359 - Interview: Amy Boling

1. Tell Us About Yourself Name is Amy Boling and I'm married with two dogs. That's not TO two dogs mind you, but to one wonderful human. I live in the dirty sweaty bayouey part of southern Louisiana, and I love it. On etsy I am AmyBoling for artworks and Bellaroo for more craftsy type things. I have an M.F.A. in painting and drawing.

2. What Is Your Work About? My work is about potential and hope and relationships. Connections. I use lots of shapes over and over like eggs, pods, boats, eyes. Those shapes are similar to seeds, and seeds are these amazing little things that contain everything in the universe.

3. From Where Does Your Inspiration Come? Lately inspiration has come from my environment and big bad thoughts, which have been inextricably linked for most of us down here the past year and a half. I get ideas from sitting down and getting my surface dirty. I rarely make preliminary sketches, and I have to get rid of that blank white surface in order for anything to happen. So the first thing I do is to put some mark or blob or something down. I know it will get painted over sooner or later, usually right away. I count on painting over lots of things in order for the work to be finished. I cut lots of things out of newspapers. I have piles of tiny newspaper image bits.

4. Outside of Art and Crafts, What Are Your Interests? I am interested in truly everything. I have seriously wanted to be a hundred different things based on some fascinating book I read or some trip I've taken. Main things that catch my attention right now are all kinds of science, world cultures, history, reading anything, gardening, cooking, sewing, floating on my back, old movies, new movies, and watching bugs, especially ants. I desperately want a dissecting microscope.

5. Anything Else You'd Like Us to Know About? I have a flickr account with all of my etsy related images on it: And a blog which I neglect called Feeding the Bobbin.