Amarilis Vazquez, Cake Artist
Amarilis learned to love color and drawing at a very young age. When she was a pre-teen, she took a written aptitude exam from an art institute in south Florida and mailed it in. A representative from the school contacted and met with her parents to persuade them to let her go to receive formal training, but she could not go due to her young age, and was not afforded another opportunity until she entered high school. In high school and college she took several art courses, but teaching piano became her career until she discovered another creative outlet- cake making and decorating. She has always loved to cook, so becoming creative with cakes opened up another area where she could combine her love of art and her love of cooking. She took a couple of Wilton Cake Decorating classes, but after one teacher's assistant expressed his disbelief that she had never taken a course in cake decorating, she decided to make better use of her time and began reading books by famous cake decorators, studying the illustrations, and observing videos on the internet. After all, ".....if you can read, you can cook" (Julia Child in her Introduction to the Anniversary Edition to her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, p.xiv). She enjoys the challenge of creating cakes that incorporate the person's vision and each cake is unique to that occasion and that person. Amarilis has a degree in Sociology from FSC and a Master in Music from USF.
