Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emily Murphy. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Emily, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
I loved making art as a child. My mom signed me up for community art classes that my 3rd grade teacher taught and I won an art contest where they used my painting of a cat for the local symphony concert programming. When I was in middle school my art teachers praised me for my talent and I loved creating and learning about art. When it came to high school, I ended up focusing on music and wasn’t able to do any art classes. Fast forward to senior year and I start to really enjoy photography after my mom’s friend gifted me an old DSLR. I started college as a photography and English education major. I loved my drawing and design classes my first year, but decided to focus on English education and replaced photography with politics.
This year, I graduated from high school ten years ago. In that time I’ve graduated from college and grad school and have taught struggling readers in middle school for the last six year. I’ve visited many art museums and longed to create again, regularly and consistently. Why did I only start creating again in the last year and a half? My health prohibited it. From 2020 to 2024 I suffered from Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. It is as awful as it sounds. Essentially, for four years there wasn’t a day that went by where I wasn’t in nauseous and in pain. All of my energy could only go towards trying to feel better and make it through the day. Last year, after many years of doctors and tests, I was given a diagnoses and a medication change that truly changed my life drastically. I no longer have to fight to get through every minute of every day. I actually have the space and brain power and energy to create and play with art in the ways I’ve always wanted to but simply couldn’t.
Fast forward to 2025. I’ve been painting in my studio and experimenting with mediums and ideas every day. I am still a reading teacher, and I love helping struggler readers strengthen their reading skills and develop a personal relationship with reading in ways they couldn’t on their own. I don’t work in the summer and use the time off to create as much and as often as I want. Art and education are incredibly fulfilling to me and I can’t believe that I get to get paid to do both. I have started showing my paintings in galleries and doing commissions such as paintings of wedding bouquets, farms, animals and houses. I love finding inspiration in the everyday beauty of where I live – the middle of nowhere North Dakota. Color is the major focus of my work. I firmly believe that in order to be an artist, you just need to create. It doesn’t need to be posted online or look a certain way for art to be considered important, worthy, or fun. Finding my way back to creating has been one of the greatest joys and most exciting new chapters in my life. Although I wish I would have been creating more in the last ten years, I know all that matters is that I’m doing it now.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am not professionally trained. I took a few art classes in middle school and then freshman year of college, but other than that I am self taught through practice and exploration. Color is a major focus of my art. I often create paintings of scenes that mean something to me – an exit off the interstate to my families farm in southwest North Dakota, a pheasant and sandhill crane that are so common here, a sunset through blinds inspired by a photo I took early one morning in college. If it doesn’t inspire me, if I can’t feel the it, I don’t waste my time making it. This is how I feel about my personal art. On the other hand, I accept commissions and my specialty has become wedding bouquets. I love to paint with acrylic, but I also like to do floral paintings on Procreate. When I got married two years ago, I spent nearly $300 on my bouquet and another $200 to ship them somewhere for them to be dried and placed in a frame. I love it, but the price hurt. I love being able to memorialize people’s flowers in paintings because we all know flowers don’t last forever, but they can as a beautiful painting (and without the price; my paintings start at $150). I sell these through my Etsy shop: https://emsartarchive.etsy.com. I also sell prints on my website and I’m always open to commissions: https://www.emsartarchive.com/. You can find me posting my progress, inspiration, and finished works on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ems.art.archive/.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I am very concerned about the rise in popularity and use of AI to create “art” works. I firmly believe that art comes from humanity. It comes from the imperfect, fallible, messy, and unique perspective of a human artist. I encourage everyone I know to not use AI to create art. AI steals from living artists. It steals projects, jobs, and ideas, from living artists. AI “slop” is real, and I’m afraid of changing tastes and acceptance for AI. We can not normalize the use of this tool in the arts. We need to uplift and support human artists. It’s easy to have AI make a logo or a funny mashup, but it’s the right thing to do. It’s what we need to do to preserve human art and support living, human artists. AI could never make what a human with a heart can.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wish I’d know that in order to learn, you must create and experiment. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Every piece of art is a journey and an experiment. What if I used this brush? What if mixed this color? I don’t like how this look, maybe I’ll try this technique I saw online. Making my art a constant experiment and accepting that as an artist, I will never be done becoming the artist that I am. Have fun and take breaks. Release yourself from any expectations – any new discovery is an exciting gift. I am not a perfectionist, and when I feel done with a piece, I’m done. Trust your instinct, especially when creating. They are your greatest asset.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.emsartarchive.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ems.art.archive/
- Other: Etsty: https://emsartarchive.etsy.com
