Bath Lives
Exeter Lives Emma Molony
THE TALENTED DEVON PRINTMAKER TALKS FALLING IN LOVE, MAKING A MESS AND BROWNIE POWER
Q. Where do you call home and what makes it special? A. Beer – a brilliant, busy, gorgeous village with a thriving community. I had a really happy time growing up there. Q. What’s the best thing about Exeter? A. Its proximity to loads of diverse countryside. Exeter is the perfect size, too. I like that you can see fields and trees as you walk down Fore Street. Q. Where is your favourite place in Exeter? A. Definitely Double Elephant Print Studio. It’s probably the reason why I moved back to Devon permanently. It’s an amazing printmaking resource and I love working there with a fabulous team. It’s a beautiful little studio that’s bang in the centre of the city (at Exeter Phoenix) and I love printing there quietly in the evening, early morning or alongside the friendly members during the day. There are always really interesting courses, exhibitions and outreach projects going on, too. Q. Did you always want to be an artist?
98 Exeter Living
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A. Yes I did, but was hugely put off at art college. I studied art history at university instead, and thought I’d work in gallery education. I kept making work and drawing, though, and eventually took up printmaking evening classes when I was living in Venice. I fell in love with print studios – the presses, papers and inks – and when I returned to Devon I found that there was a brilliant little print studio right here in Exeter – Double Elephant. Q. Describe your average day. A. If it’s one of my Double Elephant days, I’m either in meetings, fundraising for one of our outreach projects or delivering a print workshop in a Devon school with our portable printing equipment. If I’m doing my own work, I might be at home cutting out silhouette characters for a new piece of work or wallpaper, listening to Radio 4, having coffee with the framer, driving around delivering work to galleries or printing at the studio and keeping my energy up with Boston Tea Party’s chocolate brownies. If I’m designing new prints or wallpaper, I’ll work intensively for days, making a huge mess in my house.
Top: She loves to browse at The Real McCoy Middle: Her Peter Pan wallpaper Bottom: Emma mid-creation
Actually, there’s a surprising amount of administration involved in being an artist: accounts, marketing, emailing clients, writing proposals, funding applications, meeting with galleries, stockists and clients. Q. What are the best and worst parts of your job? A. The best parts are not having repetitive days, working with a huge variety of people, making artwork and helping others to as well. The worst bits are the insecurity of freelance work, lugging 26kg ‘portable’ printing presses around, funding application language and sometimes not having a routine can be tiring, too. Q. Which other artists inspire you and why? A. Paula Rego, Edward Gorey, Joseph Cornell, Kara Walker . . . it’s hard to answer why. Subject matter, humour, charm, eccentricity and passion, I think. Q. Away from work, what do you do to relax? A. I swim, cook suppers for friends, read fairytales, plan parties, watch episode after episode of The Killing and go on long walks with my husband. Q. Where do you enjoy eating out locally? A. The Plant Café during the day – I love their Persian Baked Eggs for breakfast, The Hour Glass for winter evenings and Beer beach for summer breakfasts on the pebbles. Q. Any favourite local shops? A. I’ve always loved browsing in The Real McCoy since I was a teenager. Thankfully, I’m no longer on the hunt for velvet jackets. Q. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given, and by whom? A. “Compassion is the highest form of intelligence” – Krishnamurti (not personally delivered to me). Q. Surprise us . . . A. I’m actually terrible at printing wallpaper. I’m impatient and messy. Consequently, all mine is screenprinted by a good old-fashioned English wallpaper manufacturer. EL
www.emmamolony.com
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