We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emma Br&. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emma below.

Alright, Emma thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I had a regular job! I really tried to do the 9-5 thing and was actually really passionate about what I was doing. I was studying Alzheimer’s Disease at MGH with a really inspiring group of humans. But, like most people I think, eventually you start to look around and wonder why politics and ego matter more than creating collaborative community, and you start to feel deflated. Then the morning commute feels exhausting, and you start to get jaded and only think about money and all these external validations. And I kept having my superiors tell me they weren’t happy in some really monumental areas of their life. I decided I didn’t want to sacrifice my happiness like that and I understood I was very talented and relentlessly driven in my artistic pursuits. So last June actually, I decided to kind of blow up my life. I quit my job, dove into art, and ended up moving to the DMV to seriously try pursuing it. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Emma Br& and I’m a multidisciplinary artist. I like to explore my artistic vision in pretty much any medium considered artistic though, many things I am still learning and teaching myself. My longest pursuit has been in traditional arts, drawing and painting. I started painting and drawing from a very young age and never stopped, through college where I majored in Neuroscience and Art, with a concentration in Painting. But in recent years I’ve been delving into graphic arts, 3D rendering, sewing, generative art, and augmented reality design. Honestly, the best way to keep up with me is my instagram, I’m usually diving into all kinds of things on there.

I really like to take this interdisciplinary approach to solving problems with my clients, and that is largely the major feedback I have received, is that I’m able to take a more creative approach than people who may be more classically trained because I am not drawing from one well of understanding. My favorite kinds of projects have been when clients come to me with some grand idea they have and together we get to sit down and brainstorm the details to create something that has never been done before or seen. Then I get to run off into my studio and play around until we have created something really interesting. You want to make an augmented reality poster that your fans can go scan in their living room for pre-sale tickets to your concert? Got you. You want an interesting logo that can be made 3D and then taken and put in some mixed media animation for some film? Let’s do it. Any interesting multi media and multi step process that feels like it may take too many people to tackle, is very fun for me. My main goal is honestly to be a one stop shop. And not because I do not want to collaborate with others, but just because I find every part of every project so deeply interesting. I just love learning and want to do it all with my own spin on it.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think a stereotype that is often associated with creatives is that we are whimsical, misguided, and often seen as possibly more emotional or have become creatives because of dark times and trauma. But, what I think, is that pretty much every human has some dark energy they have to wrangle to understand, and most of society teaches you to bury this pain, take it to the chin, not let anyone discover it. So this view often stems from this fear of vulnerability and I think simultaneous admiration that this stranger, maybe on the other side of the planet, created some form of art that is explaining your internal struggle perfectly. It’s kind of a strange place to be in, and I think a lot of creatives feel this diametric pull. In some ways you are looked down on by society because the arts are seen as this messy disorganized undervalued part of life, but then held in some of the highest light possible for expressing things non-creatives silently drown in. Whenever I talk to my creative friends about this, I always am reminded that I am so grateful I get to be in these spaces where people were taught to listen deeply and hold space for other’s expression. I think non-creatives are really seriously missing that from their lives, and if I ever have kids I think placing them in spaces where they can learn to express some of their deepest fears and how to use their creative outlets to work with that energy, would be so far above any class where they are required to learn how to standardize themselves. Most of the lessons I have learned in art are so easily applicable to living my best life.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Honestly I think society needs a fundamental restructuring. It goes exactly into what I was saying about non-creatives really missing a non-judgmental space to express themselves. Humans harbor so much deep pain, and if it is not from your personal experience- like maybe if you are somehow graced with this nearly perfect avoidance of pain- you still are definitely affected by the surrounding world entrenched in it. Your brain is such an interesting organ because it’s main goal is survival, and it will do literally anything it can to keep you alive. It will come up will all kinds of schemes and mechanisms just to keep you afloat. And when you look out in society and you read the news, and you hear about your friends struggling, or you just hear about crime in the neighborhood, or wars in other places, your brain is definitely clocking that. So, we’re super attuned to fear, it is probably the number one driving factor of most humans. And because of this, it is deeply centered and uplifted in our society. It inspires every bad policy we have ever created, and every perpetual dark action we take on another human. That being said, we need artists and creative communities more than ever. I think as we sink deeper into the society we created, people are feeling increasingly isolated, scared, and paranoid. They start pointing fingers at other humans, who maybe don’t look or speak or dress like them, thinking that somehow the humans they see in their daily life are the ones responsible for their pain. I think if society really wanted to change, and really wanted to support the arts, it would start by actually valuing the absolute necessity of exploring expression. It would start to uplift people that are attempting to make discoveries about themselves. It would stop alienating and bullying humans who are diving deeper into their identity. But, you know, on a more surface level, support local artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://emmabr.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/e.mma.br/?hl=en