I am an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Baldwin for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Wa Na Wari, and more. In my writing I explore spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. As my work grows increasingly cross-medium, I return to the necessity of joy. I have settled into a new mission––to notice joy, mundane and epic, in daily life. This mission frees me to create for the sake of beauty and for what will bring me and those around me joy. As a Black, queer, single mother, this focus on pleasure, delight, beauty is revolutionary, near impermissible, even now. Insisting on finding the joy in the mourning is one of my acts of resistance to the heteronormative, capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist water we are all birthed in.
I had an opportunity to explore video and sound installation with my first solo exhibit in 2019 with support through Jack Straw's Artist Support and New Media Gallery programs. The project, entitled ::intrigue:: 8, is a multimedia installation in which I created a series of 8 short videos featuring my musical compositions inspired by 8 different poets alongside their original texts. As an Artist-in-Residence at Wa Na Wari in 2021, I created dandĒlion, a multimedia collection of work that explores the queering of dandyism as a source of resistance, liberation, and joy. Historically ascribed to men who paid undue attention to their appearance and dress, the dandy has always been a somewhat queer figure. I was inspired by the women in the Sapeuse society of Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo, who adorn themselves in ornate men’s high fashion pieces in direct rebellion to colonial rule and their exclusion from the male dandy societies. Perhaps more importantly, they display their plumage because it brings themselves and their community joy. Isn’t that reason enough? Each piece in this collection is a meditation on what it means to be your own best wish.
As my work continues to grow beyond the boundaries of genre and medium, I aim to bring more of my artistic passions to play for the sake of joy and beauty. Currently, I am wrapping a recording project with Last of the RedHot Mamas, my blues band built around my jazz-inspired, country-sauced songs about queer Black life and issues of self-care, racial injustice, apocalypse survival, ethical non-monogamy, and post-church spirituality. My second book of poetry, titled apocrifa, launches in May from Red Hen Press, and is a non-gendered fictional love story that uses the contrapuntal poetic form to voice a call-and-response between the lover and the beloved. This style is heavily informed by my study as a blues singer and songwriter. It is a work that was made to be a spell to heal heartbreak; ambitious and magical, and I am proud of the beautiful book. My dream — with the support of a micro-grant from Black Cinema Collective — is to make this story into a film, as a series of connected video poems. This film will challenge me to weave together all these aspects of my creative self - written and spoken word, music, video and visual art, movement - into something entirely new. I am most excited to access the resources and support this grant offers, to develop skills that open a whole new field for me to create and play in!
Bio:
Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Baldwin for the Arts, The Watering Hole, Vermont Studio Center, and YEFE NOF. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame’s work has been published in diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Nailed Magazine, Winter Tangerine, The Dialogist, Split This Rock, Black Heart Magazine, Sundress Publications, CityArts Magazine, FreezeRay, Redivider Journal and more. In her writing, Flame explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. A 2016 and 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee, and Jack Straw Writer Program alum, Amber Flame's first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, was published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame was a recipient of the CityArtist grant from Seattle's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs to write, produce and perform her one-person play, Hands Above the Covers, a series of character monologues drawn from diverse real-life interviews. In early 2018, Flame co-curated the art installation Black Imagination at Core Gallery in Seattle. She had her first solo exhibit in 2019 with a project entitled ::intrigue:: 8, a multimedia installation that featured musical compositions inspired by the text of 8 different poets with original video content as well as text from the original poems, through Jack Straw Production's Artist Support and New Media Gallery fellowships. Hugo House's 2017-2019 Writer-in-Residence for Poetry, Flame’s second book of poetry, titled apocrifa, launched May 2023 from Red Hen Press. She’s currently making a film from her newest collection, supported by Black Cinema Collective. In addition to creating change as Program Director of Hedgebrook, she continues to work as a writing instructor in community and for currently and formerly incarcerated women and youth while working on a third poetry collection, making music with her band Last of the RedHot Mamas, making art, and raising her awesome kid. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks.
