Amy Crehore grew up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and received a B.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University. She now lives on the west coast in Eugene, Oregon where she paints some of the most exquisite paintings you’ll find anywhere. Her website and her blog, Little Hokum Rag, both have many examples of her work.

The Charmer.

Amy’s paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries on both coasts and commissioned by America’s top magazine and book publishers, including The Atlantic Monthly, Business Week, ESPN Magazine, Esquire, Forbes, GQ, The Los Angeles Times, MS., The New York Times, Outside, Playboy, Redbook, Rolling Stone, Texas Monthly and more.

I asked her a very general, even philosophical, question, the answer to which reveals a lot about the personality behind the biography:

Editor Life is short. How are you filling this small space with your work?

Amy Crehore You said it, life is short. I will only be able to paint a limited number of paintings in my lifetime. My technique is very time-consuming because I use a lot of layers of paint to obtain the color intensity and fully-realized effects that I desire. I believe in quality over quantity.

One of my main goals is to create classic images. By this I mean that not only will an image remind you of things you’ve seen before in the history of art, but it will also be a new contemporary image that you will want to return to again and again. Hopefully, it will remind you of feelings you’ve felt before, situations you’ve experienced or it will make you laugh in all the right places. Maybe the image will draw you in with it’s irresistible and lush dream-like quality. You might experience a sort of déjà vu from recognizing certain classic motifs that you remember from your childhood.

Layers of ideas with double meanings. Double entendres. Silent poetry. Surrealism. Imaginative details and design. My newest paintings, the “Little Pierrot Series” and the “Monkey Love Series”, contain all of these qualities and they also entertain people.

Hula Hoop Blues.

I have this almost spiritual need to be creative everyday of my life if possible. I really need to be fulfilled from the inside out. Painting serves that purpose. Other people don’t fill me up. Running around doing things doesn’t fill me up. Art does.

I begin with a blank piece of paper and then I will draw from my head and erase until a picture magically evolves. The story and ideas evolve out of the design. It is not pre-meditated. I do not use models. I take that drawing and I make a painting out of it. I allow the flaws to remain and, above all, I strive to “be myself” when I paint. My art does seem to flow out now …after years and years of struggling and practicing the craft.

This is how I fill the small space of my life: with creative work. I am at ease with being alone a lot and that is what it takes to be a painter: hours and hours of alone time.

I think that is why the computer has been such a wonderful thing for me. Through email and the internet I can connect and interact with all kinds of fabulous people all over the world and never leave the studio. I do look forward to art openings and travel, however, to balance things out a bit.

Amy Crehore

You can also read about Amy Crehore over on our Art NYC site where she is interviewed by Marshall Sponder.