Artist Statement
In kindergarten, Amber made her first ceramic piece. The teacher gave students a circle of clay and had them press their hand into it. The teacher showed them how to crimp the edges to make an ashtray, because in 1963 all children needed ashtrays. From the moment she saw that a malleable piece of clay could be turned into a rock-hard waterproof item, she was hooked on the magic of clay. During summer school every year Amber was taking ceramics classes that were offered for "enrichment" at a local high school since her elementary school did not have ceramic facilities. Much later in her life (second grade) when she won the school poster contest, she knew she was destined to be an artist when she grew up.
In college when she took her first art history class, she realized that she was most affected by the art that spoke to the social conscience of societies. She sees this as her calling/responsibility, so much of her work deals with things that happen in our society that become a historical record of our culture.
Amber received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Southern California, and then continued her education with a Master’s Degree in art education at San Francisco State University. At that time, she also received her California teaching credential and began to teach ceramics in the public-school system.
In 1994 she went to Utah to take a “survival skills” course and broke her leg in an inaccessible canyon. It was 14 hours before a helicopter could rescue her and many surgical attempts over many years to fix her leg. It was finally amputated in 2019. The years of pain, surgeries and depression from this experience have influenced her work as she relates to the “human condition” that all people experience.
When Amber moved to Hawaii in 2001, she left teaching so she could focus on her own art with the goal of being the professional artist that she had envisioned since second grade.
Ambers work is also heavily influenced by her upbringing as the child of survivors of the Holocaust. Her mother survived Auschwitz and the “Death March”, and her father survived a forced labor camp. Ambers mothers' mission in her later life was to speak about her experiences in local high schools and try to teach students to be accepting of all marginalized people. Her motto was to never let this happen again. As Amber grew up with an acute awareness of social injustice and discrimination, she learned from her mother's example that part of her life's mission was to fight against social injustice and discrimination. which infuences her work to this day.
Although much of her work is serious in nature, she has a keen sense of humor and uses humor as an entryway to to get her message across. By finding humor in bad situations, she has managed to visually capture people and have them delve deeper into the meaning of her work.
50 years after making that fateful ashtray Amber is represented by top galleries in the field of ceramics and her work is exhibited and collected internationally.