Bayou Artist: Emily Steed Pullin

BAYOU ARTIST, EMILY STEED PULLIN, HAS SPENT HER LIFE AROUND CREATIVE PEOPLE. HER CONNECTION TO ART STARTED AT A YOUNG AGE, BUT ONLY RECENTLY HAS SHE STARTED TO NURTURE HER CREATIVE SIDE. SHE SEEKS TO ENRICH OTHER’S LIVES BY ART IN LIFE-CHANGING WAYS.

ARTICLE BY APRIL CLARK HONAKER AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY KELLY MOORE CLARK

For Emily Steed Pullin, thinking of herself as an artist is a fairly new development. She’s always been creative and grew up surrounded by creative people, but for the last six years, she’s been teaching elementary art classes at Cedar Creek School in Ruston, Louisiana. When asked about her work, Emily would say, “I’m a teacher.” But in the last couple of years, she’s started to nurture her own creativity more seriously and said she’s now more inclined to respond, “I’m an artist.”

Emily’s dad’s first major was architecture, and her mom was an art teacher with a degree in interior design, so creativity was basically in her genes. With parents who supported creative expression from an early age, Emily and her sister, Shannon, were both led to pursue careers in the arts. Emily always loved art classes and enjoyed art history, when it seemed no one else did. One of her most memorable art projects as a kid was a crayon batik of a sun that she created during art camp. “I thought it was the coolest thing,” she said.

In high school, Emily appreciated the balance of freedom and guidance she received from her art teacher Mary Rountree. In college at Louisiana Tech University, she decided to follow in her mom’s footsteps by majoring in interior design. Although Emily enjoyed interior design and finished her bachelor’s degree in it, she found herself connecting most with her professors that created their own art in addition to teaching. These professors—Suzy Nelson and Walter Green—were most influential.
During an internship required to earn her Bachelor of Interior Design, Emily experienced what it was really like to work in her chosen field. At Jones Commercial Interiors (JCI) in Dallas, Texas, Emily discovered that she liked her job, but not as much as she’d expected. She remained employed by JCI after completing her internship but wasn’t passionate about her work. Fortunately, through JCI, Emily was also introduced to a field of work that sparked more passion.

Because JCI’s president, Andy Jones, is a strong supporter of Camp Esperanza, Emily found herself volunteering as a counselor for two summers at Camp John Marc in Dallas, where Camp Esperanza is held. The mission of Camp Esperanza is to provide a week filled with joy, friends, play and exploration for children with cancer. In Spanish, “esperanza” means hope, and according to Emily, Camp Esperanza is filled with it. In her time there, Emily realized how much she loved kids and started toying with the idea of going back to school in education. “It was really incredible and inspiring on a lot of levels to be around those kids,” she said.

After Emily finished her second summer there, she returned to Rustona and began working at Louisiana Tech in the Office of Admissions. Given her situation, returning to school in education was a perfect fit, so she decided to combine her love of children and her love of art by pursuing a Master of Arts in Teaching with a concentration in Art Education. Early in her graduate studies, things started to fall into place for her. A position teaching elementary art opened up at Cedar Creek, which allowed her to return to her alma mater and begin a career she could feel passionate about.

Emily has now been teaching at Cedar Creek for six years, and she loves her job, but she’s only recently begun to express her own creative side. For several years after becoming a teacher, Emily was known locally as “the dog painter.” The title came to her quite by accident through a series of events set in motion by a portrait of her own dog, a Weimaraner named Atticus. When Emily shared the portrait on social media, she didn’t expect to find a demand for dog portraits but a friend commissioned a portrait, and interest in them quickly grew. “I love dogs and I’ve loved painting dogs because they mean so much to people,” she said, “but it’s not my passion.”

At the same time, Emily said she’s grateful for the dog portraits, because they’ve helped her build skills and confidence. Along the way, she said, “I realized, ‘Oh, I’m kinda good at this,’ but it’s also been hard to break out of painting dogs.” Over the last couple of years, she’s started to paint other things. In fact, one of her first major departures from dog portraits was a commissioned work for Louisiana Tech’s Beta Epsilon chapter of Sigma Kappa sorority. Because Emily is an alumna, the chapter sought her out to create a painting for their lodge. The commission came just two days before recruitment last fall, but fortunately, Emily works well under pressure and was happy to oblige.

The chapter had asked for something large and abstract, which wasn’t typical for Emily, whose work tends to be inspired by something concrete. She decided this painting would be no different and set out to find inspiration. In the process, she looked up the founding place of Sigma Kappa, which was Colby College in Waterville, Maine. After finding an old map of the college, Emily knew what she wanted to do and completed her first in a series of paintings she now calls “map studies.” It was a fun, playful piece that made her want to create more in the same vein.

When painting for herself, Emily almost always chooses subjects that mean something to her, so she’s done map studies of Ruston, New Orleans, Shreveport, and Oxford, Mississippi. Recently, she’s also begun integrating wildlife, such as fish and crawfish. Her husband Matt loves to fish, so fish have also become a recurrent theme in her work. In terms of style, Emily combines structured detail and organic elements in layers of mixed media. She said these aspects of her work reflect her personality perfectly. “Parts of my life are really organized, and I’m kinda high anxiety, and I want things to be a certain way,” she said, “but I’m also not a planner, and my house is always a mess, and I like to do things spur of the moment.”

Although many of her map studies have been driven by a personal connection and a need to express herself, she finds that other people connect to them, too. In one particular piece that she created for a local, map-themed exhibition, Emily paid homage to the late Bill Rogers, who owned Rogers’ Furniture and Gifts in Ruston and employed her during college. According to Emily, Mr. Rogers was a character. If she asked him how he was doing, he’d say, “I’d be doing a hell of a lot better if someone bought $10,000 worth of furniture, paid cash and I had a vodka on the rocks.” Viewers of the exhibition who knew Rogers immediately recognized the work as a tribute to him, and the piece was purchased by his son, Tommy before the show even opened.

“That piece, for me, was really special,” she said, “but everything I do on my own is somehow inspired by a personal experience.” To feel totally invested and passionate about their work, Emily believes artists have to make it personal. “Even if it’s not personal for me,” she said, “I try to understand why a client wants the piece and kinda dig into that a bit.”

Even though her uncommissioned pieces are always personal, Emily said, “I hope they hit a heart string with someone else.” Watching that happen can be so rewarding, especially when a piece is so unique and personal it seems destined to remain on the artist’s own wall. Based on one especially memorable sale, Emily believes even the most unique and personal pieces can sometimes find a home.

While preparing for an exhibition of her work held at Parish Press Coffee and Eats in Ruston last fall, Emily painted a giant avocado green sofa on a 36 by 48 inch canvas. The exhibition, called “Rooted,” was full of works inspired by her childhood and family history. “It was based on things that were significant to me growing up,” she said, “things that shaped me as a person.” The green sofa, specifically, reminded Emily of watching “Wheel of Fortune” and eating blueberry pancakes with her Pops. “I didn’t expect anyone to buy it,” she said. After the exhibition ended, she hung it in her boys’ room where it stayed for months until she decided to take it with her to the Double Decker Art Festival in Oxford, Mississippi. Taking it was a last-minute decision made primarily to fill space, but surprisingly, the painting found a home there through pure serendipity.

During the festival, Emily’s husband was wandering around the square in Oxford, when he happened into Blue Delta Jeans, a company specializing in custom-tailored denim. While there, he met co-owner Nick Weaver, who turned out to be a college friend of Emily’s. When Nick and his wife Augusta ventured into Emily’s booth later, they saw the green sofa painting and were immediately struck. “I told them why it was special to me,” Emily said, “and they wanted it.” They could relate to the story and had recently searched for a green sofa for their new house but couldn’t find one. In the end, they’d given up and bought a white sofa instead. So they loved the idea of hanging Emily’s green sofa over their white one. It just made sense to them.

The likelihood of moments like this happening every day are slim, but when they do, it’s magical. Emily doesn’t expect her pieces to connect with everyone. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t fit the mold, but you have to embrace your weird,” she said. “You have to have an outlet, and you need something you enjoy to serve as an escape and to build you up.” When someone connects with work created in those moments of escape, it makes everything worthwhile. “Whether it’s a personal piece or a portrait of a dog, you always hope it’s special to them,” Emily said. “When they walk by it, you hope it brings happiness. Whether a piece has the same significance for them as it has for me, I want it to be meaningful.”

Even if people aren’t buying Emily’s art, she believes they should be buying art. “I want more people to learn and recognize that art should be meaningful to them,” she said. “It’s important to invest in real art, and you shouldn’t invest in something you don’t feel connected to.” Emily and Matt have tried to spread this message, especially among their friends. “The arts are important whether you’re an accountant or an engineer or something else,” she said. “If you have the means, you should buy a piece of art every once in a while, even if it doesn’t match your house.” Emily’s own house is filled with art, and some of the pieces don’t match, but they all mean something to her. “Art has done so much for me,” she said. For that reason, Emily wants others’ lives to be enriched by art in life-changing ways as well.