Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily J. Snyder.
Emily, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I fell in love with painting and drawing when I was a child. In high school, making art became a way to cope with the angst of being a teenager. In college, I studied drawing, painting and jewelry design at the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. After that, I had to get a job to pay off my student loans and so I started making stationery at Mr. Boddington’s Studio in New York City.
Through Mr. Boddington’s, I discovered calligraphy as a career path. I have now been doing calligraphy professionally for 10 years. This creative job allows me the freedom to have the time and income to draw and paint. My clients come to me when they want a wilder style of calligraphy or calligraphy combined with illustration, painting, or just a unique and fresh approach to the ancient craft. Every spare moment I have is spent in my beloved art studio creating drawings and paintings and recently batik fabric dying.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I create paintings and drawings from ink, oil crayons, pencils, acrylic paint, oil paint, markers and calligraphy dip pens. I usually work on paper, but sometimes on canvas.
When I start my paintings or drawings, there is usually an urgency from which I create. They start out chaotically with loose strokes and broad color fields. I rarely know beforehand how I want them to turn out or what they will be of.
As I work on them, the underpaintings take form into abstract imaginary places, figures, flowers and landscapes.
Life is chaotic and confusing and by figuring out what is going on in my paintings and resolving their chaotic beginnings, I find peace within the chaos that is going on out in the world. I hope that the when viewing my works, someone might be transported into another realm where this kind of peaceful escape prevails.
How can artists connect with other artists?
Ask people to come to visit your art space/studio and offer to visit theirs. If you can rent a studio space that has other artists in the building, that is a huge game changer! I moved from working at home to working in a studio 3 years ago and it relieved the isolation I was feeling. If you don’t have a designated space to make art, start a meet up in a park to make art with others.
I created a Kids Art Day at Griffith Park a few years ago when I was lonely and making art with kids and their parents was really fulfilling. Volunteering with an arts organization is also really helpful. I’m currently volunteering with Inner-City Arts and I love it.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I will be creating an interactive drawing as part of Making Kin, an art exhibition by the newly-formed NAVEL Collective, a group of artists, scientists, designers, writers, coders, and community organizers. August 26-30 from 12:00pm-6:00pm at NAVEL,1611 S Hope St, Los Angeles, CA 90015
People can also see my work on my Instagram, on my website, or in real life at a scheduled studio visit in my art studio which is located between Chinatown and Lincoln Heights.
My calligraphic work will also be available this fall on chocolate boxes in a new chocolate shop opening in Beverly Hills.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.emilyjsnyder.com
- Email: emily@emilyjsnyder.com
- Instagram: gemtones
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