Amanda Witucki

Amanda Witucki is an artist working under the moniker The Paper Committee (much easier to pronounce). She has been making art full-time for the past five years out of her studio in Austin, Texas.

She saves everything, every scrap from every chopped piece of paper, and continually develops new concepts to use these remnants. In many of her pieces, she incorporates increasingly smaller snips of paper, all of them leftovers from previous projects. For this show, she is expanding further into sustainable materials by working with cardboard trash and plastic waste. While she will always love and use paper, single-use soft plastics will likely play a growing role in her future work.

I think color is an untapped language that runs through us all, and I'm inspired to tell stories through color. My installation work is my favorite to create, as I find it can be more transformative than canvas work. I love the whimsy and wonder of immersive art.

For a long time, I've said I wanted to create public art. But paper does not stand up to the elements of outdoor art, so I've put that goal on the backburner for the past five years. My whole purpose of experimenting with plastics is to get me to a place where I can create outdoor art, but I wasn't sure how to translate my style to that medium. Realizing the connection of my desire for sustainability was the "ah ha!" moment that helped me bridge the gap into what MY plastic art would look like. I have a lot of adjusting and developing to do, but I can't wait to see what this looks like in 5 years.

1) Always be quick to respond/professional/thorough in your emails/communication with galleries and other businesses who are interested in your art. From the conversations I've had with people, there are so many artists who don't follow these guidelines, and it makes them difficult to work with. Be easy to work with.

2) Know from the beginning that making art is only half of how you spend your time. The other half is all business. Marketing, reaching out to find opportunities, researching calls for art to get new eyes on your work throughout the country, coming up with 1,5, and 10-year goals, and holding yourself accountable to these goals. Additionally, taxes, display concepts for markets, and social media marketing strategies are all things you'll need to think about.

Personally, I love the business side, but I know I got lucky with that. There are lots of resources out there like webinars for how to do your taxes or if you need to get business insurance, so utilize your library and other resources we have in this community. Also know that you don't have to do everything perfect from the get. Just tackle it one thing at a time. I used to be so overwhelmed with taxes, and a fellow artist (who is also an accountant) told me to just try and do one new thing each year to get yourself on track.