Many artists have a muse; that sublime source of inspiration, in the flesh or otherwise, that helps them create. For Emily Gray Koehler, printmaker and artist, the muse shows up in a wholly different form. Her inspiration lies in northern Michigan, in the verdant green forest just yards from her childhood home and the bucolic farmstead, a few miles away, that has been in her family for generations. “My work has always danced between the farm and the forest,” says Koehler.
Growing up with many artists in the family, including her mom and some uncles, Koehler was the kid with the sketchbook and well-worn drawing pencils at the ready. “Art was always encouraged,” she says. “Not quite an expectation that I would go in that direction, but maybe a foregone conclusion.”
Her childhood was filled with nature and art. She hunted for salamanders. And she sketched. When she was 13, a trip to the studio of a printmaker friend of the family opened Koehler’s eyes to the process-filled, reductive art, and set her on her path. “Printmaking sang to me,” says Koehler.
She pursued art in college and for her senior show, marrying her two passions, Koehler created prints based on stories from the farm, including first-hand accounts from her mom and aunt. “It was interesting to pay fidelity to the storyteller, knowing it was through a child’s eyes.”
Koehler became aware of the natural world, the cycle of life, and the profundity that was found in it all. All of this awareness came full circle when she witnessed her aunt die from cancer. “I began thinking about the concept of a cycle: life, environmental, career, anything,” says Koehler. Using her tools of the trade—a woodblock, special carving knives, oil-based ink, paper and a short-handled, wooden spoon from her mom’s kitchen—she painstakingly created prints that spoke to those lifecycles.
Her path led her to Minnesota in 2008, and to White Bear Lake in 2010. Her studio, which also includes a small gallery, came about shortly thereafter. She created an Agrarian series, as well as pieces in a Flora and Fauna series, and Scenes and Scapes, which encompasses everything from the barn she remembers from a field of sunflowers to a birch tree in winter.
Koehler’s work has changed, too; it has become more environmentally focused. “We are in the anthropocene time, which means there isn’t anything [humans] haven’t touched, and everything is affected by humanity,” she says. If you get the impression she’s cerebral and artistic, you’re right.
Koehler has given speeches, taught classes and won awards. Recently, she received a Minnesota State Arts Board grant to look at an issue that has long intrigued her. “I’ve been fascinated with the invasive plant species in Minnesota and how they were brought here for a purpose,” says Koehler. “They were pretty, or we wanted fodder for cattle to stabilize stream banks, or for medicinal purposes. And they wound up escaping the garden and out-competing the native plants.”
The grant will encompass a series of reduction woodcuts that incorporate collagraphs— prints on wood or paperboard—as well as a solo show.
Koehler understands that sometimes people won’t get the underlying message of her work. “I do wonder how people respond,” she says. “There are times when someone wants to know the story and it changes [his or her] mind about buying it. But more often than not, I think it’s good to have the conversation.”
