A note from Judi

When we moved to Nashville, my husband and I knew we wanted one special piece for our home, something that could only be ours and that told our family’s story through music. Music is everything in our house, and Pink Floyd, my father-in-law’s favorite band, has been on constant play in his memory since we sadly lost him in 2018.

I was on the hunt for that piece when I found Amy on Instagram, and I stopped scrolling the moment I saw her profile. I knew right then I had to have one of her pieces. What I didn’t expect was that, on top of her incredible talent, Amy would turn out to be one of the kindest, coolest, and most genuine people I’ve ever met. Her love for music and for what she does is contagious, and I could spend days chatting with her in her studio.

Her piece is the first thing you see when you walk through our door, and everyone stops to look. The longer you stare, the more you find, and no two people see the same thing. It’s a story that never stops unfolding. We loved it so much that we commissioned a second one as a wedding gift for dear friends.

Amy, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. We’re so grateful!

Five minutes with Amy

How would you describe what you do in one sentence to someone who’s never seen your work?

I cut my paintings into hundreds of strips, then rearrange and weave them back together into musical memories—layered with texture, history, and meaningful moments from our lives.

How did you first get into paper weaving?

Even though my background is in music—I majored in music and taught piano for decades—I also spent about 15 years putting together large-scale commercial art projects in Chicago. I usually developed the concepts and then sourced artists to create them, which meant I was often alongside artists in their studios watching their processes unfold. While representing other artists, I was always experimenting with my own work: painting on canvas, drawing, taking classes at design school. I was especially drawn to artists who deconstructed their work in some way.

My paper weavings really came out of nowhere in 2020, when my piano studio shut down during COVID and suddenly I had all the time in the world to experiment. I had boxes of donated records and CDs, so I started shredding album covers and playing with them on a small scale. Eventually I wondered: What would happen if I painted something large, cut the entire painting apart, and rearranged it? The first time I began weaving rows of my painted strips together, I was hooked. I immediately felt like I’d found my artistic voice. There was something about the rhythm of weaving all those rows that connected directly to my musical background. Once I began embedding each piece with its own musical inspiration, I realized that was the story I wanted to tell visually. It was a true “aha” moment, and I haven’t wanted to do anything else since.

Where does music come into your process?

Music is the source of inspiration for all of my work. It’s there at the very first conceptual spark, it’s constantly playing in my studio while I paint, and I even cut and weave my paintings to its rhythms. Then I layer in pieces of the music’s story—bits of album covers, lyrics, memorabilia, or personal details that connect the work to the person I’m creating it for.

What’s playing in the studio right now?

Oh wow…where do I begin? I primarily listen to whatever music I’m currently working with, so this summer there was A LOT of New Wave and Synth Pop—New Order, Depeche Mode, The Cars, Simple Minds. I mean, I was actually singing karaoke to Mr. Mister all summer.

I’m still deep in that genre, but I always come back to my staples: Dolly Parton, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Fleetwood Mac, Chris Cornell, Heart. There’s usually some bluegrass mixed in there too. I’m also working on a broader exhibition project inspired by my collegiate experience performing with the symphony, so there is a pretty wild mix of sounds coming out of my studio right now.

What’s the most surprising song or story someone has asked you to weave?

One client was closing a business she had run with her husband for a decade and beginning a new venture. As a surprise anniversary gift, she asked me to create something that captured those ten years together with their venue. She gave me dozens of concert posters that had hung on the walls of their venue, Wine Down Nashville, and I incorporated pieces of all of them into one giant painting for their home. Watching her husband’s face as he saw it for the first time—and then watching him discover all those little fragments of performances and memories they’d shared over the years—was incredibly special. It became so much more than a painting. It was a decade of their life woven together.

What’s one thing people don’t realize about how your pieces are made?

That I paint everything first—and then I cut it apart. People are also usually surprised to learn that I primarily studied and taught music my whole life rather than fine art. But I think that’s actually given me a unique perspective. I approach art with musical instincts: rhythm, repetition, movement, tension, harmony. I never learned all the rules you’re supposedly meant to follow in art school, and I love it that way. I learn through experience in my own practice and prefer beating to my own drum, so to speak.

Painted

Cut

Rearranged

What has been the most fun part of your job? Most rewarding?

Finding myself again creatively, but in a completely new realm. For most of my life, that creative voice came through studying and performing piano and choral music. Now I’ve found another voice through painting and weaving. The most rewarding part is the connection I feel with the people who commission me to tell their stories. When they see the finished work, I can feel their emotions and their immediate attachment to something I made. It makes me feel like a little piece of us will always be connected through the art. Every piece I work on becomes ingrained in me somehow and carries me into the next project. And I like to think my clients get to keep a little piece of my heart when they look at their piece, too.

Where can people find you, and how do they commission a piece?

I’ve participated in local art shows including the Harding Art Show and Artclectic Nashville, but I primarily represent myself and share my work through Instagram and my website. Locally, you can also find smaller works at Nashville International Airport through Nashville Jam Session, and larger commissioned pieces in hotels including Canopy by Hilton Nashville Downtown and Hutton Hotel in Nashville, as well as The Balladeer Hotel in North Carolina. For commissions, people can reach out directly through Instagram or my website. Most commissions begin very simply—with a conversation about the music and the story behind it.

Studio portrait by Christian Taylor Photography. All other images courtesy of Amy Harms.