Hello there, and welcome to the first blog post for Amber K. Studios!
Now, what is Amber K. Studios? Well it's an art and design studio created by me, Amber Kerrigan. I'm an abstract artist, surface pattern designer and fashion designer currently living in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
I know what you must be thinking, artist, pattern designer, fashion designer, that's a lot of things! I know it is but just hear me out for a second.
So a little background about myself. I've always been creative and never just in one thing. Though from a young age I had decided to pursue fashion design as my career I had always loved painting, drawing, sculpture just anything I could get my hands on to create I did.
In college I studied fashion design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia and loved it. Around my junior year I discovered surface pattern design through a class project and fell in love with that as well. I didn't realize it was a job to make beautiful patterns for clothing and interiors, and once I found out I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my future career goals. Also, during my first year in school everyone had to train in basic fine art skills regardless of your major. So I have some formal training in painting, and would do it in the rare instances I had free time, but I had put it on the back-burner while I focused on my fashion design degree. You can see some examples of my fashion designs and surface designs below.
After graduating, you know how it goes. I couldn't find a job in my degree field so I worked at random places and to be honest I'm still not in any of my chosen career fields full time. But I knew that even though I may not be working for a fashion company in a major city right now I still needed some way to be creative. And that's when I turned to painting, and specifically abstract painting.
Why abstract painting you might ask. Well the answer is I'm still not entirely sure. Maybe it was because I felt stifled in my day job and wanted something truly freeing. Maybe I just wanted to try something new, since paintings I'd done prior to this had been more on the realism side. All I knew was that I just started painting and really couldn't stop. So for about a year I worked on paintings and tried to improve my skills while also learning about surface pattern design and growing my skill set in that area as well.
During this year of learning and reconnecting with painting I had a sort of mental shift in how I wanted my life and career to go. I realized that I had pushed to define myself as only one thing - a fashion designer - and that that mentality didn't suit me anymore. I'm not just a fashion designer, or a pattern designer, or an artist. I'm all of those things and all those things inspire me when I go to create. And I no longer adhere to the idea that pursuing one creative outlet means I don't care about the other or that I can't be skilled in multiple areas without one or more of them suffering.
As time went on the paintings started to pile up and I began to think it was time to open myself and my art up to the world more, and that is when i started to envision this space. A place I could showcase the skills I'd acquired both in and out of school. A place to connect with other lovers of art and design, a place to sell my work and hopefully enrich the lives of the people who purchase it, and to one day turn design and art making into a full time career. And that is how Amber K. Studios was born.
I hope this site will serve as a place not just for showcasing and selling my art but for communicating and collaborating with other artists and art lovers. I hope my paintings will help bring a little happiness and a lot of color into your lives, and that you will continue with me on this artistic journey I have started as I continue to improve my skills and evolve my artistic voice.
In the future I'd love to discuss why I love abstract art in more detail, give tips and tricks I've learned, show you my inspirations, give updates on my career triumphs and tribulations, or just talk about color, cause I could talk about color practically all day! And I'd love to hear from you too. Comment, tell me about yourself, your art and artistic journey. Ask me questions and I'll try to be as open and honest as I can.
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