The Emma Edition: Mother Earth

I’ve been fascinated with Minna Gilligan and her art ever since her first post on Rookie Magazine. So when I heard she was traveling from Melbourne to New York, I emailed her asking if she would be interested in having me be her personal tour guide. I don’t get very fazed by celebrities; however, I very much admire all of the people who work at Rookie --- they are my version of the Spice Girls. Needless to say, it was exciting to meet Minna and learn about her life back home in Melbourne and her work process.

Both Minna and her art are like looking into a lava lamp. Minna dresses like a peasant goddess from the 1970’s, informing her artwork to feel the same. She mixes these rainbow colored markings with collages, cutouts from many of the stacks of vintage 1960's/1970's catalogs and textbooks she buys from Savers, the discount chain back home in Australia, for illustrations that are pure homages to a childhood that I can only dream of. One of my favorite series are her pink tie-dyed washes that are extra trippydippy.

Minna and I went flea-marketing at The Avenue A Flea Market in the East Village. There’s always something unusual to feast your eyes on in the East Village. This Mother Earth graffiti is one of the happiest ones, I’d say. The best part of it is the scribe of the right hand side with the list of different flowers and elixirs; I imagine it’s for a flower witch doctor or something.

I feel like a man who wore a cocaine spoon necklace and hung out at Studio 54 in the 1970’s would have worn these. So basically everyone at Studio 54.

Super seventies housedress

The soundtrack for the Broadway show, Follies has such inspiring album artwork. Whoever goes to The Avenue A flea market next, please find a good home for this and frame it!!!!

In Fabulous Fanny’s, an always spectacular vintage store, I came across a rack of intricately embroidered denim bell bottoms and maxi skirts. They were all way above my price range (upwards of $250) and although I’d never seen such wacky embroidery, I can’t imagine spending that much on vintage denim. I love all of the silly phrases sewn on such as “hot lips” and “cute stuff,” and the circus-y balloons. I seriously want to meet the women who once made and wore all of these (assuming they were women) and become friends with them all. I told my mom all about the denim, and she said that in the 1960’s she was an expert embroiderer and always was embroidering peace signs and animals on her clothes and even made embroidery as gifts for her friends. I’m making it one of my summer projects to learn how to do embroider to this caliber. I think it would be amazing not only to be able to make something like this for myself, but to be able to have the trade passed down to me from my mother.