Artist Bio:
Amy Blackthorn was born with synesthesia, or an amplification of the senses. To Amy the world is layered with meaning. The color of number six is much different than the nine. Perfumes and aromas have color as well as texture. As you can imagine, it can be overwhelming. When Amy found her drawing style incongruent with the things she wanted to express, Amy bought her first DSLR in 2005. She wanted to capture the images she’d been painting in her mind during years of hospitals, surgeries and re-learning how to feed herself, paint, walk, after a tragic accident.
Amy studied under Kyle Cassidy in several workshops including the joyfully challenging ‘Portrait of the Snake’ workshop, focusing on creating dynamic portraits by directing models working with live animals, and ‘An Afternoon with Jane Austen’ that included sewing, sword fighting, and portraits with swords.
Amy offered her services to small not for profit groups of performing artists to practice her portraits in a dynamic environment with no control over the lighting or movement. In 2017 Amy volunteered to photograph the participants in a vigil for Dec 17th– International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
She took the concepts of portraiture and focused it through her love of plants. In 2018 she bought a new portrait lens for her camera and started visiting botanical gardens all over the world to create the family album she always wanted. Rather than distant landscapes, Amy has spent years crawling through the bushes to take incredibly intimate portraits of plants from someone who knows them as intimately as her closest friends.
During the 2020 global pandemic, Amy took to turning some of her portraits into watercolors. In April of 2026 Amy dislocated her shoulder and tore her labrum and was told her camera was ‘above her weight limit’ for the next six months following surgery. To express the creative urge, Amy dove back into painting, staying with acrylic and watercolors until surgery, and after the doctor signs off. Watercolors especially gave Amy the creative burst she was looking for, while still respecting the medical limitations of a life-long genetic disorder.
Amy’s artwork expresses a deep look into the way we interact with our inner self and how plants can help us release our trauma, fears, and personal stress.
I paint to be understood.
Language is imprecise; which coming from an author is quite funny. I’ve written 8 best-sellers in 9 years.
Complex- Post Traumatic Stress disorder Results from long-term, inescapable trauma. As opposed to PTSD which is considered a ‘single event’ traumatic experience. I’ve had a nightmare every night, since I was three. It makes every new nightmare feel inevitable.
I chose acrylic to get the muted colors I wanted to portray the dark of night, and the nightmares experienced there. Our ladybug is trying to keep herself warm with the very spiderweb keeping her trapped in that (very comfortable) leaf-shaped sofa.
I knew I had to paint this when explaining my experience to a therapist. The most important part was the leaf sofa. The sofa has to appear comfortable and inviting to give the buy-in that you’d want to visit in the first place.
Biography
Amy Blackthorn
Amy Blackthorn is the award-winning author of the best-selling Blackthorn’s Botanicals series. She has been described as a Green Witch for her lifelong work with magical plants and teaching. She incorporates her experiences in British Traditional Witchcraft with her horticulture studies. She has a certification in aromatherapy and is ordained through the Order of the Golden Gryphon. She has appeared on HuffPoLive, Netflix’s Top Ten Secrets and Mysteries in an episode about Supernatural Abilities & the AP Newswire. Amy lives in Delaware.