Featured Student Artist | April 2024

Emily KenCairn

What did you enjoy about your experience in Speak to Me From Everywhere?

I enjoyed so many things about “Speak To Me From Everywhere,” but the absolute top for me was Laurie’s selections and conveyance of poetry in each lecture. Her reverence for and love of poetry reminded me of my reverence for and love for poetry, which had somewhat fallen away. Not only her selection of the poems, which was excellent, but also the way Laurie offered interpretations of the poets’ words in ways that are relevant to us as makers just filled my Soul right up.

Each lecture felt like a little doorway with a big flashing welcome sign beckoning me back into the studio. So affirming. I felt that the exercises were gentle and doable, and also left room for my own interpretation. I appreciated Laurie’s reminder that words could be used as a bit of a scaffold for actually making marks on the page, which can sometimes be so mysteriously difficult.

Lastly, I’ve wanted to know how to bind handmade books forever, and the technique used in this class is a great intro that I am excited to use over and over.

Marigold writing | © Emily KenCairn

What did you find difficult about Speak to Me?

As a working parent of two young kids, just finding uninterrupted time in the studio (when I’m in a decent enough headspace for making) was the only difficulty for me.

What is the strangest object in your studio?

That’s kind of a hard question, but a fun one. Maybe the strangest thing in here is my lamp, which sat in the guest bedroom at my granny’s house and made a deep impression on me as a kid. It’s got kind of a Grecian vibe with two levels of vessels and birds sitting around the central column, which is painted to look like marble with gold inlay. It’s weird, but I love it!

Tell us a little bit about your practice as a maker. Where do you thrive? Where do you struggle?

“I don’t want to think a place for you \ Speak to me from everywhere. \ Your gospel can be comprehended \ Without looking for its source. \ When I go toward you \ It is with my whole life.”

Rilke’s words — “with my whole life” — remind me of where I thrive as a maker. I made two valiant runs at art school in my twenties, both of which were thwarted by funds and other circumstances. For a long time, I felt that represented a failure to follow my path, but the more fully I live my actual day-to-day life with an eye toward beauty, wonder, and spaciousness, the more I am moved to make, and the more I feel like a maker. I am still electrified by marks on a page and have an inexhaustible stream of ideas for what to make, which really is a wonder. I also find myself very grateful that I didn’t pursue art as a career, because now it can be a path, unburdened by the need to support me financially.

I struggle the most with “making” time for creative practice, which I know is possible even in the midst of this vice-phase of life with young kids and aging parents. That said, I also know the kids will grow up and move out eventually, and there will be more time for making, contemplation, and writing. “Making” peace with the many demands of the day feels like perhaps the most potent practice I can engage in. Luckily, the kids are usually game to make with me, so I’m stretching to see how I can open up more time and inspiration for that (the messes! Oh, the messes we make!).

What is one intention you have as a maker this year?

My birthday is this week, near the spring Equinox, and there’s something about this one that feels big—like I’m too old to keep just messing around as a maker. Time to get serious (about putting in the hours)! But at the same time, my goal for what to do with those hours is to mess around more as a maker! I want to do this both on my own and in collaboration with my kids. I work with acrylic, watercolor, gouache, ink, markers, ballpoint pen, and collage, and am even playing around with digital art—collaging images and drawing on them in Procreate. Surprisingly, I find that digital medium extremely compelling, although I definitely want more days with dirty fingers, too.

I also want to spend more time this year harvesting all that I’ve learned to date about living life as a maker. I want to look back over my notebooks from many years of classes and write down what I know now, in my own words. Laurie’s essays have been a big inspiration to me, in this line of inquiry.