Daily Inspiration: Meet Amber Wood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amber Wood. 

Hi Amber, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’m a portraitist, pastellist, ceramicist, and muralist. I’m redirecting to a creative career a little late in life, which is humbling but sublime. I grew up bouncing around the south between family members who were always supportive of my creative endeavors but frankly just too poor for me to pursue art. 

I worked through my first degree in psychology, cramming in as many fine art courses as I could and falling in love with ceramics and murals. I spent a decade working in neuropsychometry and in-patient psychiatry, increasingly dedicated to patient advocacy and compassionate care for people with poverty, disabilities, trauma, and neurodivergence. 

The work was rewarding, but the systemic failures that disadvantaged me were glaring in the families I assisted. I watched poverty and corporate greed break people down, and put myself, my coworkers, our patients, and all of our families through unnecessary suffering and danger, despite our ceaseless efforts. The unbelievable callousness of our government and major healthcare providers toward working and disabled people during the pandemic was too much. It broke my heart, and I left psychiatry. 

With my partner’s support and good union benefits, I’m finally financially stable enough to get the medical and mental health care a decade working in it couldn’t provide me and to embrace a free fall into the gravitational field of art. 

I’m currently a fine art student at the University of Cincinnati, a socialist organizer, and a studio artist with a little portrait commissions business. Themes that inevitably emerge in my work are adoration for the natural world, fellow women and queer folks, collaboration, and the fierce and immense love I have for all working and poor people. 

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m best known for my pastel portraits! Most folks like acrylic or oil paints, but I enjoy the tactile, immediate, maliable nature of charcoal, chalk pastel, and oil pastel. Even when I was very poor, I could manage to get ahold of some vine charcoal and cheap nupastel, and as such developed a little novel proficiency in it. 

Stylistically, I combine realism with heavy contour line and some experimental pastel technique. Formally, I do a lot of pets and kids. I’m aware of the historic dismissal of women artists’ subject materials and disregard it entirely; I am deeply inspired by the working people who are willing to give me their hard-earned wages to encapsulate that which suffuses their lives with love and meaning. 

I’m most proud of my Fellow Worker series, a six-portrait series of coworkers and comrades. The pieces are intimate collaborations with them, gifts to them, and tributes to any in the audience who may see themselves and their communities reflected and honored. 

Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I think that when we read about ‘taking risks’ in a lot of media, what we’re actually reading is wealthy people having fun adventures with their wealth. For a lot of folks, especially right now, ‘taking risks’ would mean risking homeless, illness, or death for themselves or people they love. Poor people strategize and collaborate; they don’t ‘take risks.’ That’s capitalist propaganda, self-aggrandizing retrospective narrative to make them feel like they have an excuse to exploit others, to luxuriate while others suffer needlessly. 

I don’t believe in that individualistic, dog-eat-dog, I-got-mine “risk” framework. I do believe in challenging yourself and experimenting, and vitally, I believe in creating strong communities so that we can support each other in novel and groundbreaking work together. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://amberwoodartwork.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amberwoodartwork/

Image Credits
Amber Wood