Conversation with Amy Orr

Please enjoy my conversation with Amy Orr. Amy is a multimedia artist whose work often involves the reinvention of manufactured materials; plastic and plastic cards in particular. The understanding and perception of plastic and ephemera is changing quickly. Where Amy’s work was once a lighthearted narrative about consumerism and culture, it is now overshadowed by the environmental disaster that our single-use practice has caused.

Amy is drawn to materials for their color, abundance and original intent. Whether constructing a patterned composition or figurative mosaic, the plastic fragments become a sparkling wasteland of personal histories and common stories. With a background in textiles, Amy’s work can be understood with references to the crazy quilt, in which fabric scraps are pieced together to create a whole cloth that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Previously a tenured professor, administrator, designer, and art publication editor, Amy Orr is now a studio and street artist.

https://www.amyorr.net/ 

https://www.inliquid.org/artist/orr-amy 

https://www.instagram.com/amyorrwhat/?hl=en

https://www.saqa.com/

https://metrophiladelphia.com/snyderman-works-galleries-to-close-after-52-years/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drill_press

https://plaidonline.com/mod-podge

Church of the Heavenly Rest exhibit https://pdflink.to/cc3a3579/ 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Transcript

Welcome to Salvage, a podcast for conversations with artists about the repurposed materials they use in their art practice.

Please enjoy my conversation with Amy Orr. Amy is a multimedia artist whose work often involves the reinvention of manufactured materials, plastic and plastic cards in particular the understanding and perception of plastic and ephemera as changing quickly.

Where Amy's work once was a lighthearted narrative about consumerism and culture. It is now overshadowed by the environmental disaster that our single use practice has caused.

Amy is drawn to materials for their color, abundance and original intent. Whether constructing a patterned composition or a figurative mosaic, the plastic fragments become a sparkling wasteland of personal histories and common stories. With a background in textiles. Amy's work can be understood with references to the crazy quilt, in which fabric scraps are pieced together to create a whole cloth that is greater than the sum of its part.

Previously a tenured professor, administrator, designer, and an art publication editor, Amy is now a studio and street artist.

Well, thank you, Amy, so much for joining me here. I really appreciate that you are taking the time to chat.

Wonderful. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah. So as we were chatting just before I pressed the record button, I think we did actually meet face to face in Fiber Philadelphia. If nothing else, I certainly knew that you were the person in charge of it all right, well, I might have been one of the faces of it, but certainly there were a lot of people helping me and working at an exciting event.

Yeah, it really was. It was a it was a really remarkable moment for fibers and textiles. And I, I do think back to it often and wonder what, how it could have been continued, or should we have had another one. There was so much happening. Exactly. I know everybody, including all of us, really missed it. It was it was all consuming.

And it. I bet there was a lot that came before it. Exhibitions. It,

I think some of the, some of the reasons that it was successful as we were, we were really, operating outside of a box.

which is, I think how I, I usually operate better and that is we weren't we were affiliated with every organization in the city and all of the all the educational institutions. But we ourselves were really completely independent. Oh, I didn't realize that because I think there was also a SAQA Conference during that.

Absolutely. So we hooked everybody in, but we weren't operating out of any organization ourselves. We were collaborating with every organization and every venue, but we really had the freedom to create anything we wanted, anything we were able to. If we dreamt it up, I was operating, putting it together together with Bruce Hoffman. Right, right. And he was, you know, he was really well known.

He had been a curator, and galleries at Snyderman Gallery. Yes, up until that point. And so we both we had different, we had different parts of, this whole picture that we, that we brought together. Yeah. You just. Well, and you did a phenomenal job because this was, what, 2012, 2012 Fiber Philadelphia 2012. Yeah, I vividly remember yeah, it was a

my group of friends that we're still fiber friends. Well we're fiber friends. But that's how we started as fiber friends. We all bunked together in the hotel room. We attended the SAQA conference, and then we just bopped all around Philly looking at all these amazing exhibits. Right? I don't think we could do it today in Philly.

Looking. I mean, there's so much going on in Philadelphia now.

As you know, as in most cities, I mean, it's just ground grown way beyond what we saw in 2012.

It's just a whole different scenario. I mean, University of the Arts, which was one of our urban arts organizations, has closed. Right. Its old gallery scene is very different.

Right. Snyderman Gallery has gone to right. Snyderman gallery's gone. There certainly are some very wonderful galleries. I think the whole,

the way that artists market their work now has changed so much in 12 years. Yeah. Well, I guess that was really your social media. Really. It was. It was pretty social media. We just had ourselves together enough to get all our information online.

Right? You know, it was really the very beginning of, of just organizational,

presence online. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly helped us a lot being able to do that, getting being able to get the word out that way. Right. Yeah. No, there's definitely websites and all of that. But I think and I think

I think I might have been on Facebook already by that point.

I don't think I was on Instagram. So that part, the whole social part was just beginning. But yeah, the websites and all the information and yeah, that was it was phenomenal. So thank you for organizing us. Great. It was wonderful. It was really one of the highlights of my of my professional and art life story. It really was a wonderful coming together and, and a collaboration.

And I do think that that is something that I've always really valued. And I work independently as an artist. Always. Yeah. But at the same time, I do understand how much collaboration, it can benefit everybody. Oh, absolutely. We can get so much more done that way. Yeah, yeah. And there's such joy and collaboration. Such joy. Yeah. And having people on whatever level to work with.

And I think now one of the things that I really enjoy now and you mentioned is being able to have art, critiques or groups of friends that I get together with all in our studios. That's true. Thank you. Zoom. Thank you. Zoom. That's really came out of at that really came out of Covid, didn't it? Yeah. I mean, it was around it.

Yeah. I remember being on I don't even remember what the context was. I'm sure it had to do with art. But I remember being on zoom calls. But it really I mean, that really took off and I hope it's not going anywhere because it's fabulous. I mean, look, we can talk face to face.

That's your idea, really is.

I'm really comfortable working this way. Yeah. It's a it's definitely a gift. Yes. All right. So I'd like to take you back, if you don't mind. Were you an artist as a kid?

I was an artist as a kid. I was an artist and a, you know, and a re creator of found materials since I was young.

Really? Really. Oh, wow. So what kind of art did you make as a kid? Well, you know, as I listen to your, as I listen to some of the other podcasts that you've put together and other people have done. You know, we all come out there, all these little kids that we're really best at art and maybe not so good at other subjects.

Yeah. And also and I wasn't you know, school wasn't impossible for me, but art was really where I excelled. And, you know, so from very young, even like kindergarten, I was the art kid or one of the art heads in the class, and that was my identity. Yeah. Certainly my I think my mother was. Well, she my mother was not an artist herself.

She was one of three sisters. And they were all collectors, and they were all really appreciated textiles. One of them had been a weaver. Oh, wow. Occupational therapist, home ec teacher. You know, all the things that have to do with sewing and making and appreciating, textiles. Yeah. And my mother was just the appreciator. She was more of an, you know, appreciator of clothing and remaking clothing.

Thrift shopping. Yeah. We need to appreciate ours too. Absolutely. And so there was always an abundance of materials, of fabrics to play with. And when you went to school, what kind of art did you do then?

Well, certainly drawing. You know, I always tried to draw. I was never really a draw painter, though.

Certainly I did that and went through a fine arts degree as an undergraduate. But as a child, more like, really a maker and like a a a weaver, you know, just like putting things together at a very basic level, whether it was a collage, a set of materials, for some reason, roofing tiles keep coming back to mind as something had on the, like, black, you know, some or old pieces of wood, that, you know, made it into the house, you know, probably through my mother and just painting on top of something else besides paper and even the paper was, like printer paper, old printer paper.

So even when we were working on pads of paper, they were, you know, things they'd already gone through a computer and look at, we were working on the backs of them. Oh okay. Cut. Yeah, yeah

So I remember those old the printer, cards. Oh. You know, every time I think back, which is, you know, not that often, but I realize how far back there's a relationship to what I did then and what I'm doing now with materials. Yeah. I think that most artists, I think, could look back and find the thread, so to speak, through it all.

I certainly can, and I think I only figured it out, I don't know, like maybe a year ago, I was like, wait a minute, I see the connection. Yeah. That's right. And it is a. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you went on to teach art, is that right?

Yes. I came out of a family of educators and I knew that that was, you know, something as an artist that I really could do.

And I, you know, as you know, I always kind of taught a little bit, you know, from babysitting to, you know, maybe being given a little, you know, an after school class or something to run.

And so I when I was getting after I had gone through undergraduate school, I went, did have a do have a BFA.

And then when I was getting a secondary degree, I realized I should get a teaching credentials. Okay. And it was very smart. It turns out I never really taught,

K - 12 in the classroom, but I did interesting things like run a, an art mobile program where I had a 48ft semi-trailer and encased in program. This was actually my first job out of graduate school, where I got an Ma and a teaching certificate.

you know, I just had the courage and the right credentials and it, it and I, it was Berks County Community College, so just north of Philadelphia, the county, beautiful county just north of Philadelphia. And I had it and I had art exhibitions and art programing. And we, we went around to schools and senior centers and bank lobby, you know, bank parking lots because we were allowed by a bank.

It was a wonderful first job. Yeah. Oh, that sounds like so much fun. I'd do it now. I would do it now again. Yes. And, Oh, wow. So I think when I first learned of your art, I think one of the first things that I discovered were your credit card quilts. Yes. Did you actually make fabric quilts before you got to the credit card quilts?

have I ever made a quilt completely out of fabric? I've used a lot of fabric, but now never. But yet there's always fabric in the work. Like I need to sew the cards on to something. So I do have yardage. Whether it's plastic yardage or velvet. I worked on velvet for a long time and I credit card quilt.

The first one might even have been on velvet because I like the sheen. I like the way that it you know, it absorbs light and it really presents other things in a beautiful way. Yeah. So I've never made a quilt completely out of. But I always make quilts. So even when I do, you know, I, I as I've seen my, you know, I have credit cards that I work with and that's one of the materials that I'll continually return to.

They're one of my I sort of have a palette of different materials that come and go, and I may use them together. And at this point, plastic cards, because they're not all credit cards, but I get little stacks of them every day from friends. And I tend to back late, you know, earlier. And, in mass and other ways.

But but yeah. So when I start working with new materials or when I'm, I always make, make a quilt, I've got a series of quilts over the years continuing now that, that hat that are, that provide a place to experiment with materials and also a place to present the materials that I use. Because I find that working in a quilt format.

Makes my conversation and my objectives very clear, because quilts are, you know, there's just a history of quilts and a history of, log cabin quilts and crazy quilts and quilts are always or often about this assemblage of materials. And particularly the crazy quilts are assemblages of repurposed materials, often right scraps. Collection of the scraps. Yeah. So the collection of the scraps and putting the scraps together into a format that transcends the materials and and into a format that tells a story.

Yeah, yeah. You know, so the credit cards quilt, that first quilt or one of the quilts you might have seen was called Security Measures. And it was little squares, like half inch squares. I sliced the credit cards up into half inch squares and then, you know, put them on to a very traditional looking quilt. And the organization of the quilts.

Yeah, materials are not traditional. The organization of the quilts are traditional. They look like, well, what made you first discover or think of credit cards as an art material?

the materials always emerge in subversive ways. And as a and and I think now that, you know, there are a lot of people who work with repurposed materials, they, they're part of our lives.

Yeah. So credit cards also plastic cards have been something that have been in my drawer. You know, they would be a little like a little stack. Your desk drawer and you have gift cards. You've got your ID cards. Stack of cards starts to grow because the gift cards are, they're pretty, they're paying for orange. They've got flowers on them.

And you, you know, you add them to your little stack of cards. Your ID picked are your your pictures. And you certainly don't want to throw those away. And credit cards where we were taught that people you you had to cut them up, but then they would ruin a pair of scissors if you tried to cut them up right.

You had the right. Or you put them through your paper shredder and you jam the shredder. And so it that was a story about how we're we're supposed saving our identities or protecting our identities by cutting this, these things. And then my work is also always a story of like, oh my God, why? Why do that?

And I do it for the same reason we all do.

It is the process. Yeah. That stitching process is the story. And it's also my meditation. You know, it's that it's what we do. That's why we do it. Yeah. So I have to ask, while we're on the subject, how do you stitch credit cards?

I have to drill a hole or poke a hole for every single stitch. Oh, that is labor intensive.

Wow.

That's right. With an all or a Dremel tool or something. All of those things. I make a Dremel right here.

I have a drill press in my studio so I can just do it faster. Oh, a drill press that I didn't even know such a thing existed. And they exist in all sizes. There's even a drill press just, you know, like so, just so you can do it faster and you're not.

You don't have that wobbly ness of your hand. Yeah, I believe the Dremel tool has a little, drill press contraption that you can buy so that you could do it so you can do it a little faster and handle a little bit better.

And cutting credit cards.

That's that's tough on your hands. I have had one carpal tunnel and I do need to do the other one.

I'll do it as soon as I catch up with whatever else. Oh gosh. Wow. It's not the worst surgery to have. It makes a big difference. Yeah I know many people who have had it. I'm not quite there yet, but, but I can see how that happens. Oh, everything. You really have to really take care of your body.

I don't know if you can learn to take care of it from scratch. I'm not sure that any artist does until, I link up. Yeah. No, I think about it every now and then. You do the street installation, and I think about doing installations, and that's a lot of physical work. And I'm like, oh, I gotta get like, start exercising to build up my strength so I can be doing this physical work for longer.

Right. And I just started doing that, you know, like ten years ago or something just ten years ago. And now I have that just ten years. So now I have.

It's funny how many people don't even notice. Like here, I could be out there and I'm, you know, old and I could be standing on a ladder or it's putting something on a pole and it's it's amazing how many people don't notice.

They just walk right by just enough. Definitely. Do they just kind of walk by, you know, like this is perfectly normal in the city. It's perfectly normal in the city. I guess all of it. I used to put the the work up at night thinking it had to be more, overt. Oh, because, like, yeah, because you're not getting any permission, so to speak, for writing missions for it.

But you know, the whole the whole scene everywhere. Philly. First of all, Philadelphia was always a very arts friendly city. If you were putting things up there in the right places, or not the wrong places, you were allowed to do it. There's art all over the city. What would be the wrong place? The wrong place would be, at the time, any center on a federal mailbox.

Oh, okay. Right. You know when to get. Oh, and to mailboxes, certain street signs, certain, poles in the street for instance. It is my understanding, I've had my work taken off of stop signs. Yeah, I see other people's work. That is straight up one stop signs. Yeah. Not really sure. You know, I think everything's just sort of breaking down, and there's a lot is there's a lot of art around 26 playful dance.

It's playful. It seems to be okay. How did you get started doing that?

the street art. I started thinking about it, really, when I was part of a group of fiber artists that we we had a, a, a residency, not a residency. What's the right word? We were in a working artist group for Mural Arts.

Okay.

The another for three people and me and, you know, brilliant artists. And our job was to come up with ideas for a monument for the textile industry. Philadelphia's had as a huge history in textiles. That's not really being told anywhere yet. And, and some sort of a monument that would really, show that history. You know, commemorate it at that.

That was really the time I started looking outside and I started looking at, street poles and, you know, they're just all these they're just blocks with a million different signs. Yes. They're all bent in different ways, and there are no trees. I'm thinking of 1 or 2 blocks in particular, and I know they're many.

You know, that rhythm of the street poles and what I could and what, you know, how I could place things on those poles?

Like where in the city do things, where do they need an intervention? And where might an intervention,

you know, help change a streetscape? Always. Did you start with yarn bombing first or did you go straight to your sculpture like things? Yeah. So let me just finish. I just finish the story about being on this committee.

Oh, yes, please. Of 4 or 5 brilliant artists. I must say, we totally failed. Were all textile artists of different kinds. You know, I mean, some people worked. I mean, everyone was working in different ways, but we really just. We weren't thinking outdoor monument. We really didn't have the brains. We really didn't wrap our brains, brains around it.

I have to say. Oh, there still is no monument to textiles in Philadelphia. No, but that was the point. I really started thinking of putting the work outside. What was your question then? Whether you started with, like, yarn bombing first or went straight for your Holly? I very purposefully stayed away from yarn bombing.

That's just my nature.

It's like, okay, what else can I do? Right? Somebody else is doing that, even though I'm very much at crochet or I have crochet my way, I've macrame and crocheted my way through many degrees. Absolutely.

but not with not with the cord. It was always some other material. And so I really was thinking of also things that wouldn't get soggy.

Oh yeah. And I have to say that hasn't really you know, there's some work out there that is yarn bombing. And it has remained, it has kept its color and everything else. So, I, I love yarn bombing, but that was just me. That wasn't my particular vocabulary. Okay. So I started,

I really started with these plastic, these, you know, putting pieces of, of of street signs now.

Yeah. Okay. So you were you were finding them on the street. Okay. So I have huge collections of things from the street. And if I didn't bring them in specifically from the street, other people have given me collections, there and the street, you know, the bottom of drawers and then the street, you know, it's expanded to just the, the, ephemera and the bottom of the drawer, you know, the the broken, the pieces.

I really from scratch was working on it as if they were really just from the gutter and cleaning them up and transforming these broken elements of nothing ness into something that had a story. So what was your driving force? Did you happen to notice how much trash was on the street and the gutters and stuff, or are you always been aware of what I've always.

I've been collecting it forever. I've been looking down. I look up more now than I used to, but I used to walk around looking down. I do that all the time. Guilty. Looking down. And from the very beginning of, you know, I remember I actually remember going into therapy as a young, younger person and my mother thinking, telling that psychologist that I always looked down when I walked.

Now I probably needed and wanted to be in therapy. So that's another thing. But I the the looking down really was not that I was looking at the cracks, and seeing these fabulous drawings, line drawings and gesture drawings and I was avoiding tripping. Yes. So and whenever I looked up, I'd walk right into, like, a fire hydrant and a pole.

Yeah. So forever. I'm still doing that.

There was wonderful plastic in the streets when plastic became this product. That was based produced either in new Jersey or China or ever. It was being made and it was being made in all of those places. There was so much stuff ending up in the street. Yeah. And being an urban environment,

I was from the 80s finding a lot of drug paraphernalia, you know, crack vials and crack bags and they looked like jewels to me.

You know, they were in such mass and their color and their little color caps on them, and the color caps have

insignias on them. So they're from different,

you know, tribes or different gangs or. Oh, wow. Oh, I didn't know that was. Yeah. And they were just really beautiful. And I really,

And that's how I began thinking about Street.

I have to ask a safety question. Yeah. So you pick them up with your bare hands.

I most often used to pick them up with my bare hands and I. And not proud of any of this, but, you know, most of the time I would pick them up with my bare hands because that's what I had. I had a very good doctor who was quite into this, and so he would test me for

what would we be?

What would I get from the street? Hepatitis, I guess. Yeah. So I was being watched by medical professionals. Well that's good I, I'm, I was very lucky. Yeah. And how did you clean those kind of materials like,

An early time. One of my early time I put them all. I collected a whole lot of them.

You know. And then I put them in a pot on the stove and cleaned them. Everything melted.

Yeah, I completely changed their shapes. I probably still have them because I still have them melted mass. It melted in mass and they just like the shapes just changed. I couldn't get the little tops back in. And so that was the first time I melted plastic, which I'm very aware of now

because the health concerns of working with plastic.

I'm really concerned about it now. I mean, I really see what I've done and how much I've probably ingested. Yes. Yeah. No, I think about that too, for myself as well. You know, like I was waiting for our call and I'm sitting here shredding up tiny little bits of plastic going, should I really be doing this right?

So we're making our own microplastics that we're doing our noses. I and I think, you know, as we move forward and they can really test for that, like how much of your makeup is microplastic? Yeah, I don't know. Can they test for that? Yes, we know about it, but I don't know how they can find what the way they're seeing it is.

They're seeing it when they, I asked about it because it's like, how would they know? I had, recently, unfortunately, I did have a, a I had open heart surgery. Oh, my. And, I was asking the one of the doctors about it because of course, they're beginning to talk about it. They don't know much, but the only way they would be able to find it is if they were finding little particles if while during surgery.

At this point that's how they find it like in fish. And

so did they find any in, you know, not that they, they did not find any and that. I know what I mean really. I mean no one was really looking or taking or, you know, I wasn't in that study. Yeah, I do wonder I don't know, I do yeah, I didn't

I'm really aware of what I work with now.

And I must say I'm on the verge of like, why am I working with this? Yeah. And what did I do the next part of my life? Yeah, I yeah, I think about it all the time, but,

I try to be cautious about it, and I try to remember to wear a mask when I'm using really tiny particles or some kind of fumes, and I do not melt the plastic, even though apparently there are some safe temperatures to melt it at.

I just don't want to go there.

I'm I'm not ready to move on yet. I know every time I say, you know, this is the era and I'm definitely moving on, you know, I've worked with a lot of things, and then I start drilling the plastic. And as I'm saying that I'm, you know, working with the plastic, right?

They're not there yet. You got to wear a mask. I suppose when you're drilling, you have to wear a mask all the time when I'm working. Really, I guess I think if you're drilling, definitely a lot of drilling. I do, because really, those are all the little pieces from anywhere else. Yeah, the other place. I'm really,

you know, saying or jumping around a little bit, but I guess they're everywhere.

When I've been watching my work on the street, that's been, Yes. What happens to it? Lots of different things happen. And then. And the ones that stay up, which is a portion of them for many years,

they deteriorate. Yeah. You know, they almost it's it you know, you sometimes use some of the plastic. They're all different kinds of some of the plastic is shredding and you see it on the street every day, you know, and dirty.

And some of it just seems to go woosh in the air like plastic balls. Like what would have been a plastic ball or beads seemed to just get smaller and smaller and smaller. Interesting, Yeah. So each kind of plastic is definitely breaking down in different ways. The sun. The sun and the weather. Yeah, yeah, that's what it is.

And I've had some installations that were, you know soft plastic, like, soft packaging plastic bags. And I discovered the hard way that that can really only stay outdoor is for two months, maybe three months. And after that, it starts literally flaking off. There was an installation that I was taking down, and I was on my hands and knees in the grass, trying to pick up as much as I could, and it was nearly impossible.

No, absolutely. I'm really at a changing point, a turning point with that. And in terms of really being careful about what I put out. Yeah. And that really you must be do hard plastics on your skull. Now I'm using hard plastic and more metal. I mean everything is different once I, I don't really make rules because I keep I break them, you know, but I'm also working with spraying things before they go out.

So what do you trade them with with like, rustoleum, clear rustoleum. Or there is also a these are just the two things I'm experimenting with now. It's a clear Rustoleum, which is. So that's a resin I guess. And then a, mod, a spray mod Podge. Really? Oh, I didn't know Modge Podge made it spray.

Interesting. I'm always looking. I have them right here. I will share them.

Yeah. So I don't know what difference they're really going to make outside. Yeah. This is the Mod Podge spray. Gloss glitter sealer. Acrylic sealer. Interesting. Yeah, I think it's probably just another layer that's just going to wear off very quickly, but maybe it would be the other 1st May the other one, the Rustoleum I just tried different brands.

Yeah, I've been experimenting with the resin, but I've been encasing things in resin and that certainly can be outside for a lot longer. I have one sculpture now that's been outside.

Oh, coming up to eight months now and it's totally fine. It's yellowed a little bit right. But it's totally fine.

and I'm playing with, with the plastic, with the resin.

But it's just, it's, it's me creating more plastic across the board. I don't want another level of toxicity. Yeah, yeah. So I guess I'm doing the same thing as that. You know, when I make things that are going out into the world, they really have to be covered or they're going to they're going to deteriorate. Yeah. Yeah. No, I certainly I don't want to be adding more flakes to the grass anywhere or into the air.

So yes, that's the important part. That's right. That's, that's part of my evaluation of what we're doing. I mean, the whole idea of plastic has changed so radically from the time I started using it was really before I was reusing plastic. I mean, the point I started using it, it was more of a celebration. Plastic, plastic was so wonderful.

It was as a child and a young adult, and we really I mean, we really were not thinking, no, no, we went way in the other direction, went way in the other direction. And the amount we're consuming and the amount that produced that isn't even consumed. Yeah, yeah. Well, the amount that we're producing that's meant to be used for, you know, five minutes and it's going to last, you know, hundreds of years, literally, it's going to last hundreds of years, even if we even if it breaks down those pieces, they're never they're just part of they're just part of the sand everywhere.

Yes. Yeah. That is made up of little pieces of plastic as well. Now everywhere. Yeah. No, it's it's sad. It's sad. There's. Yeah. There we went down the sad path. I think it was inevitable, I suppose. But I guess that's really all of our, one of our, all of our challenges working with the re reimagined materials is do does it need to be, archival?

And if so, how are you going to make it that way? Yeah. I love in street art there. No, you can hope for anything. It's all very, you know, just for a moment in time. Right. But even with art, that's not street art. If it's repurposed and it's your fear repurposing plastic, I don't really I have a problem with the conversation about it being archival, because it's like

it's gonna outlast us.

All right? So technically, it really is archival paint. That's right. You'll change. Right? It'll change like if it's in a museum setting, let's say, actually, I once had a gallerist say to me, oh, don't even worry about it. That's for the conservator to deal with.

poor conservator. Yeah, we have to be in that position. I've seen some art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

That, and I think,

was it Rauschenberg? I can't remember who it was now, but you can see that there were balloons and now they're completely changing. And my God, what a nightmare. Really? For the conservator that is. That's right. Or they don't have to conserve it. And that's just it, I guess the. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But I, I find that the plastics that I have that are on indoor art, I have some pieces that are, you know, close to 20 years old. They're totally fine. Yeah. That's right. This stuff that's inside and it's not saying like it really is fine. Fine. So tell me more about your outdoor interventions though. It's. Yeah. Yeah. It's just do people.

So you said most people pretend not to notice or not know most you're what they pretend not to notice. When I'm putting them up, invariably one person will come along and talk to me. And what do they ask? They're just. They ask what? You know what it is. Or they get it. Well, when I was putting on my piece, just the other, last week or they just totally get it, you know, there's really there's so much street art and, curious curiosities out there that they this particular person just really appreciated it.

Oh that's awesome. Yeah. I think more often they appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Do you like, keep a, a catalog, so to speak, or a map of where you put all your art. I have a list of where I put it. Now, the thing about it is in terms of like people going back to find it, it doesn't necessarily last, you know, hopefully it does.

But it doesn't always just in terms someone there variations to the theme of how they come down. But

I keep I first of all, I post everything on Instagram. So that has been a nice regular place to really get a catalog. It. Yeah, yeah. And then I have lists I haven't gone as far as, putting the whole thing on, you know, on a website or anything else.

They're really outside. They're really changing all the time. And it's like sticker art. Yes, I love sticker art. Just takes a lot, much longer to make it, which is a problem for me. Yeah.

No, I guess, yeah, I could totally see somebody wanting to take a piece like that home and just letting it up a little higher, and I do spend a lot of time wiring them on and in ways that they don't come off easily.

Oh, good. Yeah. So just enough work. So, you know, you really have to spend some time and have tools to be able to get them down. Yeah. But hopefully people just look at them and just it just changes your frame of reference. Yeah. Right now I'm focused on you know, so the thing about doing work outside is, you know, I make up my own public art project.

Right. You know, again, like the way we did fiber Philadelphia, we just made it all up ourselves.

you know, so I don't have, you know, deadlines necessarily. But if I do, they're my own deadlines. I get to put them where I want them. Sometimes, you know, I've done things where I've mapped every place. I went on a trip around the country one year, or, my friends around the city.

So you have this art in other places other than just Philadelphia? I do have art in other places in Philadelphia. In fact, I do have someone who reports back to me regularly from, Silicon Valley. And there's a piece I put up in a park there that has been up for years. Oh, cool. It's just it's like on a great, little small piece on a great.

Yeah. Anything in New York City

now, because, you know, New York City doesn't really it's not really inviting. But for this kind of art, things will come down. Oh, you didn't see that. But yeah, Philadelphia is really the place. But I put it all over the place. But by chance, I don't have anything in New York. All right.

Can you please correct that? What a correction. I will correct. Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah. You kind of have to do a hundred of them all at once. I'll correct it. Okay. I mean, graffiti, sticker art stays up, pay sticker art. I need a sticker. I need a I do need to make a sticker to put up with my work.

Well, anyway, it's just on my mind. Yes. Yeah. So yeah. Little signatures. Yeah. A little signature sticker. Yes. The way it is, I bid

I mean, make these things I don't want anyone to touch and then I make them, so you just cannot help it. But just they do look very inviting. Inviting. I they are. I hope they're inviting at least to look over there.

Inviting to look at. Definitely. I bead I bead letters, I bead,

You know, I use these little toy letters to put little sentences and words on them. Oh, I love that. Like fortune cookies. You get up. Well, as you can see, you know, some little, proverbs and things. Oh, I love that. Okay, I didn't realize that.

Now I'm going to have to look. I need to plan a trip to Philadelphia so I can go hunting for your art and read all a, read all the. And I guess the best place to figure out where they are is really on Instagram. Yeah, yeah. All right. So everybody listening. You on our tour of Philadelphia go on Amy's Instagram.

I love that. Do you have any indoor exhibits planned in 25?

I do, in fact. The first thing I know about, I think will be in April in New York. Oh, fabulous. The church of the Heavenly Rest.

And I am part of a quilt, a group of quilters. And years ago we put together a show there, more traditional in that they, work with fabric, fabric.

And these will be more of my traditional looking quilts made with other materials, including that quilt you mentioned with,

credit cards. Credit cards. Okay. I think I think there'll be a few credit card pieces in it.

Oh, awesome.

that. Yeah. So that will be up for a few months. Apparently. It's a really good place. A lot of people walk by, so you'll be able to see it. Awesome. Yes.

5th Avenue 1085 Fifth Avenue. Okay. And the name of our the group of the four of us is Semper Tedium. So it's, it's, it's I think it's really a made up Latin phrase that means work and more work.

Yeah. Celebrate work more and a little bit of work.

So I have one more question for you. Yes. I'm really curious about your twist tie quilts. Yes. How the heck did you make those? So, you know, there's this started the same way, I think I, I started to answer your question and then I didn't completely answer it.

Both the twisted quilts and the, credit cards really stemmed from my parents house and my parents passing away. And I when I cleaned out the house once with one parent and then with two parents, they had, you know, the credit cards. They had this pile of cards during a lifetime. And in my mother's kitchen there were the a drawer full of twist ties.

You know, when I was really the twist ties with this perfect shape that looked like a strip of fabric. Any strip of fabric. But that's when I started using the twist ties for log cabin quilting. Yeah. Snaps. Building up a square. And you can do a lot of fun patterned stuff. Yeah. And what side? How you organize the colors.

Were you doing them with a sewing machine? Never. No. Everything is stitched by hand. Oh my God. Always everything they stitch by hand. Yeah. Even mending clothing, I just stitch by hand. Wow. And at some patients. Yes. Yeah. I've got I figured out a lot of different ways to bandage my fingers up and I could push it through things.

Do you ever use a thimble? Always use a thimble. I can't. So with that one I got oh that's right, I have to have it on. It feels good. Yeah. It's like now I'm set. Now I can do this. And if I don't have a thimble and somebody asks me to sew something, I'm like, I'm like, lost.

Like, wait, I can't do this.

Yeah, exactly. When I started working with the twist ties, you know, one piece and then another, and I think I did about seven twist tie quilts in the end. Wow.

All right. Where did you get your. Your mom's drawer. Must not have had enough twist ties. It didn't. So I started buying them. Oh, okay. You can buy boxes of everything.

Yeah. So the first things. But that's one of the only things I've bought that I've needed more, right? Yes. So I still have a lot of twist ties. If there's anyone out there. I did want the twist tie collection.

I will pass it along. Okay. Good to know that I'm going to work with them. You know, in that vein that in that abundance, I get.

So sometimes you got to put stuff to the side. You you move on. Well I haven't done that, but I, I want to yeah. So I'm in that place now where, you know, they have a lot of stuff that I probably won't work with again, but I don't know what it is.

Yeah. It's it's. Yeah. Unless you have to like, move and downsize. It's hard to make that decision. So I moved and downsized

and I still didn't make the decision.

I have a lot of supplies. But you just have to have them as an artist. You just have to. I'm looking around at them.

Now I have a lot of supplies too, but I did downsize.

I kind of was like,I think most of the things I gave up when I moved was my fabric stash. It wasn't that big to start with, because I had already been using less and less fabric. So I just aside from my big box of scraps, which I thought there was something precious in it and I still use it every now and then.

Other than that, I gave up like all my bigger pieces of fabric.

I'm amazed by you. I'm trying to do that.

haven't done that yet. Yeah, well, you know, they probably I'm quite sure they have reuse places like a materials for the arts kind of places in Philly. Absolutely. You can always donate it to them and then go back and get it if you still need it.

That's right. No, exactly. By giving things up, it's like getting rid of clothing you just gives you space to to find more. Yes. You know, I did have one scare. I was moving out of a big house and into a smaller place, and for a year I could not find my bone collection. That's. We found all kinds of bones, but mostly chicken bones.

Chicken bones are one of the materials that I work with, and I think that I might return to all kinds of bones. They seem like the, you know, they strike me like scraps of fabric. They're the scraps of animals. They they're they're remnants of animals. So are they the chicken bones from chickens. You've eaten chicken soup we used to in the family.

My husband and son would complain about having about dinner, being our. You know, we'd have to clean it, have to clean the bones off of their mouths really well. Would be the year that.

And they wanted to leave Art aside at dinner. That's also.

So have you made art with these bones before? But I've done a few quilts with them. Oh, I have to I kind of I missed those somehow. Yeah, I've done a couple of quilts with them. One of them, after Hurricane Katrina, I made a quilt with wishbones, black velvet and wishbones and red beads. Ooh. And, another one that says home sweet home out of chicken bones.

Because chicken, there's chicken in every culture. That's true. No wonder we're eating them. Or there are pets or. Yeah, and we all have chicken recipes. So it was your commonality of chicken soups I love that. So do you know yet what you're going to be making with the next set of chicken bones? I'm thinking more vessels. Ooh, I'm thinking more sculptural.

Oh, you know things I will return to things I've done. I'm imagining and fish bones and thing. Yes. Oh, next up, that beautiful, beautiful white. And they they get beautifully bleached out in the sun, and they're sort of translucent to be kind of translucent. The fish, particularly the body parts. Yeah.

that's where I'm hoping I move from the plastic.

But I, I'm finding it very hard to transition. Yeah. So many beautiful colors and many beautiful colors I know it still draws me in.

But also the messages of the plastic I there's so much more to say. Yeah, definitely. Especially. Yeah in the, in the year that we're in and the crisis that we're in the climate crisis to start with.

Right.

Well Amy, thank you so much. This has been a fascinating conversation I love it I can't wait to see your chicken and fishbone vessels. Oh yes. Okay. After this summer, that's where I'm moving. I mean, they really could be.

They really could go out on the street, too. I'll get back to you on all of that, okay?

All right. Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

Thank you so much for being here for this conversation. It was fascinating. I there are so many things that I have learned about Amy's work. And to think that I thought I knew it. I can't wait to discover more. Thank you for being here.

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This podcast was created, produced and edited by Natalya Khorover, theme music by RC Guida.