Working in acrylic and oil paint Emma Ballou captures the soft, luminescent quality of light that she is most visually attracted to in the landscape. Her slightly-out-of-focus landscape paintings offer viewers an understanding of how light and dark shape our experience of the natural world. The work highlights the vivid, fleeting details of the golden hour, like the halos that outline blooming milkweed and queen anne’s lace and the sparkles of light that make individual blades of grass look like strands of gold.

Read on to learn more about our featured artist for October 2025.

Q:  Tell us about a day in your studio. Do you have a studio routine or is every day different? 

A:  A typical day in my studio shifts with the seasons. I love to work with natural light so my studio days in the summer are a lot longer than in the winter. Currently, I’m in the studio every day for most of the day! It’s been such a joy painting this collection, I think partly because I was able to paint it during the most golden season of all (summer) and I feel like that energy really made its way into my paintings.

Q:  Your paintings have a very cinematic quality. Do you think about a photographic reference when you’re painting or is your work based more on how you see the world?

A:  I’m always trying to capture moments with my camera to later use as I paint in my studio. I love to use photographs as a reminder that can pull me back to a color combination that wowed me or how the light was hitting a cluster of trees that stopped me in my tracks. I usually reference a photograph for the first half of a painting but for the second half I put it away and get lost in the world in front of me to see what it wants to become.

Q:  Speaking of cinema, do you have a favorite movie?

A:  A favorite movie!? I would have to say a movie from my childhood. Movies felt BIGGER back then. I love comedies! I think Princess Bride and A Wet Hot American Summer would have to be up there. But I also love the beauty and depth of a movie like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.

Q:  When did you first know that you wanted to be an artist?

A:  Being an artist kinda snuck up on me! I was surrounded by artists growing up so I think when I was young I thought I had to be different. In college, I graduated with a degree in history, but I took enough art courses (just for fun) that I could have  almost double majored in Art. Years later I turned back to art as a way to help with some anxiety that I was experiencing. I would get up early before work and stay up late so that I had the time that I needed to paint. Eventually I took part in a challenge to paint 30 paintings in 30 days and after that experience and the joy I felt at creating a body of work, I knew I wanted to be an artist. 

A:  What is your biggest challenge as an artist? What do you find to be the greatest reward?

Q:  I think my biggest challenge as an artist is working through a painting that isn’t coming together the way I originally envisioned. The ability to surrender to what it wants to be instead of what I want it to be is something I am constantly working on. The work is always better for it.

I think my greatest reward as an artist is getting to paint! The privilege to be able to spend a large portion of my time in the act of creating is the ultimate reward. I feel incredibly lucky.