“Does she have power tools in there?!?” -- Emily’s sister, circa 2007

Cut to: Emily Müller, age 12, sanding away at a wooden chopstick using a miniature battery-powered fan (that was also a pen, probably won as a prize from one of those elementary school wrapping-paper-sales fundraisers. It was the early aughts, after all). She was turning a pair of takeout chopsticks into something else and couldn’t be bothered to sand by hand, so she cut the vinyl blades off the fan and hot glued a tiny square of sandpaper to the middle of the propeller.

She sat at her parents’ old drafting table, where she’d once built a miniature car with a working roll-down convertible top out of green craft foam and scraps of pinstripe fabric. It surprised *no one* that Emily eventually found her way out of small town Colorado and onto Hollywood sound stages designing sets and building props.

When the ‘Rona era hit, she found herself passing the days in her studio at the back of the garage, experimenting with plaster, cardboard from furniture shipments, and whatever else she could get her hands on without leaving the house.

When the world started to turn again, she joined a community ceramics studio. She loved that, like with plaster, she was playing with the earth, and started to see certain trends showing up in what came out of her hands: architecture, archaeology, and geology. Her first few pieces from that class were direct precursors to the Dig series and her ceramic towers.

Emily now spends her time between fine art & ceramics, designing commercial & residential interiors around Los Angeles, and select freelance creative projects & film productions.

Oh, and she has real power tools now··