Emmy Tither

If you ever had a pen pal as a child, then you will understand my feeling of excitement when the piece arrived in the mail. In addition to excitement, I was also filled with a trace of fear. I am just starting in my art practice, so to be faced with adding my own work to a collaborative piece left me with apprehension. Would I be 'good' enough? What if I made a mistake? Argh!

Perhaps I needn't have worried. The other artists' contributions were inspiring and as such a plan for my own contribution, including its color palette, quickly crystallized in my mind.

I, too, felt drawn to add to the dreamlike quality of the piece. People and their stories - both told and untold - feature prominently in my work, and I continued to draw upon this in my collaboration. I layered stories, inspired by cave paintings, books and the metaphorical fire that drives and, sometimes, consumes our tales. 

"Everyone has a secret world inside of them. All the people in the whole world. I mean everybody. No matter how dull or boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe."

-Neil Gaiman