Meet Emily Kenney | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Emily Kenney and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Emily, why did you pursue a creative career?
Growing up and becoming an artist was always something that I wanted to do. I actually have a little childhood drawing of mine that my mom had framed for my birthday, hanging in my studio that says “When I grow up, I want to be an artist” with a little doodle of myself at an easel with a brush in one hand and paint palette in the other. I’ve always been the creative type – from begging my parents to take me to craft stores, to taking every art class available to me in school.

Naturally, I decided to study art in college, which is where I discovered my passion for painting, and knew this is something I wanted figure out how to do long term as a career. After college I worked several different jobs from retail, to walking dogs, to teaching classes at a paint and sip place – but I was always painting on the side during my free time. I sold a few small things here and there to family and friends, and eventually decided to open an Etsy shop to really try to make this happen – the rest is history!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I like to say that my career as an artist came naturally, but that doesn’t mean it has always been easy. I started painting landscapes back in 2020, right after I moved across the country to Texas. I’m a pretty outdoorsy person, so being stuck at home, especially in a new place, was difficult to say the least. I began searching “hikes near me,” and much to my dismay, the results showed our neighborhood park as the best option. Painting one of the places that I missed seemed like the next best thing to do, and I was immediately hooked. This led to me creating my first painting series, and probably the one that I’m best known for and most proud of – I created a landscape painting for each of the 50 states!

Since then, I’ve painted hundreds of other landscape paintings and I have no plans to stop. I love the idea of being able to travel vicariously through art, and try to capture the feeling of a place, rather than focus on all of the tiny details. There’s obviously a lot more to the story of becoming a professional artist than just randomly painting a landscape one day – plenty of “failed” paintings, personal sacrifices, and way more time than I ever expected spent on figuring out how to actually market my art business, but it has all been 100% worth it to be able to spend my time doing something that I love.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m originally from Ohio, and most of my friends and family are still there so of course when they come to visit, I take them to the obvious places like Joe T. Garcia’s and the Stockyards – everybody always get a kick out of seeing the longhorns and all of the cowboy boots and hats! Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time with friends at Turning Point Brewery – we can always find a spot to hang out and play some card games, get a bite to eat from whatever food truck is there, and there’s usually events throughout the week like trivia or bingo nights which are fun! I also spend a lot of time in the Near Southside area of Fort Worth – Nickel City and Hopfusion Brewery are always a good time, and I can’t resist visiting Dusty Biscuit Beignets!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many people who have had an impact on making my artist dreams a reality from my mom who would take me to craft stores as a kid and who practically forced everyone on her friends list to like and follow my art pages on social media, to my boyfriend, Phil, who let me take over the biggest room in our house to use as an art studio, and never says no to helping me with post office runs, taking photos, etc.

Whether you’ve bought paintings from me, just “liked” my posts, or shared a picture of my work with a friend, it all makes a huge difference and I couldn’t make this a reality without all of you beautiful, wonderful people. The idea of someone wanting to own a painting that I created, and have it hanging in their home will never cease to amaze me.

Website: emilykenneyart.etsy.com

Instagram: @emilykenneyart

Facebook: facebook.com/emilykenneyart

TikTok: @emilykenneyart