About Amy

The recrafting work of Amy Alley is the story of a love regained. Born on April 3rd, 1961 in Danville, IN, a mall suburb of Indianapolis, to which her parents had moved from a small corn-farming town called Lafayette, IN, where her grandfather sold tractor tires.

Beginning in kindergarten, Amy excelled at art in school and had an aptitude for cutting and organizing geometric shapes and colors, and spent a good deal of time in batiking. By high school her art was regularly displayed at the Danville Greensboro Coliseum. She was offered an art scholarship at Delmar College, but, possibly due to her struggles with dyslexia, was daunted by the academic challenges and opted to attend Vogue Beauty College and became a licensed manicurist.

This was an easy path for Amy because she had grown up in the beauty shop world. Her mother had been a hair dresser and manicurist and her parents owned and ran a beauty shop called La Marché’s  until 1970 when they moved to Corpus Christi, where they helped open the city’s first nail salon, at which Amy found lucrative employment right out of college.

She fell in love with a Mexican surfer and helped him open a surf-board shop, and they gave birth to a son, Elliot in 1983 and Amy’s artistic creativity fell into the shadows to be forgotten for nearly twenty years, which included a divorce, remarriage to her life-partner David, relocation to Pensacola, FL and the opening of her own nail salon, Amy’s Alley in 2004.

One day in Pensacola Florida David challenged Amy to pick up the paint brush again and “it just kinda opened pandora’s box again”. She began one day just using house paint to create a mural on their refrigerator, and soon began assembling an acrylic palate. Her role as grandmother to Elliot’s two daughters has shaped her work, as many of her designs have been inspired by their needs and fondness’.

Amy is grateful that her work is being well received and looks forward to further  commissions, requests, questions and other interest. Please contact Amy Alley here.