Meet Amy DeCaussin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy DeCaussin.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I’m a storyteller. I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I love traveling, adventure and the great outdoors. I spent a lot of my childhood steeped in the arts, from countless hours at dance practice to violin lessons, to marching band and musicals; my love for all things creative began before I can remember.

After receiving my Bachelor of Fine Art in Illustration and a Minor in business at Grand Valley State University, I started out specializing in watercolor illustration, animation, and design. I began my career after college with a company I established, Funamals LLC, primarily painting custom pet portraits in watercolor. In 2014, my work was featured on MSN Living and overnight my Etsy shop became so busy, I was painting for 12 hours a day, nearly seven days a week. It was exciting to find success, but I knew I wanted to do more with my work.

After moving to Phoenix, Arizona with my husband Cam, I went on to manage social media content for Laboratory5 Inc. in Tempe, under the direction of Cyndi Coon. I created animation work for projects like Arizona State University’s Emerge and create fun illustrated and animated content to use as social media campaigns and blog posts.

I spent a short time in Los Angeles working at Digital Twigs, an animation studio that I greatly admire. I created the concept art for an animation project for Baozou, establishing the identity for their forthcoming film division. You can view the project at: http://digitaltwigs.com/project/7840/baozou-identity.

I also had a great experience working for Scottsdale Public Art on projects like Canal Convergence, where I worked with artists from all over the world, managed 56 volunteers and helped produce an event for 56,000 attendees. I worked with an amazing, talented team, reporting directly to Andrea Teutli, a creative who now freelances in Mexico City and someone who I learned a lot from. Some of my favorite tasks were managing performing artists like Rioult, an excellent dance group from New York City and working alongside talented artists like Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena, a team of artists from Mexico whose work has a strong focus on community, just to name a few.

Cam and I are due to have our first baby in February 2019. It has been fun preparing for parenthood, a new component that we get to add to our creative life. We have already created an animated pregnancy announcement and artwork for the nursery! We have a wonderful community of support around us, and I am confident that our creative endeavors will only become more exciting as our world evolves into family life.

Please tell us about your art.
My work has a uniquely handmade, eclectic, whimsical feel to it. I’m known for my watercolor painting and bright colors. I like to cut my paintings out and collage them with other materials, either flat or three dimensional. I build tiny sets in my studio, adding found objects, scrap fabrics and other scraps of paper to my watercolor paintings. Then, I stage photo shoots, where most of the time, I like to use natural light, outdoors. The final product to my still work is usually a photograph which is finessed in Photoshop. My work also gets animated. It is important to me that the animation has a traditional feel to it. Sometimes, the animation is shot in camera in stop motion, while other times, it is composed in Photoshop and completed in Premiere.

Today, I create content for Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church in Scottsdale, Arizona as the Communications Manager. I work full time, in-house, managing the website, social media, marketing and publications. Through my design work, photography and video, I tell the story of a joyful and thriving community filled with love and the boundless Presence of God. I think that community is extremely important, the core of which should be based on healthy relationships. I’m very passionate about my work and I LOVE the people I work with! I even get to create in my studio when I’m not in the office. It is truly amazing to be a part of an organization that supports my artwork and values it as an important component of the fabric of their identity and tool for communication. Saint Barnabas has over 100 different ministries, so I work in collaboration with a lot of different sub-organizations. It is like always having a lot of clients at my fingertips, and an endless variety of projects to work on.

I also freelance through DeCaussin Studios, a company I own with my husband Cam DeCaussin. Together, we have a shared art studio in our house. I recently completed animation to promote a table read in New York City for a new play, “Bit Obscura” by Mary Butler and directed by Austin Pendleton. It tells the story of Ethel Merman and her daughter, Bit. It was delightful to work with a creative like Mary and combine my love for performing art with my animation work. Cam is an accomplished oil painter specializing in suburban landscape realism and is currently represented by the Royse Contemporary Gallery in Scottsdale. He is also an art professor at Arizona State University and Estrella Mountain Community College.

Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
As my career has progressed, I have found more and more ways in which creatives can work and be relevant to our society. Art provides multiple forms of communication in which we can come to understand one another and the world around us. There are so many issues in the world today, but we cannot affect change if we cannot unite together. This is why I am so passionate about the work I do at Saint Barnabas and for the Episcopal Church. If we can learn to have compassion for one another, understand our differences, and find ways to make connections, we can work together. This makes us much stronger and more able to take on larger issues. So, essentially our job is to inspire people to love one another and empower them to confidently play an active role in their communities. We’re providing the tools to make a change.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
You can see my work at my website http://amydecaussin.com, although my Instagram is always the most up to date! @amydecaussin

You can also find it at http://www.saintbarnabas.org and on their social media as well: Instagram: @saintbarnabas and Saint Barnabas on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saintbarnabaspage

I find myself booked pretty heavily these days. As a result, I am very selective about what contracts I will take on and plan them months in advance. I am interested in animation and still work in the style I have been developing.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.amydecaussin.com
• Email: amydecaussin@gmail.com
• Instagram: @amydecaussin
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/amydecaussinillustration
• Other: http://www.saintbarnabas.org

Image Credit:
Maternity Photo by Kay Hofacker

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.