Amy Johnson

My name is Amy Johnson, and I am a Rochester-based artist who draws inspiration from both color and texture in my work. My whole life, I have dabbled with art in a variety of different forms, with a shift towards vitreous enamel in 2016 when I took a class in Bloomington, MN.  At that point, I was making jewelry with a variety of different metals and wanted to explore more techniques to breathe some life into my jewelry.

Walking into that class, I didn’t know anything about enamel, or even that I’d be working with glass. One session was all it took to get me hooked. The vivid color palette and the magical process of using powdered glass on metal, heated with a torch or kiln, creating a jewel-like surface, was incredible. The instructor was Jean Van Brederode of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, a well-known master enamellist.

To this day, I continue to take classes and learn from various masters in this art form. I work almost daily in my studio to practice and master different techniques. The art of enameling, with its mix of successes and failures, demands countless hours to understand how variables affect colors and compositions. It’s a challenging journey, both inspiring and addicting. Some of the best enamellists in the country have told me that I’ll never learn everything about enamel in my lifetime—and that never-ending journey continues to feed my passion. I am always learning, trying new things, and pushing the limits.