Plymouth Voices: Emma Wilbur

Emily Davis

She/Her

Staff Writer

10/26/22

An important and often underappreciated aspect of Plymouth State is the Art Department. Here, students exercise unique and creative talents that are often not stimulated in the classroom. One of these students is the junior Emma Wilbur who formally studied graphic design in high school and decided to carry on this practice of art in college. 

– What inspires you to make art? Or where does your inspiration come from?

Emma- My inspiration typically comes from the outdoors because everything outside is so beautiful and unique and I just want to make cool art pieces resembling nature’s beauties.

– What is it like being a part of the art club?

Emma- It is a great experience, being able to hang out and gather with fellow art students and bounce ideas off each other and share artwork and get critique from each other, as well as take part in fun projects that our club leader and Casey think up.

– If someone were to join our club tomorrow, what should they expect?

Emma- They should expect to be welcomed into the club, you don’t have to have any art background whatsoever. You are welcome to come and learn just to enjoy the experience and hang out with cool art people.

– One time my roommate came back and she came back with a rug for some reason. So what kind of projects do you guys do?

Emma- We worked on planning the or um advertising and making posters for the art festival for the first couple of weeks and then we have projects like cyanotype where you have to use the sun to expose Yeah, so they have a workshop in a couple of workshops planned.

– Speaking about events and things in festivals that you guys do, tell me about the autumn music and art festival,

Emma- The autumn music and art festival was put together by our student art collective or presented by the student art collective and it took a lot of work to gather all the vendors and the bands and plan everything out but it consisted of 30 vendors and three bands. And some were local students, or like Plymouth student artists, and there were also local shops like Plymouth’s soap works and some other small businesses like Cafe Monte alto, they were there.

-That is cool. What did you do? Were you vending?

Emma- I was vending and I sold the prints that I made in one of my classes as well as just for fun to sell. Okay. And a lot of people also sold cool things like paintings, clothing, and mushroom earrings. Stickers

– How do you guys promote yourselves?

Emma- We promote ourselves by posting on Instagram and making flyers and posters when we have downtime in meetings to advertise specific events and stuff.

–  Yeah. Okay. So how is the art club involved in the PSU’s community?

Emma- The Art Club hosts events, like the autumn music and art festival, to get students involved and to share student artwork to bring, like, bring people to see first, like upcoming artists, [and] put your work out there. 

– Okay, what kind of art and what kind of mediums to use, like, what do you do? 

Emma- I am mainly a graphic designer, which is what I will be going to work for after college, but I really love printmaking. I fell in love with printmaking after taking two classes with Professor Kimberly Ricci and I highly advise anybody to take the classes if they can

– Is it similar to an art studio class? 

Emma- I’ve taken a couple studio art classes like the printmaking class and I think our studio is but we’re gonna be doing cyanotype at some point so we will be doing some studio art projects without obviously a teacher so it’s going to be less strict and probably more fun and enjoyable?

Emma gives a fascinating insight into students who are in PSU’s art department. If you are wondering where you can find her, she can be found selling her art at the different events that the Art Club holds; or by following her Instagram @EmmaWilbur.art, where she posts prints of her art, previews of her upcoming pieces, and more.