Amadea Bailey

About me:

Hello. My name is Amadea Bailey and I am an artist and the creator of www.amadeabailey.com Welcome and thanks so much for stopping by. I'd love to tell you a little about myself. I had a very colorful and unique childhood.I was born in the University town of Gottingen, Germany where my father was getting his PhD in theology. At the age of 5 we moved to Kenya where I lived for a number of years in a small village, called Limuru, 22 miles outside of Nairobi. This was an extraordinary time. I grew up riding horses in the bush, eating sugarcane by the side of the road, and playing dress-up with banana leaves. I experienced a sense of freedom and abandon and an immediate connection to the natural world, the earth, the sky, the elements. This chapter of my life formed me and has had a huge impact on my work and on my creative process I began painting in 1977 at Yale University after seeing a retrospective of Monet's late water lily paintings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I was absolutely blown away by the scale and grandeur of these works and was immediately inspired to pick up a brush. Thus began my own journey of discovery and play, creating worlds of color, texture, light and space...recreating memories and telling stories with paint and images and symbols and words.. Over the years this path has led me in many directions., London, Paris, New York and now Los Angeles, where I have been for 19 fabulous and fruitful years. I live in a beautiful Spanish style home in Venice five minutes from the beach and I paint in a dream studio that I had built from the ground up right outside my back door. I have a wonderful life style... surfing, dancing, and painting. Painting for me is a passion and a need. A necessity. A way to find order and make meaning out of the crazily chaotic and wild world that I am living in. Painting is also a place where I get to express my sensual, kinaesthetic, and physical nature.My purpose and mission is to paint strong, powerful, vibrant and authentic paintings that enhance the lives of my audience and collectors by bringing beauty, depth, emotion, light and visual poetry into their lives. I’d like to share one of my favorite quotes with you.. It is by Martha Graham “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening That is translated through you into action. And because there is only one you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium…. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, Nor how valuable, Nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, To keep the channel open.,” I want to encourage all you creatives out there…. To never ever give up on your dream. I started painting about 28 years ago…. And it has been a long and windy road to get to the place that I am today…. A fully self supporting artist. It has not always been easy. There were months and days when I wanted to give up. When discouragement almost got the better of me. But I never gave up. And truly the rewards have been beyond measure. I get to wake up in the morning and do exactly what I want. I get to walk out behind my house and take a few steps into the dream studio that I had built 10 years ago. It is a glorious space… flooded with light. A place where I get to explore and discover and make mistakes and messes and clean them up and start over and mold and create and live OUT MY PASSION. It you would like to see my paintings then please go to my website www.amadeabailey.com Be sure to read about what my collectors have to say about owning and living with one of my Paintings. I love the ocean. The ocean inspires me, calmes me, activates me , feeds and heals me, I am a water baby. When I was a teen ager I learned to sail….. I raced lightnings. in Maine and on Cape code. In my thirties I became a passionate windsurfer… going to Maui and the Gorge in Hood River Oregon as often as I could. And now my great passion is surfing. I began surfing five years ago in Southern California…. At Sunset Beach. I now surf up and down the coast where ever there are waves. For me surfing is a beautiful marriage of zen meditation and the warrior spirit and the most wonderful way to commune with the big mother…. Five minutes from my house!!! I also love to dance. I have been practicing contact improvisation for many years … going regularly to festivals and workshops across the country. More recently I have been dancing with a large group that practices Gabriel Roth’s Five rhythms. I also flirt with the idea of starting Argentine Tango. My other interests include yoga, meditation, chanting, wine-tasting, flea markets, travel, Paris, , French and Italian culture and language, architecture and design, Building and construction, fashion, and photography. I love fashion. Maybe in another life I will be a fashion designer. Or maybe even in this one. I love putting outfits together… combining colors and textures and fabrics….I am not afraid of wearing strong colors and bold designs. I have a fantasy of designing a line of one of a kind couturier coats. We’ll see if I can make that happen.!!!! . .