Biography
Amy Dodson Ferrari
Amy Dodson was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1964. Amy relocated several times with her family, ending up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1973. She applied and was accepted at The School of Design at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she excelled academically, and reveled in the challenges of a highly creative environment. Amy graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Product Design.
Shortly after graduation Amy married fellow classmate, Marco Ferrari, and the couple moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where she took a position in custom embroidery as a computer digitizer-designer. This work involved enlarging logos with a copier, then tracing and cleaning up the image, and ultimately designing the stitching pattern for the embroidery. This set up a pattern for Amy to enlarge and scrutinize just about anything. This obsession with looking and manipulating imagery was further enhanced by her acquisition of a flatbed scanner which fostered her ability to explore and manipulate a wide array of textures and imagery. By the time Amy had relocated in Memphis, Tennessee, she had launched into painting full time and began exhibiting as a professional artist in 1995. Another relocation the Orangeburg, South Carolina gave Amy further opportunity to show and sell work regionally, and to further develop her unique take on imagery with focus on her curvilinear elements.
The year 2000 took Amy to Houston, Texas, where Amy's work simply exploded. While retaining the wonderful organic nature of the 'squiggly lines', Amy ventured into producing more powerful abstracted works on canvas through shape manipulation and use of the boldest, brightest colors. By 2004, Amy had developed her own website - AmyFerrariArt.com - and had begun showing and selling through several galleries in the Houston area. Amy's work further evolved. Textures, new materials and found objects, and collage began to appear and further fueled her thrill of creativity. Also, in 2005 the artist has stepped into a new role as teacher by giving workshops on creative design to beginning artists.
Her most recent relocation has taken Amy to Waterloo, Ontario – a whole different country! After getting settled into a new environment and completing a back-log of commission work, Amy felt it was important to concentrate on creating a new collection with much personal significance. Today, Amy is on a ‘flower sabbatical’, focusing exclusively of painting flowers:
“With the simple act of observing flowers, we have the opportunity to be reminded of the extraordinary positive-ness of life and living. Flowers have the power to awaken our senses and awaken the awareness of our innermost beings. The wonderful blossoms are a powerful symbol of transformation. Thus, my celebration of flowers through harmonious line, shapes and color is well underway!”