Studio Visit | Emily Larned
Studio Visit | Emily Larned
by Ava Sestito
Installation view of Who Governs? Artspace, New Haven, CT. Credit: Jessica Smolinski.
As an artist, designer, book publisher, professor, and writer, Emily Larned has used her varied interests to curate her career. Growing up in Stamford, Connecticut in the 90s, Larned began creating zines as a teenager. The process of creating, publishing, and distributing these zines gave her a sense of community that became a source of motivation for her career. She completed her BA in Fine Arts from Wesleyan University and moved on to Yale to obtain her MFA in Graphic Design. During her time at Yale, she felt something was missing from her educational experience. “Nobody was making things with their hands,” Larned explained. She felt isolated in her work and wanted to have a place where people like her could deepen their creative journeys through different mediums and techniques. Her co-founder Bridget Elmer felt the same, so they joined forces to start Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA).
Emily Larned, Headroom. Computer cross-stitch record cover for Kryssi Battalene, on Trouble in Mind Records.
Together Larned and Elmer started by looking for other people using obsolete technologies, such as letterpress printers or textiles, but ended up expanding it to all crafts in order to cultivate a reflective creative process. The goal of this organization is to break down the disciplinary boundaries between art, craft, and design. They seek to restore the relationship between makers and their tools, their time, and their craft. Larned wanted to build a bridge between different media and allow her members to experience a variety of creative endeavors. To date, they have had about 500 members worldwide and currently hold about 200 active members. Everything sent out to their members is hand-produced such as the publications inviting them to reflect on their practice. They advertise their organization mainly through art book fairs, listers, and word of mouth.
Meaningful content and materials have always inspired Larned, so it is no surprise that feminism has been a frequent topic of hers. She explains how she was attracted to feminism from childhood. She remarked, “It’s helpful to think about it as being first attracted to feminism and then applying that lens to everything.” Her goal in much of her work relates back to equity, inclusion, ending oppression, and honoring differences — values she brings to her creative process. One of her main influences is feminist artist Miriam Schapiro, who was not just a powerful artist, but also an educator engaged in women’s history.
Emily Larned, Our daily lives have to be a satisfaction in themselves. Alder & Frankia Bookshoppe.
Larned’s proudest accomplishment as a designer is the book she created with Bloodroot, a feminist vegetarian restaurant and bookstore in Bridgeport. The book took several years to complete and at times, Larned wondered if she would finish the project. The original draft of the book was rejected, which came with a strong feeling of defeat. The project shelved for many years before she picked it back up again in 2016. She had to overcome a lot of fear, anxiety, and shame in order to finish this book.
Despite its rocky beginning, the book has become something that Bloodroot strongly values, and Larned is proud of. This sense of fear is common among designers, Larned told me. She said, “When you’re working with clients it’s common to encounter the resistance and sense of risk and fear, but once you get over that it creates this feeling of accomplishment.” She countered by discussing the beauty in self-directed projects is that you have complete control over what you create — the fears and anxieties are removed. While this may be enticing, it comes with a weaker feeling of accomplishment. “When creating self-directed projects, what you have to do is create some of that resistance for yourself. Like, are you just repeating yourself? Can you make this better? How can you challenge yourself to keep growing?” she asked.
Another moment that stands out to her was mounting her senior thesis show. Concluding her undergraduate career with a trilogy of letterpress printed books, Larned designed a gallery show to display her project. “After working so hard to make all the books, that feeling of walking away from the gallery after installing it, that was just the most enormous sense of satisfaction and accomplishment and it made a huge impression on me,” Larned reminisced. “I had realized at that moment that that was the best feeling I have ever had.”
Emily Larned, Satisfied / Alienated Workers. Handset wood and metal types, printed letterpress, for Impractical Labor.
After graduating from college and moving to New York, Larned received some advice that changed her career. She had been renting space at a center for book arts in order to have access to a letterpress. A colleague suggested that she buy a letterpress so she could have more flexibility in what she makes. As simple as this advice may sound, it sparked a deeper idea that she translated to the sense that she could “start now.” “It’s not about feeling that you have to get all these things right before you can do something,” Larned said. “Any excuse you have about what you need before you can start something, it’s important that you just start it now.” She added that you need to learn to be okay with the fact that not everything you make will be the best.
Throughout her career, Larned has made some work that hasn’t been her best, but she has also received numerous awards — from AIGA, the Type Directors Club, and the Connecticut Art Directors Club, among others. Her work has been exhibited in galleries around the world. She has also founded her own publishing business, Alder & Frankia, which publishes collaborations and feminist reissues. Larned is currently an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Connecticut. She works out of her studio in Bridgeport, but she hopes to build a house of her own with a studio space for her and her husband someday.
Installation view of Who Governs? Artspace, New Haven, CT.
Larned’s installation Police Others As You Would Police You is on view at Artspace, New Haven, in the exhibition, Who Governs? The show continues through December 12.
Ava Sestito
Ava Sestito is a designer and student from Hopewell Junction, New York. She holds an Associate’s Degree in Visual Arts from Dutchess Community College and is currently in her senior year working towards her BFA in Graphic Design from the University of New Haven. Her work has been displayed in multiple student shows at the Mildred I. Washington Gallery at Dutchess Community College, as well as the Seton Gallery at the University of New Haven. During her time in college, Sestito has designed for many nonprofit organizations such as Greystone Programs and Rain of Hope. Sestito is interested in pursuing branding and advertising design for companies and businesses.
