Emily Vigil

​Cultivating Place I paint portraits of places. Seed ideas are often tied to my lived experience, but I also conjure elements from my memory and imagination. As soon as the first layers of color are born on the painting’s surface, I fold in a response to the paint itself: its textures, colors, and finally, its emotional timbre. When I was very young, I recall the sweet, heady scent of an oleander garden in Brasilia, away from our neighborhood where I had followed my Mother on a rare solitary walk. I was not supposed to find her, but I was drawn there: by her, by the tropical filtered light, and by the soft pinwheel petals. Now my own daughters are following me. My youngest girl traces a map on my shirt with her index finger. Our home circles my collar, her preschool is a pause on the middle-most button, and her sister’s school: down by my shirtail hem. One day she will be looking beyond that intimate scale, perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles, a generation forward in time. I think about this when I paint aerial maps. When my brush traces water from faucet to river to ocean. When I remember my origin, and teach them about our home in Northeast Ohio. With these paintings I share my story for travelers to come. --Emily Vigil www.intimateecologystudio.com

2860 Haut St SW
East Sparta, OH 44626
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Contact Emily
3046179557
www.intimateecologystudio.com
About ​Cultivating Place I paint portraits of places. Seed ideas are often tied to my lived experience, but I also conjure elements from my memory and imagination. As soon as the first layers of color are born on the painting’s surface, I fold in a response to the paint itself: its textures, colors, and finally, its emotional timbre. When I was very young, I recall the sweet, heady scent of an oleander garden in Brasilia, away from our neighborhood where I had followed my Mother on a rare solitary walk. I was not supposed to find her, but I was drawn there: by her, by the tropical filtered light, and by the soft pinwheel petals. Now my own daughters are following me. My youngest girl traces a map on my shirt with her index finger. Our home circles my collar, her preschool is a pause on the middle-most button, and her sister’s school: down by my shirtail hem. One day she will be looking beyond that intimate scale, perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles, a generation forward in time. I think about this when I paint aerial maps. When my brush traces water from faucet to river to ocean. When I remember my origin, and teach them about our home in Northeast Ohio. With these paintings I share my story for travelers to come. --Emily Vigil www.intimateecologystudio.com

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