Amy’s Artistic History

Six Wings by Skrocki Design comprises two distinct artists, Amy and Tanner Skrocki, who blend influences from fairy tales and mythology with their heritage, travels to historic sites, and the beauty of Canada, along with contemporary influences. They hope their items inspire creativity in everyday life and hobbies. Their work is based on their own artistic identities and passions, including fashion, music, writing, drawing, photography, home decor, and cooking. They predominantly work with artisan leather, metal, paper, and gemstones.

Her work spans multiple mediums including painting, wearable art, writing, film, and photography, often blending them together through storytelling. Her work focuses on the emotional and inner lives of animals and nature, often exploring themes of consciousness, healing, and connection. Much of her work is shaped by her experience with chronic pain, using creativity as a way to stay present and continue creating. These same themes carry into her writing, where she explores story as a way to understand emotion, healing, and connection.

“Skrocki Design – a design house featuring wearable art inspired by artifacts, fantasy and passion… [gives] us a glimpse into the fine art of hard work and the hard work of fine art.” – T8N Magazine

Six Wings by Skrocki Design has participated in hundreds of craft and art shows. It began with a simple origin: Amy creating items to help recover from a spinal injury, improve her dexterity, and manage severe anxiety, while also working toward creating the pieces she imagined.

She also wanted to explore the stories she wrote as a child, shaped by her identity as the daughter of an Indigenous mother and a Polish father, as well as stories that came from years of coping with chronic pain and the loss of an important part of her life after her accident.

With no prior knowledge of metalwork, leather, pattern making, or filmmaking, and only some experience in drawing, painting, and photography, Amy didn’t know where to begin. She started by doing craft shows, hoping to earn enough to invest in tools and learning. Her first show was in 2008, and she continued doing shows as she created enough work to fill a booth. During this time, she developed skills in glass casting, bead making, wire wrapping, and experimented with a wide range of materials.

As she is almost entirely self-taught, her learning process has spanned over a decade across many mediums. As she learned, she sold her work to fund new materials and bring her ideas to life.

It wasn’t until 2012 that she began taking shows and her work more seriously, teaching herself the techniques and processes that would lead to where she and Tanner are today.

Up until 2014, Tanner was working full time while completing his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In his spare time, he worked alongside Amy, learning techniques, helping at shows, and supporting the presentation and sale of her work. They quickly recognized his strength in customer interaction and display, and his ability to present Amy’s work in a thoughtful and engaging way.

In 2014, after the birth of their daughter, Seraphim, Amy took a year-long break from larger shows to focus on creating the work she had always wanted to make. During this time, Tanner began seriously developing his skills in metalwork and leather, eventually becoming highly skilled in metal etching and advanced leather techniques.

By 2015, Amy’s artistic style had become more defined. She began presenting her wearable art on models at events, continuing again in 2016 while also learning photography and developing stories to accompany each piece. During this time, Tanner left his full-time job to focus on shows, sometimes attending up to three events per week.

In 2016, Amy held her first solo gallery show at the Alberta Craft Council titled Stories Brought to Life, featuring large-scale wearable art and the stories behind each piece. Since then, she has participated in numerous gallery shows and received multiple awards for her work.

From 2017 to 2019, Amy focused on refining her drawing and illustration skills, creating patterns, and pushing the limits of her work. She also developed her photography and began exploring storytelling through video and film. This led to her first YouTube videos, with Tanner often hosting, focused on helping others start craft businesses and sharing tutorials. These videos have now reached nearly 800,000 views.

During this time, she also adapted one of her short stories into a film for a contest, which she won. The film was written, shot, and edited by Amy, with Tanner acting and creating the music. Around this time, her chronic pain began worsening, and she realized there was a deeper issue.

In 2020, at the start of the pandemic, Amy took another year-long break to focus on homeschooling her daughter, writing, and exploring creative activities together.

In 2021, she decided to move forward with her passion for storytelling and applied to the TELUS STORYHIVE open call for beginner filmmakers. Her pitch was selected, and with Tanner’s support, she wrote, directed, filmed, edited, and documented the creation of one of her wearable art pieces.

This project led to another, where she created a dramatized short film based on a wearable art piece. She received funding from the Edmonton Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts to produce the film, which is expected to be released in the future.

After completing her first STORYHIVE project, she applied again and was selected for STORYHIVE VOICES 1.0. This time, she created an episodic series focused on artists with invisible disabilities, sharing their stories and exploring accessibility in the arts. In total, she has interviewed around 40 artists and arts supports, including some whose stories were never published due to privacy, but still deeply shaped the work.

During the filming of this series, Amy was diagnosed with a rare brainstem condition that causes significant nerve pain and affects her eyes, ears, and face. This led to Tanner taking on more of the physical production work, while Amy focused on design, storytelling, and film.

Following the completion of the project, she was awarded a second season, currently in production and scheduled for release in summer 2023.

In 2022, the first season of her series, Crafting a Professional Career in the Arts: Against the Odds, was released on TELUS OPTIK TV on November 23.

In 2024, her third season of Crafting a Professional Career in the Arts was filmed and released, continuing to share the stories of artists and the realities of building a creative life.

Amy’s current body of work explores the quieter, magical side of nature, capturing small, meaningful moments with animals and plants. These images are incorporated into their leather and metal work, as well as into journals and activity books for both adults and children. From 2023 to 2025, she spent much of her time focused on painting, selling her work, and connecting directly with the people who were drawn to it. She has sold tens of thousands of pieces and has connected with hundreds of thousands of people through her work at shows and events.

In 2019, she created online courses for artists, and one of those was later developed into a self-published book. She is currently working on multiple writing projects, including a guided life story journal and a literary fiction series.

Her work is held in private collections and has been collected by celebrities, politicians, MLAs, foreign dignitaries, and collectors.

In 2025, she held her first solo gallery show focused entirely on watercolour painting at the Allied Arts Centre. For this work, she studied local birds, observing and photographing them to capture their personalities.

Later in 2025, she was juried into the Federation of Canadian Artists.

She continues to explore new ways of telling stories through art, writing, and film.

Amy’s Husband Tanner Wilson-Skrocki

Co-producer, master craftsman, customer service expert, writer, artistic collaborator, musician, the booth expert, host for our YouTube and other videos, behind the scenes coordinator and lead hand for our series.

Webpage coming soon.