"Rooted" / Spray Paint, Gouache, Cotton Floss, Flour Sack Fabric, Last Year's Morning Glory String on Feed Sack from Artist's Family Farm / 59" x 54" 
Artist Statement for Rooted
“Rooted” was inspired by a scrapbook I discovered at an antique store. It documents the activities of a rural American 4-H club in the 1940’s. I belonged to 4-H as a child, the same club as my Mom and my Grandpa Ed (Go Hubbleton Hustlers!).
Each winter 4-H kids choose their projects for the year from a catalogue listing all the things you can enter at the County fair. Of course there are the farm animal projects but also all sorts of arts and crafts, small engine repair, gardening and crops, baking, sciences, sewing, music, butterfly collecting and more (my Mom would never let me do the butterfly project). Then, kids meet with adult mentors and kids from other clubs throughout the county working on the same project. My parents wanted us to be excited and fully committed to our projects and so we were limited to 3 per year. I settled into sheep, rabbits, and art.
For a contemporary urban woman, I know a lot about small animal husbandry. I don’t think the art part of 4-H really shaped me much as an artist. What was formative for me was the year long commitment to a specific area of study and a corresponding project with an end goal.
The antique scrapbook was aesthetically and nostalgically compelling to me, certainly. But the reason I choose to make art inspired by the scrapbook came from comparing photos of individuals posing proudly with their ongoing projects and the fall group photo, which is labeled in handwritten ink “100% Completion, 20 members, 28 projects”.
In this body of work, I have used artifacts; found items and uncommon mediums: prints on antique handwritten letters of love and loss, feed sack bags from my family farm, antique atlas pages, and the string from last year’s morning glories among other things. Rooted celebrates 100% completion, hard work paying off, fall festivals, and earnest endeavors.-Amy Rice 2011
"Butterflies for Ella" / Gocco prints on antique handwritten letters of eloquent condolence, antique maps, paint brush bristles. 
Beginning with not-so-traditional print making methods (hand cut stencils and a Japanese Gocco printmaking toy) Minneapolis based mixed-media artist Amy Rice makes original, one-of-kind pieces by additionally employing acrylic, gouache, ink and collage. Her “canvases” range from weathered wood panels and discarded objects to antique envelopes, age-worn love letters, and found journal pages yellowed with time.
Amy’s imagery, nostalgic and wistful, is largely biographical and reflective of her pensive nature. She draws inspiration from childhood memories growing up on a Midwestern farm, the urban community in which she live now, bicycles, street art, gardening, collective endeavors that challenge hierarchy, acts of compassion, downright silliness and things with wings.
Amy has exhibited her work in galleries throughout the United States, Canada and the U.K.