Celebrating art A long way down represents the dichotomy of fear and desire as one leaps into the unknown on the path towards self-identity. Ezra ( a pseudonym ) is a brave young friend of mine, who’s gender fluid. – Emma Hardy. Posing for a photo. From left: Madeline Patterson Scout, Xiaoxiao Strong, Artist Emma Hardy, Hayden Mans.[/caption]

Jamestown residents came together over the summer to support the international success of one of its longtime resident artists, Emma Hardy. Her vision and talent were recognized on a global stage this past summer in Italy. The occasion was the reopening of the Ex-Museum of Comics in Lucca, Italy.

She had been invited to contribute to the show because of the recognition of her work as one of the top artists in her field. “The director of the program had seen my work in the past, actually the work I had done at DIA (Denver International Airport) and apparently had been looking for me for a long time,” she said as she described how she had been found, “I’m not very good at social media or any of that stuff, so it took two or three years to find me, and then as soon as he found me he invited me to come be a part of the event.” Further, she was the only invited artist with other winning participants in the show.

Recently she sat down to talk about her experience with the project. “I am a sculptor, mostly installation artist, I do large scale projects,” she said from a chair in her sun-drenched solarium in Jamestown, Colorado. “I was invited to the world’s largest paper sculpture show, called the Lucca Biennale… for the last ten years they have been putting on a paper art show, they invited me to do a residency there.”

The trip was costly, however, and she needed assistance from her community. Her ex-husband’s girlfriend, Jamie Priera, set up a go-fund-me account which raised the $8000 needed for her students to come to Italy, along with her son Hayden, “which was really amazing because it made the project be what it is,” she said.

She was adamant that her appreciation was communicated, “I have a huge amount of gratitude for them making that happen. For everyone that chipped in to make that happen, it was huge.”

Hardy’s team included her son, Hayden Mans, and two of her former students from the University of Colorado Art and Engineering program, Madeline Patterson Scout, and Xiaoxiao Strong. Both had been her interns in the past and helped her to complete this project.

The installation was displayed in Lucca, Italy, a city in the region of Tuscany. Hardy created both an outside installation, and an indoor installation for the show. The project took weeks to develop with a piece of the project being built in the United States and shipped to Italy.

As she reflected on the experience, she states that she was happy with the effort that went into creating two pieces for the event entitled Risk and Reward. “The dog is about nine feet long, and the girl is a little over seven feet tall, crouched, holding out food for the dog. We made those two pieces in one month, so it was two weeks on each piece. It was a lot of work, and it was really stressful, but we got it done. And it wasn’t perfect, but I was really happy with what we accomplished in a short amount of time.”

Hardy was also singled out for her exceptional talents at the Lucca Biennale. “I was very honored to receive the Career Award for the work,” she explained.

She currently works as an installation artist for Dr. Bronner’s All-One soap company, creating the installations for the Burning Man projects. She works with several crews on the east coast and will be travelling to North Carolina in a couple of weeks to work on some new works for their events.

From there they will take her work to events from Washington D.C. to New Orleans and places in between. “They go to all sorts of different [things]. They did a gay parade (in Miami), some events in New Orleans, and they do Mardi Gras, and I do a lot of stuff in D.C. on the (Washington) mall.”

She classifies her art as “temporary public art.” Most of her materials are recycled because “they are less precious, it’s easier to play, experiment, and you’re not wasting anything if you cut it apart and try it again.”

Currently she is working on a piece that will be displayed at the Day of the Dead celebration on the Washington Mall in Washington D.C. It will be a large scale depiction of Rabbi Joseph Caro, who was a Jewish Mystic, along with some of his writings. After that she plans to work with her crew in North Carolina to build a giant sea turtle, which will attempt to educate the public about sustainable farming and other environmental messages.

Emma Hardy’s art is locally displayed at the Glass Tipi Gallery in Ward, Colorado.

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