From Slopes to Squares: Hooey Wilks Captures Big Feels in AMAC Boxes

A lifelong multidisciplinary artist, Hooey Wilks now centers her work around photography and mixed media, with a particular focus on her Skier Series. She explores the winter landscape intimately, responding to her surroundings and translating her emotions into each frame. With a sharp eye for framing and perspective, she brings both her vision and her vintage skiers to life, finding meaning in the tiniest details.

Before they were carving tight turns down crisp morning corduroy or launching midair flips, the tiny toy skiers of hooeymountain.com lived quiet little lives on a tabletop. The collection, now nearly 150 strong, began over 20 years ago as a series of Christmas gifts: antique lead figurines from the 1930s and ’40s, lovingly picked up from local antique shops and given to her husband.

One snowy day, after shoveling the driveway, she brought a few of the toy skiers and her camera outside for a bit of winter fun. A rock wall became a makeshift studio, but, she quickly realized they needed a larger stage, so she packed them in her suitcase for a ski trip out West. Since then, the skiers have found themselves on grander terrain: pristine powder, crisp morning corduroy, and in the occasional miniature avalanche. And Hooey? She has found a way to turn her love of skiing and the natural world into an ongoing source of inspiration, channeling feelings, humor, and serious artistry into her ever-growing cast of tiny skiers and her work.

This sense of play continued to guide Hooey’s work until the world, quite literally, shut down. Like many, she found herself feeling boxed in during the pandemic. Stuck indoors, unable to shoot, she began to reimagine her skiers’ world. That’s when she rediscovered AMAC Boxes: familiar, functional, and unexpectedly poetic. They offered a new kind of frame, one that echoed the solitude of the moment while creating space for connection, wonder, and discovery.

I’m inspired by beauty, by nature, by the mountains, and by the idea of bringing joy to people through my work. That might not sound like the most serious artistic motivation, but in my case, it’s a huge driver. There’s something really powerful about squares. I think it has to do with the sense of balance, the equalness of it all. I’m drawn to symmetry, and I like things to feel organized. For a long time, my work was either vertical or horizontal, but once I started working within a square format, something clicked. It helped a different expression come to life.

Well, it took about 700 shots to get that one. I literally tossed that tiny skier into the air to capture the moment. I won’t go into too much detail, though, I like to leave viewers with a sense of wonder.

Yes, it does. Most of my work sells at galleries, but occasionally I'll do a local art festival or show. It’s always fun to watch people interact with my work. They’ll look at it, and something draws them in, but then they get confused. They move a little closer, and suddenly there’s that aha moment. That’s what I love about art. There’s something happening in the piece that invites a second look, and I enjoy creating that sense of discovery in various ways through my photography.