Amy Gates grew up in rural Connecticut surrounded by a family of artists. Making art has always been a very natural and constant part of her life.
In her teenage years she got into making drawings, woodblock prints and also writing. She continued on to college at the Rhode Island School of Design where she received her BFA in painting.

After college, she and one of her sisters started hand painting fabric with dyes and producing clothing, large tents and wall hangings.  This is when her love of working with patterns and textiles really blossomed.

In the past 10 years she has been carving large woodblocks with patterns inspired by a combination of natural and geometric elements. Leaves, flowers, and repeated geometric shapes. These have been printed directly onto paper as individual prints and also made into fabrics in collaboration with Red Canary, a digital textile printer, and into wool rugs in collaboration with the artist Paige Cox.

More recently, she has begun building large clay pots. The pots are made from flat coils and glazed with patterns of flowers and abstract designs.  The obvious imperfect marks in the hand built clay are a direct connection to the earth and the maker’s hand.  The patterns flow on the surface of the mostly round shaped vessels like decorative sheaths.

Among her influences she includes early folk art and quilt design, Japanese woodblock prints, her study of painting and art history, and ancient ceramic tiles and pottery.