Overcoming Heartbreak Through Art with Emily Eisenhart

Emily Eisenhart is a multidisciplinary artist and designer. She is constantly exploring, and her work is heavily inspired by patterns, textures, colors, and shapes around her. With a formal cultural anthropology background, Emily is ever curious and researching into her inspiration for motif and color palette. In this episode of the Love Intently Podcast, Emily is here to share her story, how she made the shift from a designer to an artist, her painful heartbreak and how it impacted her artistic work, and how her new relationship influences her work.

With a formal background in Anthropology, Emily never thought she would be a designer. However, she also didn’t anticipate graduating from college and going out as an anthropologist. She says she landed in the design world working as a researcher, and it ended up being a perfect fit for her.

Eventually, she rented her own space and set up an art studio to do her painting. (“I realized that fine art was very important to me as a creative output.”) Then one day people started asking if they could buy her paintings. The people’s curiosity built the seeds that maybe she could do it in a more serious capacity in the future. However, she still fought it as a full-time career since she didn’t want to combine passion with a career.

Emily says the creative passion was always there but the career shift wasn't intentional - it came out of nowhere. At that time, her father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and she was struggling with the breakup. She decided to leave her job and take three months off to explore nature and calm herself while painting in her art studio. She also volunteered three days a week on a farm.

Emily talks about how emotions impacted her work. She says her art served as a reminder of how painful the breakup was. The fall of her relationship left her feeling shattered. She says creating art helped her heal in the aftermath of her painful breakup, and then blossomed into a career.

She met with her new partner, Gray, while working as a critic for one of his design students’ classes. Gray’s co-professor had invited her for the class. There are many things she says she now does differently in her new relationship, including “fighting for we, not me.” She also believes that it’s essential to be aware of what triggers us to be mindful of the other person. (“It doesn’t matter if you are right or I’m right. We need to feel good about how the conversation is going to end.”) The key is to understand each other more kindly and softly.

Emily notes that her new relationship has positively influenced her art as Gray helps her think about her art thoughtfully.

Her art process is always “awesomely chaotic” as so many things happen at once, sitting in hundreds of sketches. She says she draws so much inspiration by envisioning, sketching, and executing it. (“I love to do the full package, carrying the client along the whole process.”)

In this episode with Emily, we chat about what she wishes people knew about her, her favorite meal, advice to herself after college, truths about life that she lives by, and best relationship advice. Tune in to hear more about Emily and her story.

In This Episode We Discussed:

-When she knew she had to shift from designer to artist (“I honestly didn’t know. Intentionality came from setting up physical space and time to do art.)

-How she became a designer. (“I landed in the design world by working as a design researcher. It ended up being a perfect fit.”)

-How heartbreak impacted her work (“My art was a reminder of how painful the breakup was.”)

-How she met Gray (“I met him at the university when I was working as a critic for one of his classes.”)

-What she is doing differently in the current relationship. (“fighting for we. Not me.”)

-How her partner influences her art (“He helps me think about my art and design and thoughtful touches as being grounded on physical touches.”)

-What she wishes people knew about her. (“My love for nature.”)

-Advice to herself straight out of college. ("Find out what you are curious about, enlivened by, and uniquely suited to bring to the world.")

-Truths about life and love that she lives by (“Be kind. Adventure. Finding care about your people.”

-Best relationship advice (“Be kind and be aware of how you are showing up. Care about your people.”)