About

Emma was born in Hull and grew up in Kilnsea, a tiny village at the northern end of the extraordinary geographical feature and nature reserve Spurn Point.

An artistic child, Emma enjoyed drawing the Holderness landscapes around her home and as a teenager connected with nature when she worked on local farms during school holidays and vacations from Southampton Solent University, where she studied for a BA Hons in Fine Art.

After graduating, she briefly moved to the Somerset Levels to learn the process of growing, coppicing, bundling and weaving willow.

She returned to Yorkshire to study for a PGCE at Bretton Hall, Wakefield, where she was surrounded by the inspiring work of Henry Moore and Elizabeth Frink in the grounds of what is now the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and began making geese and small animals from woven willow.

After teaching in West Yorkshire, Emma moved to Whitby on the coast of North Yorkshire and took a teaching post at Whitby Community College. The college had a very successful and forward-thinking art department, which supported her development as a sculptor.

An ever-increasing interest in her work led to a commission from the Louis C Tiffany Museum and Water Gardens in Matsue, Japan, home to the largest collection of Tiffany glass in the world, to create a central feature to their ‘English Garden’, a life-sized geisha and man in Western dress, entitled East Meets West.

Emma now exhibits nationally and internationally, and her sculptures grace the gardens of stately homes, galleries and private homes around the country.

She was particularly honoured to be given the opportunity to make and personally present to HRH the Prince of Wales a large-scale portrait of his beloved Jack Russell dog ‘Tigga’. Made from willow grown on the Highgrove Estate, ‘Tigga’ is sited in the gardens at Highgrove, and was a thank you gift for her loan from the Prince’s Trust, which enabled her to start her career.