Give us an intro! Please tell us about yourself.
My name is Em, and I’m an illustrator and painter here in Traverse City.
Why and how did you become an artist, and what inspires your art?
I’ve been creating art in some form of another my whole life, which was always encouraged by my family (very lucky!). So in many ways it feels like there has never been an alternative path, or one that didn’t involve me utilizing my only-child-pretending-to-be-a-horse-in-the-backyard imagination in some way.
I’m heavily inspired by folklore and object symbolism, shapes and forms in nature, snippets of dialogue from movies and books. There’s a running list!
What do you love about coffee? Describe your daily coffee ritual.
Dang there is so much to love about coffee. I love that it’s something so common yet so different depending on where you are in the world. That we all honor it and define it differently, and that from soil to cup there are so many individuals who interact with the process. I love that there is an endless amount of things to learn about it and that I basically know nothing.
In my little corner of the world coffee is synonymous with taking a moment and putting the nonsense on pause. The daily ritual includes a morning cup, and then a strategic second cup that I plan within my day where I know I can sit and relax and not have to be darting to the next thing. I’m all about the cozy coffee time.
Why did you partner with Higher Grounds on creating the design?
The intimate and intentional way in which Higher Grounds sources coffee and fosters relationships with the farmers is something I view as really special and unique. So when I was approached about doing this design, with the request to depict a coffee farm in some way, it felt like a really great opportunity to honor those roots of the business.
