Amanda Gizzi

• Narrative and Story Telling
• Inspiration as an artist – Interweaving ideas.
I feel I am first and foremost an artist and my medium is tapestry. I work on personal images hopefully showing a passion for composition in colour and line and pattern.
My work is mostly figurative or at least tries to tell a story. I work in Tapestry as I feel it lends itself to the narrative and I am particularly interested in narrative mediaeval tapestry works.
Through my work I hope to express tales that come to me. For inspiration I keep looking and listening to people telling ‘stories’. I find myself inspired by funny titles for characters or for books and I often see images that catch my eye here or there – I collect all of these aspects and try to blend towards a design.
Tapestry weaving for me is a wonderful art and helps me maintain a love of pattern, textiles, line and composition.
I work through the process of making which can be a bit messy, not square, and not neat but I am happy to break the rules as long as I get the kind of image I enjoy.
I find all artists are basically inspired by their childhood and affected by their upbringing. For me this was a rich experience as my parents brought us up with an Italian/ Scottish background. As a family we immigrated to New York for several years and we stayed for periods of time with grandparents