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Starting in elementary school in
the 70's, Emily was the student the nuns would always ask to illustrate Bible stories...which they would then mimeograph (remember
those?) and distribute to all the students in her class to color. She also liked to write and illustrate her own little animal
stories, some of which she still has. She went through both a 'drawing horses' phase and a 'drawing mice' phase, which were
attributable to reading Black
Beauty and The Borrowers, respectively. However, her absolute favorite thing to draw was always
faces. By seventh grade, she was drawing her favorite celebrities and band logos in her sketchbooks and on her brown-paper-bag
book covers (remember those??). Her first commissions, for a buck or two, were from boys in her class-- to draw the
Aerosmith logo, etc. on their book covers (they could manage Kiss but Aerosmith was too hard for them ;-) In high school,
Emily took art classes, but after that, artistic life took a detour as Emily married and had three precious children---which
took up most of her time and creative output for some years. She retired her art supplies for cooking utensils, gardening
implements, counted cross-stitch and creative birthday-party giving... ...until
one day, when her youngest was a baby, and a recession was looming. Being a stay-at-home mom was no longer an option, but
Emily wanted to work at something that would let her both use her abilities and be with her kids most of the time. Where were
those art supplies??? She started drawing again, and hasn't stopped since. First it was small custom painted signs (she targeted
local family-run retail operations), then it was pastel portraits (she sat in gift shops and drew in public on Friday nights
to find clients) and then it was art festivals. At one particular local art festival, Emily had a booth showing her pastel
drawings. People were browsing all along the lanes of displays, but there wasn't much excitement going on...until a lady showed
up on the patio, whipped out a French easel and a sign that said CARICATURES, and immediately started drawing a long line
of people who appeared out of nowhere. Emily
watched her, spellbound. This was fascinating, and she'd actually never seen a live caricaturist before. At the end of the
festival, she mustered up the courage to go talk to the lady, Sally Chase-Trace, who was very gracious and encouraging, and
even drew Emily's two small daughters who were with her. Emily told her, "I am going to learn to do this, too!"
and the lady smiled. As this was quite a bit of time before Emily had internet access, that was the last opportunity to see
anything caricature-related or even a real caricaturist in action. So Emily went home, determined to figure this out.
Armed with a bunch of Sharpies and Nupastels, her kids' faces and her kids' friends' faces, she practiced. And practiced.
And practiced some more... Gradually,
from working for free or next-to-nothing at her children's school events, Emily worked her way up to drawing caricatures
at local fairs and events. The ball was rolling now! Once in awhile, she'd even get a gig alongside other caricature artists,
and that's how she heard about the National Caricaturist Network and its annual convention. In 2003, she drove to Orlando,
Florida for her first convention, and had her eyes truly opened to what can be done with this art. From there, she went on
to having various agents represent her work, to drawing at major league baseball games in both Philadelphia and Baltimore,
to learning all sorts of interesting techniques and possibilities, and best of all, having a network of caricaturist friends
all over the globe. Nowadays, when, not at gigs, Emily can be found
in her studio painting in Photoshop, on her Wacom Intuos drawing tablet which feeds into her new Macbook Pro. There's even
a new little face to caricature as soon as he grows a bit...her new grandson!
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| 1977--Paul has no mouth even though she tried so many times! And Yo' Adrian! |
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| John Travolta doesn't look like this anymore! |
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