam of the West.” In fact, she’s fused that verdant locale and her morbid fascinations in the art she’s created there, starting with a portrait of River Phoenix made out of pressed flowers. “It’s a collage made entirely out of pink and blue larkspur. It’s kind of psychedelic and decorative,” Amy says. “I might do flower collages of James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, too.”
One of the best things about Amy is that her work isn’t a dour mellow-harsher, which it easily could be if her attitude, execution, or talent were different. But she has a keen sense of humor and an exquisite way with details—she makes these things that are like glowing epitaphs for stars and feelings. Amy’s art is the sweetest and funnest sobfest around.
