and we’re live! (AKA 😬 and 🔥 and 🤞)
Working on a painting at the studio table.
Welcome! and process
Thanks for visiting my website - I hope you find something to spark some delight for you.
You can read a bit about my story on the Bio page.
a peek into my process of “series”
I primarily studied sculpture in college, and also did printmaking, graphic design, ceramics, painting, drawing, and took a class called “Mathematics” to fulfill my one science elective. 😂
Now that I am a person with a home studio, I’m less able to have big materials and all the resources to do all those things. I initially started out trying to learn watercolor since I’ve never used it. And then I quickly transitioned to a less-fussy gouache. So bold, so bright, so forgiving. It’s awesome. With water media (and lots of other media), there’s a wait time for things to dry. As part of figuring out how I like to use water media, I discovered I really liked working in “series”.
Series look like this to me
I’ll set aside usually 3-5 hours.
I’ll take a bunch of new paper of whatever size hits me right
I’ll pick out some colors that strike whatever chord is playing, and lay down a base or shapes, colors, relationships - and do that on all the papers. This creates a relationship between all the pieces. They share similar movement, similar color, similar idea of what I’m making (which is usually an idea like - aging, clothes fitting too tight, consciousness, beauty, imperfection, relationships, awkwardness, temporary-ness of things).
And then they lay around until I come do a second layer on all of them.
And a third…….
And a twentieth…...
And then I just have a feeling when they are done. Then they are like a little family.
I really enjoy this process. And it feels like in general I wait less - I always have something to work on, this series or that series.
As a sculptor, I tend to conceptualize everything as objects. My corporate career is in technology and even that translates to objects - technology and building ecommerce is essentially plumbing. hooking the right thing up to this other thing, where it changes from blue to green, and goes back out to this other place. When I think about anything in life - feelings, relationships, how things are, I conceptualize everything as entities. That relate to other entities. There is energy in the interaction between things - and I like to try to visualize that.
Some might call most of my work “blobs”. (some loved ones have tentatively said “more blobs, huh?”) :) To which I say YES! They bring me so much joy!! To me, they are entities that self-refer, and also relate to their family of others. It’s like how I think the universe plays together.
Looking forward to connecting with you next time!
🙏💕🔥✨
-Emily
"I didn't see the Owl" gouache, 2024
