Each fall for the past 22 years, Southwest Art magazine has published a showcase for young artists.
As the title ’21 Under 31’ implies, this is not a comprehensive guide, but a carefully curated one.
“The editors work with art galleries, art schools, ateliers, workshop instructors and many other sources to find candidates for this special feature,” instructions for entering read. “We also accept submissions.”
One of those submissions recently came from 29-year-artist Emma Kalff, a plein air painter who works in oils and resides in Ridgway. Kalff is not from Ridgway; she happened upon this region during an artistic journey she has called “Finding America.”
At this point you may be wondering (as this reporter was), How did she pay for her artistic journey, a cross-country odyssey off the grid?
“The idea was to get a sense for myself about the state of America, away from the filter of popular culture, and make paintings where I wherever I traveled,” Kalff explained — does not necessarily conjure the image of a struggling artist. Particularly when you are a young female, a person more vulnerable than the opposite sex, let’s just say, who would like to remain safe during your travels.
And when your plan is to live on the road not just a few months — perhaps a summer, in easy weather — but two years.
But Kalff, a classically trained painter who grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in New Orleans, had a strategy.
“I worked on farms,” she explained matter-of-factly. “There’s a program called WWOOF,” short for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, “that has a map of all the organic farms worldwide that will provide you with three meals a day and a place to sleep in exchange for so many hours of labor.
“For the most part, it was a really good program, and people were friendly,” she said. “It’s how I supported my travels, and learned a lot about organic farming, and created a body of work.”
Guided by wwoof.net’s maps, Kalff found steady employment, room and board, and artistic inspiration in Florida, Arkansas, South Dakota, Georgia, Arizona and California, among other states. She first arrived in Ridgway on a tip from a friend “who knew someone I could couch surf with,” Kalff explained. At the end of her journey, in 2020, “I came back.”
Kalff was not intimidated by rural America.
“I found it easy to meet people,” she said. “They generally look out for each other in a way that’s a little different than what I experienced” growing up in the shadow of a major city. “The extremities of nature,” a closer connection to the rural landscape, inspire “people to take care of each other. The continuity of my trip enabled me to get a lot of work done,” she added.
The next step was to get seen. After returning to Ridgway, she exhibited in a local art show in Telluride. Kate Jones, the executive director of Telluride Arts, happened by “and told me I should have a solo show,” Kalff said.
The result was “Finding America,” a solo exhibit at Telluride Arts HQ two autumns ago.
“That show really got the ball rolling for me,” Kalff said. “It was a good exercise in, ‘What type of art do you want to make, and how do you want to talk about it?’ I had to do that for the opening.”
Since the exhibit, Kalff has continued to paint, and to work to help pay for it, most recently at Horizon Maintenance, a landscaping company in Ridgway. She met a fellow oil painter “who was kind enough to let me share studio space. My coworker rooms with him,” Kalff explained. “Having that physical space to paint in has meant everything. For years, I painted out of my car.”
Kalff’s works, a mix of muted landscapes and figures, are painted from life, but conjured by dreams. You will not find an individual’s face in these paintings; human gestures, and colors, and the setting, are enough. “A person’s identity is not so important to me,” she explained. “Telling a broader story, and the people themselves, are symbolic in these dreamscapes.”
Kalff received assistance on her artistic journey through an online course at professionalartist.com.
“It really helped me,” she said. “I paid a flat rate and received access to tons of modules, legal resources and templates for how to reach out to galleries. People say you have to wait to be discovered. That’s a myth. You have to promote yourself.”
The course was where Kalff learned about Southwest Art’s ’21 Under 31.’ She applied in May, and was featured in the September 2022 edition of the magazine. A Q&A with the artist was accompanied by a painting she began in the southeast Utah desert, and completed in Ridgway, “after layering in an abandoned train depot” near downtown.
Kalff had left the desert after an eerie evening outside Mexican Hat.
“It was pretty haunted, and it scared me,” she said, but it resulted in a 12”x12” oil-on-wood, entitled “The Boogieman Is Real.”
The painting was recently purchased by a Telluride local.
Follow Emma Kalff’s work by registering at emmakalff.com/email-newsletter.
