“It always starts with the longing. An invisible tether pulls me toward the horizon in life and art.
My paintings are evidence of the journey, gestural maps of my wanderings. Each stroke is a bushwhack. Each moment in the studio some kind of a discovery.
My restlessness propels me into the world, my travels only create more wanderlust, and my curiosity for the great mish-mash of life on this planet is never satiated. Art and travel are in my bones.”
Amy Guion Clay began her journey in the wilds of suburban Boston. She was drawing and painting from an early age, encouraged by her working parents who had artful interests of their own. The kitchen smelled of boiling dyes from her mother’s fiber arts, and her engineer father found his voice in mid-life as a tenor in the regional musical theater.
In her graduating year of high school, she was awarded the Art Achievement Award, and she went on to earn her BFA from Syracuse University and University of East London. After exploring a career as a fashion designer in New York City and London, she cashed it all in to travel the world by bicycle and find her deeper calling through art, adventure and nature.
She landed in Boulder, CO and began her art journey, growing a contemplative painting practice/career while raising a family. She doesn’t remember how she completed the 40 paintings for her first solo show while a single mother without a studio. Since then she has exhibited her mixed media paintings widely in galleries around the US and internationally - including Spain, Italy, India and Berlin.
Her favorite thing is to combine art and travel, living as an artist-in-residence around the world. To date, she has been to over 30 residencies in 18 different countries such as Iceland, Mexico, Turkey and Ireland.
