Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Donovan.
Hi Emily, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
My interest in art and wanting to become an artist began early on. I loved to draw and my father who was a machinist/inventor partnered with an artist friend and created the “Wepplo Press,” a series of etching and lithography printing presses. My youth was spent traveling to artist studios and college art departments across the nation. It gave me a lot of insight into what an artist’s life can be. I went on to study both Studio Art and Art History at the University of Minnesota with an emphasis on painting and printmaking. While working on my art, I worked with antiques and fell in love with architectural salvage.
I spent many years in old houses and buildings, learning about and saving one-of-a-kind objects. Making art now is a full-time endeavor for me and my practice combines my interests in history and research, plants and gardening, and the outdoors and our environment. The colors I use are made from natural pigments and dyes. I show work regularly at galleries, art centers, and festivals and work on several major commercial commissions per year. You can also find reproductions of my work as large-scale wallpaper with Area Environments, a local company that hand-selects and curates a collection of artists internationally.
I am fortunate to be a grant recipient of three Minnesota State Art Boards grants and have completed several art residencies in Cusco, Peru, Amsterdam, and Salzburg, Austria. Each of these experiences adds to my natural color palette!
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Life is never a smooth road, but that’s what keeps it interesting! Challenges have always been finding the balance between raising a family, having a “day job,” and wanting to work in your studio all of the time. I feel very fortunate that I am able to work on my art full-time now.
The loss of my father ten years ago was a hard one for me. He served as an inspiration in many ways and was one who always persevered and worked hard to continue to learn and invent into his 70s before he died from cancer. He also is a reminder of finding balance as his devotion to his craft kept him away from home and family. Sometimes it’s good and okay to put the paintbrushes away!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The work I create is made with natural pigments on paper. To me, it’s kind of a hybrid of painting and printmaking as I use stencils and wax as a resist and the colors celebrate the great outdoors. My colors are made from historical recipes that involve foraging, finding, and growing plant materials…and sometimes insects. Often they are the remnants of a growing season, for example, black walnuts create a lovely brown or they can be an invasive plant, like buckthorn. The berries create a range of colors from pinks and purples to a great green. Many materials I use are harvested locally such as goldenrod, sumac, and tansy.
Some are more exotic, such as cochineal (a small insect native to Central and South America) for reds and lichens for purple. I am also part of an Indigo guild where we grow 1,000 Japanese Indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) plants each year in southern Minnesota for amazing and rich blues. The craft feeds my love of research and provides an avenue to travel, internationally sometimes for color sources and the rich history that accompanies it. I love the fact that all cultures in the world share in making color from nature.
In my art, I hope to share my discoveries, be it the time spent foraging and growing materials, the way the pigments and colors interact together, and using materials that are healthy for the environment. I also love to teach these techniques to others. It provides a rich experience to talk about natural color, pigments, and dyes, the history, and how each of us may have an experience or connection to it.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
What I like best about the Twin Cities are our amazing green spaces and how they are interlinked by a fantastic system of bike paths and trails.
Our parks are top-notch and you really notice it when traveling to other highly populated cities. We have huge backyards here. What do I like the least- potholes – this year at least!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.emaluna.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/emaluna
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/emilydonovanart
Image Credits
Emily Donovan, Katherine Boyce, and Liz Allen
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