Friday, June 26, 2009

RIP Strong Love Souls


RIP Strong Love Souls, originally uploaded by AmyMarieWillis.

My submission to Illustration Friday.

Be well.

A.




"At one point, we were all children. Full of hopes, dreams, laughter, curiosity... People change, and there's no way to predict what happens next. Some of us sing, some of us fight, some of us survive... I hope and dream for all of us to better understand one another and for wars to cease. I know I will be dreaming for this for a long, long time.
My heart goes out to families who have lost those fighting for the rights of others, so that others may have the chance to hope and dream too."

Friday, June 19, 2009

Ship Away


Ship Away, originally uploaded by AmyMarieWillis.

My entry for Illustration Friday, aka "Drifting".

http://illustrationfriday.com/index.php?medium=0

Happy Weekend!

Amy

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Oontsa-Oontsa

It's been a little while since I have blogged and what can I say? I have been a busy girl. I feel fantastic as of late, and man o man is that nice!

So check it, I have a Flickr account now!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oontsa-oontsa/


It's way more interesting than I thought it would be and there are some great groups there. One group I actually found off of a link, from another link, and another, etc... (it's been a nerdy internet kind of day).
Anyhow, it's a website for DOODLERS! And I do doodle quite a bit, so I was happy to become member number 29! I am really feeling my "I am an artist" vibe, and it's great to have that confidence right now.

Anyhoo, if you'd like to check out the site yourselves, here is the link:

http://www.doodlersanonymous.com/


Personal life stuff is fine. The coast is awesome and weird, as per usual.
Weekends are full of Voodoo Doughnut deliveries and gardening.
Weeks will soon be filled with days at the condos/inn I work at, on the beach.
Life is good.

I went to the Sunday market in Astoria last weekend with my friend Amanda and her son Elliot, who came to visit me from Olympia. It had literally been over a decade since we'd last seen one another and it was great. We ran across an artist in one of the booths by the name of Anna Todaro. I purchased a little 3x5 canvas print from her for 3 dollars. It's adorable and her work is super inspiring to me. She's my favorite artist right now, or one of them. There are so many great artists out there and I really love the way art is constantly reinventing itself.

I don't have anything new, photo-wise, to add. Not of artwork, anyhow. I have plenty of the garden and several of the Sandcastle Festival last weekend, which was super fun.
I am working working working on the mermaid and I feel really good about the progress I have made with her. I need to start thinking about getting prints made, I feel myself about to bloom.

Be well!
<3 Amy

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

You make music, too?

Why, yes, I do!

Many moons ago, in Eugene, Oregon, I started tinkering with my ex's turntable and a little hand me down program called "Fruity Loops". My ex, at the time, had literally gone loopy mental. Long story.
Anyhow, to pass the time and probably to de-stress from the situation, I started dabbling in making electronic music. I had a few friends that were "DJ's" and they had mentioned to my ex that if he got some tunes together, they'd let him open for them. Well, he was too busy being a little nuts, so I went ahead and threw together some tracks myself. I presented 5 fresh tracks, all made on Fruity Loops with an added touch of samples from records. I completed them all within 48 hours basically. I took them to Jevon and let him have a listen. He acted cool, like most "DJ's" do, and said "Yeah, these are cool, make them a little faster and we'll add you to the next show...."
So I went home and came up with 13 "faster" tracks.
The rest is history... I was hooked on making music, playing shows (even if they were a bit rough) and entertaining people.
There is, of course, more to this story. But in the last 6, 7 ???? years I've made about 200 songs and with them I have relocated, changed, grown, etc.
That doesn't seem like much, but it really is. I've played a handful of great shows, been asked to play across the country, and my music has had a pretty good UK presence. I've been played in clubs and remixed by peers. I haven't struck gold, my two year battle with West Nile pretty much kicked my butt out of anything creative. I am also on computer no 3, and that has caused a little chaos with with retrieving older programs and songs. They are now embedded in history by way of other people's memory. But I did it and pretty much everything I had was hand me down. Ghetto awesome! I didn't read the manuals (who has the time or attention for that, not me!) I basically tinkered and learned all I know today by way of curiosity.

Anyhow, today I got a nice message from a random guy in the UK. He heard my music on Last.fm and added it to his library. He fancied the song "Hypnotique". I am always completely caught off guard when I get a compliment. Music hasn't been a priority in so long, sometimes I wonder if I even know how to make it anymore, as dramatic as that sounds. I thought I would share my music links with you peeps, viewers, random blog readers, friends, creatives, and fellow electronic music lovers... Everything is FREE to download and I hope you'll find something you like, or even , LOVE!
All I know is I have made the hippies, the punks, the post punks, the squares, the nerds and geeks, the techno folk, the hula hoopers and the break dancers, the humans and the aliens all shake their money makers. That's the best part about it.

Be well~
Amy the ghetto beat making, paint throwing, veggie growin and eating Ninja!



http://www.last.fm/music/ASP+(asmallsimpleplan) Free music, hurray!

http://www.myspace.com/aspasmallsimpleplan