We were lucky to catch up with Emma Kalff recently and have shared our conversation below.

Emma, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made (either in terms of time or money)? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

The best investment I ever made for my career as an artist was to learn the business side of things (the stuff they don’t teach you in art school). Personally I went through the MBA program – Mastering the Business of Art, through the Professional Artist Association. It was a series of online modules and interviews with professional artists, gallery owners, and social media experts.
Without this course, I never would have known how to make a cohesive body of work, how to present it to galleries, how to create a professional website, how to network at events and online, etc. If you want to become a full-time artist, I would highly recommend investing in something like this. Learning to present yourself as a professional within the field involves an entirely different set of skills than the skills required to make art. It’s really a shame they don’t teach us these things in art school, but it’s well worth learning them.

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’m very interested in memory, how it rules our understanding of the world and yet distorts over time. I make oil paintings that capture the strange displacement of memories.

My painting practice uses plein-air as a jumping off point. I often make a plein-air landscape, then take it into the studio and layer other scenes and figures into the work. I bring different scenes together in an attempt to convey the strange and disorienting realm of memory.

In 2022 I was named in Southwest Art’s “21 Under 31” competition, and I have also been listed as an artist to watch by Plein Air magazine.

I am proud to be a professional artist. It might sound weird, but I’m proud of little things, like showing up on time for coffee with a client, responding to emails day of, and keeping a strict studio schedule for myself. I think artists are often labeled as druggie degenerates who are disorganized and unreliable, but in my life I’ve encountered many artists who are incredibly disciplined and trustworthy people. I’m proud to be an artist who creates a durable product and follows through on their commitments.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’m now a full-time oil painter, but there was so much that went into getting to this point. Let’s start about a decade ago. I lived in New Orleans, and I had the chance to work on Jackson Square. For those of you who haven’t been, Jackson Square is a famous point in the center of the French Quarter. The St. Louis cathedral stands tall in the center, with a large fence extending around it. Pretty much every single day of the year, countless tourists swarm the area, people play live music, do dance performances, and of course, sell art.

I decided to give this a try, and got a license to sell. I had a few products at first – candles I had painted and photographs I printed and painted little things into. I was really, really bad at it. Day after day I wrote “$0” on my ledger and watched as other artists seemed to make money hand over fist. I was sometimes discouraged, but I tried to always remind myself that if they were making a living from their art, it meant that one day I could do that too. I had no concept of what it meant to make a cohesive body of work, no idea of how to talk about art, no idea how to present myself in a professional manner to clients, no idea how to price my work… the list goes on. So, I needed an education.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is to constantly improve my painting skills. This is of course a moving target, and will never be reached. But I think that’s kind of the point. The beautiful thing about a career in art is that you will never be good enough for your own standards, because they keep increasing. There is no end point. You can fill up your whole life with this work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.emmakalff.com
• Instagram: @emmakalff
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008499765709