About Amy

Truro, Massachusetts artist Amy Katherine Sanders, credits the serenity and beauty of the pine woods, ocean and bay, beaches and dunes of the Outer Cape as the inspiration for most of her art. Her artistic style creates velvety, seamless, richly detailed compelling paintings. Amy is largely a self-taught artist. She did formative studies with outstanding art teacher Ron Parent for several years and has also painted under the direction of guest artists at Truro's Castle Hill Center for the Arts.

She considers pastel to be her primary medium, although originally she worked in watercolors and was a Signature member of the Connecticut Watercolor Society for many years. She still paints occasionally in watercolors, and even acrylics and oils, but she finds the richness of pastel color and its flexibility allow her to capture more expressively the beauty and depth of the scenes that she is drawn to paint.

Amy is an internationally recognized, award-winning artist and Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America (PSA). Her paintings have been sold in a series of auctions to benefit Truro's Castle Hill Center for the Arts and the Truro Historical Society. She has exhibited in galleries in Connecticut and on the Cape, and has been represented by the Addison Art Gallery of Orleans, Massachusetts since 1998

She has done commissioned work for Seamen's Bank of Cape Cod, Blue Gateways Inn, The Depot, the Wellfleet Congregational Church of Wellfleet, MA, the Truro Historical Society and the Christian Union Church of Truro, and numerous private clients. She continues to welcome commissioned work, including landscapes and portraiture.

	Artist's Statement: While painting I become drawn right into the scene. It's an extraordinary sensation where I can literally feel the sand between my toes, smell the salt air, or hear the roar of the ocean. To bring that sensation to others, that is what it is all about. People often remark that my paintings look just like photographs and while I think its meant as a compliment (and I take it as such), I don't see them that way at all. Photographs have a flatness to them and a sharpness to the edges -- things in the distance are just as sharp, and just as rich in color and detail as things closer to the camera -- that make them clearly photographs. Many of my paintings are highly realistic for sure, but the edges are softer, their colors are richer (most vividly noticeable in the shadows or darker areas), and there is more depth to them than one can find in a photograph (things in the distance have much smoother edges, less detail, and a bluer color, more typical of how the eye sees than a camera). While I often use photographs, or a series of photographs, for reference, I never feel the richness of emotion or the spectacular beauty of a place when I look at a photograph, that I feel when I look at a painting.

Amy is always eager and willing to teach, either with 1-2 people at a time in her studio (remember, small space), or with groups in a venue you arrange. Contact Amy if interested.

People often ask what PSA means. It stands for Pastel Society of America. It's a professional designation. To have the privilege of putting these initials after your name, one has to meet the standards of professional excellence set by the Jury of Admissions.