Interview with Katie Bonadies, February 2024
Amy Wilton is a mixed media artist and professional portrait photographer. She has been a member of RWS since October 2023.
Wilton is a visual storyteller in both of her mediums. Her sculptural work is an assemblage of found objects, paints, photographs, wax, fake money, rulers, and tiny hands. These mixed media sculptures are an outlet, a humorous way for her to express the raw emotions surrounding difficult relationships, “I just have to get it out so it doesn’t eat me up on the inside.” When Wilton finishes a project, she is able to let go of the feeling that inspired it. She couldn’t exist if she couldn’t make art and jokes that making art is cheaper than therapy.
Other times it's the materials that inspire her, like the 21-foot sculptural installation that hung at Cove Street Arts in February of 2022, made entirely of discarded, colorful coffee pods. The cold winter season allows for time to work on her sculptural projects. Currently she’s creating a piece that incorporates vintage linens and her mother’s wicker baby carriage from the 1930s. Spring, summer and fall are typically when Wilton shoots portraits.
Making photographs is a totally different experience than working in mixed media for her; photography feels serene and well educated. Wilton graduated with an MFA in photography from Maine Media in 2001 with a baby on her hip and learned right away how to balance work and family life. Her children, now grown, were her main subjects when they were young. Integrating her professional and family life, the series The Child Within, was born. These are ‘reflective’ portraits of her children, unlike the sterile, coordinated family portraits pushed on social media. They are about noticing. While making these images, Wilton observed her children, photographing them when they were deeply engaged. Sometimes, when a visual cue would catch her eye, she would grab her camera; other times she would sit and wait, making the photograph when the composition fell into place. Occasionally she would tell them to ‘do that again’. As they got older they became co-creators, knowing how to help arrange the photograph she was looking for. This work is now on view in the Picker Room Gallery at the Camden Public Library in Camden, Maine, through the end of February 2024.
Wilton also loves to photograph portraits and life events. She describes her aesthetic as 'fine art photojournalism'. When she photographs weddings, she tells the whole story of the day through a fine art lens; every frame is thoughtfully composed with the intention to be the most compelling image possible. Her ability to artfully capture these moments in 1/125 of a second is the result of many years of experience. Wilton received her first camera as a gift from her mother when she was just seven, "...and that was it." She went on a field trip the same day and remembers photographing a handsome young man with a striped shirt and curly hair. That was the beginning of Wilton's portrait career.
She does portrait sessions for other families too. At this point, she says almost every house she enters in Camden has a portrait taken by her on its walls. A few years ago, The Farnsworth Museum asked her to photograph a series of portraits for their windows called Faces of Rockland. They chose locals, like the owners of the consignment shop across the street, who loved the museum, and combined Wilton’s photos with quotes from the subjects.
Not only does Wilton capture light beautifully in her photography, what makes her portraits so special is her ability to help people feel comfortable in front of the camera. This enables them, whether it's someone she knows or just met, to engage with her in a way that reveals what she calls their 'ageless self'. "I feel like when I take a portrait of a 6-year-old and you can see their 42-year-old self in there, I know I've done my job."
Wilton started making family portraits and headshots as a way to support her family. She’s done work for Rolling Stone, Down East and a host of other publications, but felt jealous of fellow students who went through the MFA program and immediately made a living in the fine art world. Now that she has documented an entire generation of people in Mid-Coast Maine, she realizes that hers was time well spent. She just photographed a wedding of a young woman whose mother she photographed when she was pregnant with her. For another couple, she photographed their wedding, then babies, school portraits, and most recently, senior portraits. “It has made me feel like I played an important role in documenting these peoples’ lives.”
Wilton has also taught art at several independent schools. Children remind her not to think too much about the process, “They just make it....I usually sit next to the three year old and copy what they do. The result is always satisfying because they just make what they feel without judgment”. Wilton loves to spend time with children because, with them, no one needs permission to play. She moved to Maine in 1997 and feels connected here because she is more able to express herself. There’s a freedom to go sledding as a grown up and no one looks twice.
To view more of Wilton’s work or to contact her, go to her website amywiltonphotography.com or email amy@amywiltonphotography.com. Follow Wilton on Instagram @amywiltonphoto and @amywiltonart.
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