Take Me to the Mountains

Amber Williams grew up in the small town of Colona, Illinois.  Collage was an early and preferred form of artistic expression, finding joy in gluing would-be trash together.  Art as a career never crossed her mind as a tangible possibility, despite the responsive urge to fill any elective opportunity with a creative course of some sort.  There was very little money to spare, but Amber was always studious and ambitious.  With the assistance of a few scholarships, she was the first in her family to attend college.  In 2005, she graduated from Albion College (Albion, MI), with a B.A. in Anthropology (summa cum laude).  From there, she began her career as a Casemanager, serving adults with disabilities.  She rediscovered her passion for collage by chance in 2010, after bringing home a stack of National Geographic magazines from a Friends of the Library sale. This happened during a period of great anxiety, and she credits this rediscovery of collage as a lifesaving moment.  Not long after that, she was introduced to the world of security envelope patterns, which also became an obsession.  She keeps a sample of each unique envelope she finds, now totaling over 900 shades and patterns.  Her collage methods are self-taught and have evolved over time.  She notes that her artwork is an unintentional wink at her previous Anthropology studies, since so much of human history is documented by the trash created.  Her first exhibit of collages “Mountains of Envelopes” was on display through Quad City Arts at the Moline International Airport in September-October, 2014.  Since then, Amber has a been accepted to various local, regional, and national exhibits.