Art by Amy Paul
Sometimes, while on vacations with my traveling buddy Kathy, you turn around and she is nowhere to be found. You backtrack a few yards, look left - look right, and there she is stopped in the middle of the sidewalk taking pictures. "What type of tree is this?" she asks me when she spots me staring at her. " A ginkgo" I reply. "I thought so, hold on while I get some pictures for Amy". And so it goes for the rest of the week as we take pictures of ginkgo trees, telephone wires, open fields.
About three weeks after we returned from our trip back east a box full of artwork arrived at the Red Zinnia. We had talked with Kathy about carrying some of Amy's artwork in our new store and we were excited about unpacking and displaying them as soon as possible. I have met Amy many times on her and Chad's (Kathy's son) trips north from San Diego for the holidays, and she is a beautiful woman, inside and out. Having only seen her artwork via her website though, I wasn't really prepared for how amazing they are up close. She has an innate sense of detail and color that fills her creations with beauty. Carefully unwrapping the artwork, I suddenly realized the reason for so many of our photos during our trip. Ginkgo leaves fill the first one I unwrap, telephone wires the beautiful backdrop of another. Kathy was filling her camera with future inspiration for Amy's art. The prints that we have hung up at Red Zinnia are small versions of her originals and I can only imagine the impact of viewing one in it's full 3' x 5' glory. The prints are signed and numbered and sealed with an acrylic coating that brings the artwork to life. I am including her website here, but stop by and see them in person. They are beautiful.