What’s on your walls?

When we moved into the new Emma digs in January, we weren’t sure what to do with all the extra wall space (not to mention other amenities like “more than two restrooms” and “hey, it doesn’t smell weird”). We framed some marketing and campaign creative and put up some of those famous Hatch Show Prints, but when it came to painted stuff, we just didn’t think a corporate art rental program was our style.

Instead, we invited the kids of Emma employees who attend Children’s House Montessori School in Nashville to create the art for us, asking them to look at Emma’s logo and create an entire picture of Emma around it. Another team helped to paint a cityscape. So now we have something of an art gallery to welcome folks who visit the shop, complete with gallery-like descriptions for each work of art. Here are a few for your artistic enrichment…

Emma with Tiny Chicken Arms, and Perfectly Okay About It

A classic study in human and fowl proportion, Tiny Chicken Arms is believed by some art critics to be the first attempt to combine a human body and chicken arms in a blouse that was clearly intended for much larger, non-chicken-like appendages.

At first glance, the work appears to feature legs of differing lengths, almost in an accidental way, but note how the subject’s earrings follow the same long-short pattern.

Also, the subject has no nose.

Patrons interested in further researching the early career of O. Smith can see also:

Figure with Large, Bulbous Right Leg and Normal-Sized Left Leg, Four Fingers with Two More Sticking Out of the Wrist Area, and Boy With Unintentional Extra Neck.

Artist: Owen Smith (age 5), Children’s House Montessori

Emma with Blue Hair and Dark Skirt/Innertube

Hooper is widely considered to be the philosophical leader of the Buoyant Attire movement, a group devoted to furthering the idea of clothes that can also be used as flotation devices.

In this particular work, it’s as if the subject is saying, I can stand here possibly waving at you, or I can tube down Category Four rapids if the mood strikes me.

Many believe the artist’s later effort, Look At Me, Now I’m Tubing Down Category Four Rapids, may be the logical companion piece to this canvas. Innertube is not without controversy, as some scholars question its inclusion in the Buoyant Attire movement.

They point to the artist’s use of a dinner napkin already tucked in as a clear nod to the Post-Tubing Cheese Crackers movement, a splinter artist group fervently opposed to the idea of tubing without proper snacks.

They are based out of Nebraska.

Artist: Maggie Hooper (age 4), Children’s House Montessori

Emma in Purply Gown and Red Gloves or Possibly Smeared Cupcake

Known for her work in carefully arranging wood blocks, artist Julia Spessard displays her versatility with Emma in Purply Gown.

This work is her first foray into painting — or, in her words, “making pretty pretty.”

With its use of heavy brush strokes, serious tone and tiny nose, Gown is at once a commentary on the absurdity of society life and a challenge to the world of fashion designers.

This challenge is namely to make more things that are purple.

This is a theme that would resurface in J. Spessard’s subsequent oil series, My Purple Daddy and His Giraffe, Which is Also Purple. Allusions to smeared cupcakes in her later works are more pronounced.

Artist: Julia Spessard (age 3), Children’s House Montessori

Emma in Slightly Mannish Sweater Suit

Part of the watercolor series Sweaters: Not As Ladylike As You Might Think, Slightly Mannish is generally considered to be artist Woods Spessard’s most important work.

This triumph follows on the heels of the somewhat less regarded efforts Half Flower, Inside My Nose and Orange-y Blob.

Note the use of the horizontal lines, earth tones, and large, gangly google-y eyes favored by artists of this period.

(This period refers to the time right after nap time and before plastic stove baking time).

Discerning viewers may also spot the subtle influences of Van Gogh and Cezanne.

Other views may note the subtle influences of the Dress Barn’s winter line, circa 1997.

Artist: Woods Spessard (age 5), Children’s House Montessori

Future, and Possibly Architecturally Unstable, City

One of three works in the series Whimsical Buildings You Might Not Want to Stand Underneath, Future City re-imagines the modern skyline in vivid blues, yellows, reds, and the ever-popular architectural color Bubblegum Pink.

The work blends whimsy and irreverence to create an abstract paradise for everyone but building inspectors, window makers, and the poor sap who rented the elevator-less rocket-launcher penthouse.

Artists: The boys and girls of Children’s House Montessori (ages 3 through 6)