Studio Visit
with Amber Pierce, remarks by Olivia DeCapri
A Safe Spot To Rest Your Head
fiber, and acrylic on canvas
2020

The Hand That Gives
fiber, wood, and ceramics
2020

Active Listening (side 1)
ceramics and glaze
2020

Active Listening (side 2)
ceramics and glaze
2020

Patience
ceramics and glaze
2020

Premonition
ceramics and glaze
2020

Community
ceramics and glaze
2020

Embroidered Moment In Time
fibers on clothe
2020

Interlocked
acrylic on canvas
2020

Remarks by Olivia DeCapri, January 25, 2021
Having a multi-faceted process, Amber creates a thoughtful and delicately powerful throughline in her practice. Her work is a puzzle of stories, questions, and emotions. Pierce is continuously sifting through her knowledge and experiences, as she shares the vulnerability of her truths in creating a narrative. Amber is seeking to unearth original thoughts and this radiates into all aspects of her practice.
In one of Amber's most recent fiber works, she combines painting and crocheting a pillow with the words “A Safe Spot To Rest Your Head”. Especially made for black women and girls, she creates a safe space for herself as well. Through her keen visual storytelling, Amber’s work explores the complexities of being, with a kind nature in an arduous world. A sense of earthly joy and sorrow emanates from her work through color and softness of forms. Lost inside a moment, Amber leaves the viewer finding her depiction of intimate and thoughtful stokes grounding our collective space.
During our studio visit, Pierce pulled out a stack of papers and offered to share her ‘secret art’ with us. We were excited to see what she describes as her sketchbook practice, as it gave us some insight into how she navigates her making process. Pierce’s work plays with elements that are derived from the initial thoughts generated in this pile of mysterious, loose papers. These stacks consist of dream recollections, cutouts, sketches, image transfers, stamps, and scraps of makings past. Pierce's current work handles like an open book or journal. She shares a part of her soul space in each piece. It’s emotive, thoughtful, and exudes life. Practicing in ceramics, fibers, painting, drawing, collaging, she brings these materials altogether. In the middle of a global pandemic and a rise to white supremacy, Amber's work emits honest expression and recollection of this state of the world and being. Amber spoke about her recent impulse to make more functional objects. Creating accessibility to her wisdom she adds beauty into our everyday narrative.She questions where we stand and live in this time collectively.
Emotional strokes, working in cycles, Pierce shares what she has been reading and absorbing outside of herself. Amber reveals how she is inspired by terms she has never thought of before. Focusing on the nuanced meanings inside of these words, she researches in order to touch on media, path, and language in relation to everyday life. Pierce mentions at the forefront of her mind are the constructs in which we think about time. For example, how different types of cultures shape, think about and digest it. She shared with us that the US is a monochronic culture which means that we think of time as a currency. Phrasings such as wasting time, spending time, and saving time are unique to our culture. This inspires her to investigate the deep subtleties in language that are often overlooked and left out of research.
Contemplating the value of her diverse materiality, we speak about the purpose that the creations have, entering the conversation of functionality in global consciousness. We are living in a reality that is radically different since the pandemic. Mutual aid and community support have become more prevalent in response to the hardships and injustices that face us and our communities every day. As artists, we play a big role in sharing and circulating the wealth inside of our communities. The call to support each other is sparking artists to make in a way that carries us some distance from companies that hoard the majority of the wealth. By entering this conversation of functionality Amber’s work becomes part of the ritual dance of the day, coloring our narrative with her stories inside.