The Shell

Android Amy

Interview by C. VanWinkle
April 3, 2024

What was the prompt you responded to? Can you describe it for me?

I was given a photo of a sculpture that was basically an egg with this figure inside. There was a second photo too, showing the figure outside of the shell, and I think seeing both of those was actually what gave me the idea of what I eventually did.

What was your initial reaction to it?

At first, I kind of chuckled a little bit at the thought of what came first, the egg or the chicken. I played with that idea for a minute, but then seeing the shell with the figure outside of it is when the idea came to me. You have this woman and the shell, and I could bring them together, the woman becoming the shell. She could represent social media and that feeling of emptiness; you see the outer shell, but you don’t really see the inside. It’s not something that I necessarily struggle with in the world that we’re in, with the art that’s being created in the community – or maybe a lack of community – but that’s where my mind went. You only see what you’re shown. But artists, myself for example, want to be seen and understood, but sometimes that can feel so empty. There aren’t those connections being made. I feel like social media puts up a screen, in a way. Maybe pre-covid it was a little more community-based, and it seems weird but maybe now it’s the opposite. Because of covid, we’ve gotten so used to the internet and the social media world that just everything is posted, everything is thrown out there, and it’s not as genuine as it used to be.

Wow, that's a lot to chew on! You saw this sculpture of this chicken and egg, and your mind went there? That’s awesome. How did you actually get started? What was your process in making an image?

One thing that I personally love about the creative process is doing it all by myself, basically from beginning to end. I have a little mini studio. It's a bedroom in our house that I kicked my little daughter out of, and now she's with her big sister so I can have an office! [both laugh]

I shot some photos, and then most everything was done in post-production with Photoshop. I have played with Photoshop since probably junior high or high school. I took a summer class on it and fell in love with it. This was back in the day when Photoshop was on a disc and you had to have a code to use it, and my teacher at the time actually gave it to me. I don’t know if he was just being nice or if he thought I had skills, and I don't think he was supposed to do that, but I had a free a copy of Photoshop! So from then, I just fell in love with it and played with it and taught myself how to use it. Sometimes my images are multiple pictures that I'll combine, but this one was just the one photo, and then everything else I drew in or created in post.

A lot of times, music inspires my art. I'll listen to songs while I'm shooting, while I'm creating, sometimes just to get an idea. Obviously, the idea I got this time was from the sculpture, but I definitely had music in my ears while I was creating it.

How does this piece relate to the rest of your work?

Oh good question. If you were to scroll through my Instagram, I feel like you would probably see a lot of a similar type of photos. Sometimes heads missing, sometimes limbs missing, sometimes faces missing. I think there is a little bit that ties it together. Not always being fully exposed, just a partial representation of who I am, or maybe the emotion that's being communicated for the photo.

You do a lot of self-portraiture, right?

Yeah, that's pretty much all I do because I’m the only person who's willing to pose for it! And I'm at home a lot. I actually homeschool my four kids, so my time for creating is usually Friday nights. I call it my Photoshop Fridays because that's my one time that I get to myself, to sit and work and play. I actually started off as more of a digital collage artist, taking a bunch of images from places like Unsplash, all these free photo sources. I’d mash it all together and make something out of it. But then I got frustrated because I’d want someone to pose in a specific way, but I couldn't find that pose anywhere. So I thought, “Why don't I just do it?” That's how the whole process came together, where I basically do it all from camera to creation. It’s not because I'm into myself in that way, but it was just the easiest way. And I can't tell myself no. I’m not gonna argue with myself. I'll just do it, instead of waiting around for a model or someone to help me out.

Yeah, you can probably get what you’re looking for much more easily that way.

Usually. Sometimes I wish I had extra hands.

I can imagine! So is Android Amy your artist pseudonym?

Yeah. I had been doing photography for years, wedding photos and family portraits and things like that. My Instagram handle at first was something like Amy O’Neil Photography. It was such a mouthful. Then I started creating more surreal artwork, and a friend of mine and I collaborated on a kind of robotic picture. I took the picture of myself and he did a lot of the post-production stuff, and that created the robot idea. Then I was thinking of changing my handle, and I like to play with letters, so Android Amy is how it came out. I feel like it applied more at the time than it does now, but it’s a much more fun name to go by than Amy O’Neil Photography.

It's definitely more memorable. I’d wondered if you might actually be an android and I was going to ask you about your relationship with technology.

It's funny because, outside of the Photoshop world, I hate technology and I'm the worst at it. I'm always calling my husband asking for help with this or that. Did you watch The IT Crowd? He's always saying, “Did you try turning it off and on again?” I feel like he's always saying that to me. Outside of Photoshop, I'm not a techie, but I absolutely adore just sitting and creating with the mouse. Sometimes I use a stylus, but it's usually the mouse. There’s just something about getting lost in this world, my music on, taking photos, picking out the shots, compiling it all together. Sometimes I feel like I have a great idea and it turns out great. Other times a great idea doesn't turn out great. Or it might even be a mediocre idea that kind of morphs as I'm working. So these ideas are not necessarily all written down ahead of time.

Your process is rather high-tech because the images are so digitally enhanced. And the end products are very seamless, very polished. But you do it all by yourself and it’s a lot of work. Do you have feelings about AI art? People are making some very slick, polished images out there without putting in any of that work. What do you think?

I don’t use AI, but there have been times when I've used Photoshop’s generative fill to play around and see what I can do. Again, I'm not great at technology, so when I put in the prompts it's comical what comes out. I don't even know how to use it. I can't say I'm entirely for it or against it.

I think there’s room for it and I think it can be helpful and beneficial. For example, if I'm taking a picture in which my head is floating, I’ll have dangling hair to cut out. A lot of times, I would have to draw and finish off those little steps, a strand of hair or something. I still like to do that at times, but there have been times when I've just circled that little area and clicked the generative fill. I saw what came up and it looked okay. I’ve incorporated that a little bit, so I think for enhancements and adding a thing here and there, that's fine. But as far as using that to create an entire image from nothing, for me personally it doesn't speak to me. My art is coming out of my heart and emotions, and I like to show that whether it’s through the photo that's taken or the creation that I've made in Photoshop. It takes that step out, and that's what's important to me.

But is AI bad? I'm not going to say yes or no to that necessarily. I think it has its place. But I wouldn’t say that’s something I’ll be using much in the future.

I think anyone can look at your work and very quickly see that you’re processing some real emotions with your art. And that's not that high-tech at all. It's actually sort of primal to express your feelings, isn’t it?

True, true.

Now what would your advice be for someone new to Bait/Switch, just getting their prompt today?

I would say that regardless of what your prompt is, anything can speak to you. When I first saw the sculpture, I thought, “Oh, sculpture is not my wheelhouse.” Songs and poems and things like that might not necessarily be where you get your inspiration from, but I think you can if you look at it and just go with your gut feelings. You can pull inspiration out of anything. Almost everything that I've done is created from an emotion that I’ve had or an emotion that came out of listening to a song. You can listen to a song a hundred times, but you're going through one thing now and you're going to hear it differently the next time. So even if your prompt is something that doesn't immediately speak to you, close it and come back to it later. That’s what I would do.

Call Number: Y124VA | Y126VA.anShe

Amy O'Neil is a self-taught artist based in Casa Grande, Arizona. Going by the name Android.Amy, she combines her love of music, surrealism, and her deep emotions to create personal and emotive self-portraits. Her passion for the entire process, from setting up the scene, shooting the portraits, and post processing in Photoshop, is what drives her to create.