• Exhibits

Bio

Emma Hardy was born in Lincolnshire, England. She earned a BA in Sculpture at the Wimbledon School of Art in London. Emma travel extensively before marrying and settling in the USA where she has resided for the past 15 years. She currently lives in Jamestown, Co with her husband and two boys. Her studio is also located in Jamestown, just outside of Boulder, CO.

Emma is a practicing Artist employing mixed medium from tile to paper. In the past few years she's been concentrating on a sculpture technique that she developed using paper tape. Emma's piece, "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party" has exhibited nationally and received considerable media coverage. Over the past 5 years Emma has received numerous grants and a number of commissions. Her preferred medium is paper tape, the potential for which is enormous.

PERSONAL:
Born: 1967, Wisbech, England
Home: P.O. Box 5, Jamestown, Colorado 80455
Contact: Ph: (303) 447-8222 Email: emma@jimtown.org

EDUCATION
1986-1989
Wimbledon School of Art. London, England
BA Honors in 1990
Foundation Course. Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, Cambridge, England 1985-86
Westwood House School 1973-1985

EXPERIENCE
2009
Solo show at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (RMCAD), Phillips Steele Gallery August 5th to September 5th.
Jamestown Art Show, Award of Excellence
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMOCA), instructor for Young Artists at Work workshop.
Applied for and accepted by Boulder County Arts Alliance (BCAA) for Fiscal Agency.
Workshops attended: Kate Inskeep, tile.
Visited Kohler facility in Wisconsin in anticipation of application for Kohler Residency.

2008
Commissioned for an enormous head which was shipped to New York and used in the New York Subway Sandwiches campaign. Posters & billboards being run in NYC Subway, print, and other ads.
Conceived of and built larger-than-life Raven sculpture for Burning Man. Currently installed in a local Boulder business.
Performed a Mad Hatter puppet show at the Dairy Center for the Arts. Puppets exhibited at the Dairy for the month of January.
Applied for and received a BCAA/NeoData Grant.
Workshops attended: Richard Notkin, ceramics.
Art tour of Barcelona, Spain with artist Martha Russo.

2007
Applied for and received an Addison Mini-Grant.
Commissioned for a life sized Hunter S. Thompson character.
Commissioned for a bronze bust of Denver businessman, Larry Mizel.
Sculpture Teacher University of Colorado at Boulder Continuing Education.

2006
Completed a "Scarab Beetle" trailer sculpture for Burning Man.
Commissioned for a life sized Polar Bear, completed for a rally deadline. Has been used dozens of times at other local and state events.
Adjunct Faculty Teacher at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. Lakewood, CO.

2004-2005
Multiple Mad Hatter events in Colorado, voluntary and invitational.
Mad Hatter invited & participated in 7,000 people plus String Cheese Incident concert in Madison, WI.
Commissioned by Denver Animal Rights Group for a life sized calf puppet.
Created memorial sculpture of Sean Mckinney as a trophy for World Juggling Federation competition in Las Vegas, NV.
Applied for and received a grant for sculpture, "Advice from a Caterpillar." Installed at Burning Man 2005. Honored by Burning Man as the Caterpillar is requested and installed at the Burning Man Headquarters in San Francisco, CA.

2000-2004 Jamestown, Colorado
Mad Hatter entry in the Boulder County Fair Parade.
Mad Hatter entry in the Jamestown July 4th Parade.
Designed and built the stage sets for Jamestown Rock Opera.
Organized and led a mask making workshop for 24 people.
Entries in the James Creek Fest art show.
Produced and sold small (6x6 tiles) to large (tub surround) mosaic tile work. Pieces ranged from $300 to $3,000.

1988-1990
Cannizaro Park Sculpture Show. London, England

REVIEWS AND MEDIA APPERANCES 2004 – 2005 Multiple feature articles concerning the Mad Hatter Tea Party The Daily Camera, Boulder, CO. The Mountain Ear, Nederland, CO. Photograph highlight in The Denver Post, Denver, CO. Internet/Video 11/30/05 Bush Protest Denver, ABC 7News 11/30/05 Bush Protest Denver, CNN 09/04 Burning Man, The BBC

TRAVEL Traveled to: Western Europe, Thailand, Singapore, Russia, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific, and Central America.

Advice from a Caterpillar

The Following People put in many hours to make this project possible:

  • Brian Karlak programming
  • Rob Patterson electronics
  • Mark Edwards Recording and Sound
  • Tim Eggert Recordings
  • Bob Buckley Quote research and voice recordings
  • Jim Johnstone dub selector

Finally a big thank you to the following people who gave support and help where needed :

  • Carol Jenkins
  • Robbin Rawlins
  • Micheal Brotherton
  • Beth Brotherton
  • Greta Balzer
  • Dee Meyers
  • Drew Meeker
  • Alex Meeker
  • Dedra Smith
  • David Mans
  • Kerry Patterson

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party 2004

Was made as a response to the political climate and, being a British citizen and unable to vote in the 2004 elections, I decided to create the characters of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. This was the largest and most thematically organized piece I had created. While I controlled the creative aspect, I was joined by a dozen volunteers in the creation of "The Party"

The heads of the characters are a result of a couple of years of development of my own method of sculpting with brown paper tape. I developed this method of sculpting as an answer to a sculptor's challenges of ease, flexibility, durability, weight, and of course, cost. I have found it a material that is simple to construct, finish, and carry, thus it was an obvious choice for the creation of these characters.

Each head required between 40 & 60 hours to complete and were all sculpted over a three month period. As a base I used foam core, aluminum wire, newspaper, and PVC pipe. The paper tape was then applied in layers, molded, dried and finally painted. They were then mounted, along with the PVC-framed costumes on backpacks. The Mad Hatter's Tea Party has been paraded in three states for thousands of people in both organized and "guerilla art" outings.

The project would not have possible with out the help of may people.

Firstly when I proposed the project to a friend, he not only encouraged me but a package of art supplies arrived in the mail. So first I must thank Kevin Hanlon.
Then I would like to thank Allen Mueller for his help and vision with the project his political knowledge and helping me come up with the characters. Allen designed and constructed the molds for the tea cups. Then with many volunteers and yards and yards of packing tape we made up the Tea cups.
Next many thanks to the following people:

  • Rudiger Schmidt for help designing and working on back packs being the best critic an artist could wish for, and for being the first to wear the White Rabbit.
  • Bob Buckley and Chris Kendal for moral support and for writing the Homeland security song, and being the characters being the masks.
  • Beth Brotherton for many things especially with the White Rabbit.
  • Carol Jenkins for help with painting
  • David Mans
  • Gay Paxton
  • Tom Balzer
  • Greta Balzer
  • Jonathan Bartsch
  • Joy Boston
  • Dedra Smith
  • Oak Chezar
  • Jyoti Sharp
  • Rick and Kael Davis

"Packages" by Colorado artist, Emma Hardy

The piece will be made nearly entirely of paper and wood and is a community of life-sized characters representing a sample of our society. At the center there is a tree trunk around which the figures will orbit, providing a point of reflection and self realization. Each figure will have a unique audible heartbeat and the viewer will be able to add their own heartbeat to the soundtrack, providing the experience of a collective "consciousness". An additional component will be brown paper packages or parcels in which the viewer will observe ethereal scenes, evoking the abstract nature of our individual thoughts. "Packages" is meant to evoke our sense of isolation and individuality. We can only really know someone through their appearance and what they themselves choose to present to the world.