Every piece I make is a memoir. I’m deeply inspired by my own personal history — the people who have come before me, the people and places that birthed them and made them who they are, and how pieces of those collected experiences shaped me and will eventually shape my children. More than any physical place, it is these people and the memories I’ve had with them that shape my sense of “home”. It is the ideas, the likes and dislikes, the ways of being that we share (or very decidedly do not share) that make up the roots that tack me down to Earth.

Although I have been trying to create meaning and connection through making things for most of my life, I didn’t begin learning to paint until 2012. I’m “self-taught” in that my main teachers were artists sharing their methods on the internet and art books. In 2013, I graduated from Auburn University with a degree in English that has been essential to my progress as an artist. And ever since then, I have kept practicing.

Other things that inspire me: the color Payne’s Grey (think summer storm clouds), reading (duh), sharing feelings with a close friend, the climbing roses growing by my front door, lit candles, making muffins for my kids on Saturday mornings, listening to U2, a clean kitchen, antique stores, watching strangers be kind to each other…these things seem to lift my heart to that particular place where painting happens more easily. 

I’m really glad you have found your way here! Thanks for being interested in my work.

Emily