Emily Pothast — Music + Art

One of the coolest things about collage is the fact that you can create an interesting whole, and this appeals to some of your senses. And then, upon a closer look, you find out that what you saw wasn't exactly what you saw, but something else. That's magical.
Emily Pothast has this concept down to perfection. I took a look at this poetic artistic interpretation of a spiritual icon, the stained glass window and smiled thinking of days past as little girl in church with Dad, staring at at colorful windows and ignoring the speeches....
Then I took that closer look, and was amused to find the SALE sale sale papers that made up this glorious image. What a super delightful smack in the head commentary back to reality. I love it.
She does a lot of this making textures out of unsuspecting ephemera. It's tricky.
Emily is a well rounded artist, with a sprinkling of music thrown in there for good measure. I used to be a pianist (took 14 years of lessons...) and a flautist (took 16 years of lessons...) and in fact I was headed for collage as a music major until I decided that my parents were WAY to obnoxious about the whole practice practice practice thing and all I wanted to do was hang out in high school like normal kids and party party party. Also there was this horrible thing that happened to me now and then when I was on stage for a solo performance on the flute, and the whole audience is staring at me...and here I go to play and F-CK....my lips start to twitch or tremble!!! As a flute player is concerned with lip position (embouchure) in order to play nice listenable music, having your lips tremble IN public ON stage could really suck! I decided somewhere in there to take my creativity into my own private room. I could do art in private and get as hot shit as I wanted. My lips could quiver, my head could shake, hell I could dance around the room, but no one would see the finished product till I said so. It's all about control!
I think that having lots of creative talent is a plus for anyone, and I encourage any types of creative endeavors. I used to dance too....a little clutzy ballerina....good grief, it's painful to think about me dancing gracefully on stage I am such a spazz, however it was creative! Somehow it all relates, a musical phrase, a choreographed dance...a visual punctuation.
Sorry, I seriously digress!
Back to Emily!


She has a show going on at the Grey Gallery and Lounge...in one of the coolest places ever, Seattle, WA. Info on the gallery and her show can be found here. She also has a website and a really bizarre blog that I still need to spend more time look at!