Artist Statement
Saddle-Up & Shine Bright
For this body of work to achieve its artistic purpose, I need your active participation. Your interaction with the lite- brite pegs and horses will tap into childhood nostalgia and wonder while you create your own designs.
So saddle-up, get ready and let's navigate this art adventure together. Just as a rider saddles their horse, we need to gear up, in order to shine bright in our world today. The lite-brite pegs are highly visible against the dark horses, just as we can radiate positivity and be an influential force for others in difficult situations.
While it is sometimes difficult to create while raising children, I have decided not to hit pause, but to include this season of my life in my artistic processes. Motherhood has made me a multidisciplinary artist, working across all different mediums, inspired by my children, my own childhood and how becoming childlike resonates with my core beliefs and values. Each series I create is different, therefore requiring unique materials to explore themes. As a stay at (home)schooling mom and artist, I create during school, play and after bedtime. Making works interactive is new for me, but it allows my kids to be involved, since they inspire much of my making currently. Interactive, multi-media art allows for creative freedom, the ability to challenge myself and traditional art making boundaries.
The vintage Wonder horses are found objects, serving simultaneously as the canvases and lite-brite peg boards. Both the horses and the lite-brite pegs are pulled from my childhood, but children are children, whether from this century or the last. Adults and children alike can relate to these objects, and when given the tactile ability to manipulate and create their own artwork with them, it makes for an indelible experience. After finding all the different horses, they were painted, and hundreds of holes were drilled to accommodate the exact size of the pegs. They were then adapted for wall mounting. This gives you the ability to view and access them from your perspective.
This show is a beacon of light, causing us to return to childlike wonder, if only for a little while. My hope is that you have fun and can start to see through the eyes of a child once again.
How can you be a light in the darkness today?
Artist Bio
“Our inner child knew how to play and create before we knew logic,
before we knew that we could only fly in our imaginations.
We need to find that childlike wonder in life to fire up our creative selves.
We all need a sense of whimsy, not just to be creative, but to smile at life.”
-Matthew Farmer
As a Midwest motherhood artist, Emilie Nettinga has been evolving as an artist since she became a mother over ten years ago. She made the decision to continue creating while raising and homeschooling her children, using these life experiences as her greatest artistic inspirations.
Born in 1990, Emilie has always been a Midwesterner; raised in Elkton, South Dakota, educated in fine arts at South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota and now living and creating from home in Steen, Minnesota.
Just as motherhood isn’t one dimensional, neither is Emilie’s artistic practice. She works in a wide variety of mediums, using motherhood, childhood nostalgia and her Christian values as recurring themes. Emilie is influenced by fellow motherhood artists and those that create to inspire and uplift. She is focused currently on creating interactive art as a core technique. She uses traditional and experimental art making methods, sometimes simultaneously.
While the mediums may change, the interactive technique has been a key figure in Emilie’s recent works, so her children and audiences alike can be part of the finished works. Involvement is a core idea in her process and final outcome.
"In participating in the work of art, the audience become artists in their activity."
— John Dewey
This series, “Saddle Up, And Shine Bright” invites all viewers to let your light shine in the darkest places, just like Emilie and her husband teach their kids to not hide their lights under a bushel, no!