Abby Leon, Paradigm Gallery Director
It’s life altering to stop and take the time to reflect and appreciate the small, beautiful moments we encounter in our day to day. With artist Emily Boller, this mindful practice amplifies creativity and serves as a muse for her next painting. She’s been especially inspired during her recent morning and afternoon strolls watching the myriads of sunrises and sunsets. Where many of us can easily overlook this everyday occurrence, Emily gives these occasions significance and translates all the awesomeness into her newest ongoing series of the sky. In this series and all her work, focus isn’t on the fine details, but rather her emotional responses to the experiences throughout various mediums. Emily’s collection of intimate skyscapes are an absolute treasure and the FWMoA is honored to feature them in the Paradigm Gallery and our blog!
I’m an expressionist painter. Whether I’m using oil paints, watercolors, pastels, or colored pencils, the medium’s unique characteristics are more important to me than the subject matter they may represent. My focus is on producing expressive works of art through the careful placement of colors, shapes, lines, patterns, and even the brushstrokes themselves. When these combined elements flow together to make visible an image that has never been seen before, I become fully alive.
Recently, I’ve been inspired by the breathtaking sunrises and sunsets I see on my morning and evening walks. I was first introduced to the beauty of Indiana horizons in childhood.
Starting when I was four-years-old, (my father) would take me flying with him over Allen, DeKalb, Noble, Whitley, and Huntington counties. Throughout my childhood and teen years, I got to watch the sun explode over the eastern horizon—and then sink into the western hemisphere—from an altitude of 12,000 feet.
Needless to say, those early memories of rural Indiana horizons greatly impacted me. Even as a child, it was breathtaking to witness the brilliant colors of the sky juxtaposed with the changing colors of the seasons and the quilt-like patterns of the farms below.
Also, in childhood, I began painting.
My dad let me paint flowers on the outside water spigots on the farm, the mailbox, toolboxes, and eventually, a life size covered wagon scene on the side of one of the sheds. That covered wagon scene birthed a wall mural business starting at age sixteen. As soon as I got my driver’s license, I loaded the back of an old Ford Pinto wagon with jars of acrylic paint and a toolbox of brushes and painted more than fifty custom murals in schools, churches, businesses, and homes throughout Northeastern Indiana.
In between painting jobs, I finished high school and went on to study Fine Arts at Purdue, under the tutelage of the late Al Pounders, Professor Emeritus of Painting. By the time I’d graduated, once again, I’d painted scores of custom murals throughout the Greater Lafayette area.
After directing an art program for 10,000 summer campers in Northern Michigan, and then adventuring out West to follow my husband Kurt’s childhood dream of being a cowboy, we settled back in the Fort Wayne area to start a family and that’s where we’ve remained ever since.
Thankfully, I took copious notes from Al Pounder’s teaching and years later—in the midst of changing diapers and mothering five precious children—I reviewed those notes and painted as much as I was able.
Throughout those child-rearing years, I prioritized the ongoing study of painting styles and techniques and took trips to see firsthand the works of artists including Degas, Renoir, Monet, and Cassatt; the exquisite masterpieces of Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio, and other Renaissance artists; and Pounder’s many solo exhibitions featuring rural Italian landscapes. Additionally, Charles Shepard facilitated monthly “art talks” at the museum in order to support area artists, and I sold my works at the FWMOA’s annual “Art for Sale” show.
With age, I’ve learned to value the various seasons of life as gifts, because each one–even the dark ones–enrich an artist’s work. For a season, I got lured into the dark side of the diet-wellness industry–and then lost a child to suicide. Both life-altering experiences zapped my creative energies. Thankfully, I’ve healed and the rebirth of my art today is partly due to that healing and liberation. I’m thankful I’m still able to walk the local roads and trails to see gorgeous sunrises and sunsets; and I hope to capture as many as I can in the years to come. My spirit comes alive when I touch the majesty of such beauty!
Original Notecards
This winter, I was playing around with randomly tearing and cutting various textures of papers and cloth (watercolor paper, pastel paper, and canvas) to use as surfaces for mini paintings. I tore or cut approximately three-inch square shapes and machine-sewed them onto six-inch square blank notecards. I learned the hard way to sew the canvas squares after painting them in order to prevent paint from bleeding through the needle holes.
I’ve discovered I love this methodical process of making these fresh mini paintings. I enjoy the speed of quickly seeing a finished product due to the three-inch size of the canvas—quite a contrast from executing a large painting. I intentionally leave some of the edges imperfect and don’t clip the dangling threads; a refreshing contrast to perfectionism, which I find so stifling to creativity.
Using some of the sunrises and sunsets that I captured on recent walks with my iPhone as references, I quickly sketched and/or painted several mini paintings, which snowballed into making more of them.
Pastels
It’s been incredibly fun to see each painting evolve with its own unique characteristics, from bold to subtle, depending on the medium(s) I used.
Watercolors
I’m especially pleased to be able to produce reasonably-priced, original and frameable works of art that can be shared with others in meaningful ways for birthdays, weddings, expressions of sympathy, appreciation of Mothers. . . or simply as “thinking of you” gifts.
Acrylics & Pastels
In the age of texting and emails, receiving a handwritten note in the mail has become a lost art. Hopefully, these original works will inspire the unique gift of correspondence and sharing art in the midst of technology and artificial intelligence. My goal is to eventually select a few of the images as “points of departure” and expand them to large paintings.
Emily Boller’s Skyscape original notecards ($25) are frame worthy and ready to brighten someone’s day! Visit the Paradigm Gallery to see more in person! Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm; Thursday 10am-8pm; Sunday 12pm-5pm.