The Art of Emily Cole: From Porcelain to Tattoo

Transcription by Jerome Kazlauskas

[00:00:00] Kelsey Lue: I actually knew nothing about Emily Cole, which was surprising to me because, in college, I actually took an art history course that covered Thomas Cole and the Hudson Valley River School.

[00:00:15] Brett Barry: Kelsey Lue is the proprietor of Hummingbird Tattoo in Catskill, where we met her at a pop-up event celebrating the work of Emily Cole, daughter of Thomas Cole, and known in her time as the Catskill china painter. On today's show, join us at Hummingbird, where Kelsey is drawing tattoo inspiration from Emily Cole's work, and then we're off to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, where associate curator Amanda Malmstrom shares the story of Thomas Cole's talented daughter whose work is getting the spotlight in an exhibit on view now. I'm Brett Barry, and this is Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast. This story came to us by way of our production intern Izzy Schuyler, who's no stranger to tattoos. Personally, I'm a bit shy around needles, so I was apprehensive about visiting a tattoo shop and witnessing the process firsthand, but Hummingbird is a welcoming and immaculate space, and Kelsey Lue is a creative professional with a calming presence.

[00:01:25] Kelsey Lue: I am from the area. I grew up in Saugerties. I went to school in Saugerties. I studied Visual Arts and Education at SUNY New Paltz. That's where I kind of developed my love of art. I actually studied ceramics, drawing, and painting, and education sort of added the education because you're sort of told in this world that you can't always make it as an artist. I was like, alright, let's teach. I did love teaching. I taught elementary art, but it just wasn't really for me. I did really appreciate that job because it gave me the ability and the freedom to pursue my other interests, and that's where I found tattooing. I was able to have the resources to teach myself how to tattoo about five years ago. Eventually, I was confident enough in my clientele and in my skills to go full-time. At that time, I had just a private studio, and from there it just grew—my clientele grew, my experience grew, my love for the art grew, and I decided to leave teaching and go full-time tattooing. Then I decided to come to Catskill and move into this space, and that's where Hummingbird was born. I'm not speaking for all shops. There are definitely shops that aren't like this, but a lot of shops that are still adhering to this old-school style: very dark, very loud, and very intimidating—it can lead to some people not wanting to get tattoos at all because the environment itself is not comfortable, so another big reason why I opened Hummingbird was so that not only myself, but other tattooers could have a safe space to tattoo in and for clients to come every time that I have a new client come in here. They are immediately, like, telling me how comfortable they are and how it feels like, oh, I feel like I'm coming into my grandma's house. I feel like I'm just getting cozy. I feel like I can just hang out and relax, and that was the ultimate reasoning for opening Hummingbird: so that myself, other artists, and clients could have a safe space to be tattooed and to tattoo.

[00:03:34] Brett Barry: So they don't teach tattooing at SUNY New Paltz, so how do you make that leap? What kind of training goes into that?

[00:03:39] Kelsey Lue: So there was a bit of an unconventional path for me. A lot of people do apprenticeships. I looked for one, but I couldn't find one that really fit with my values. I was lucky enough and fortunate enough to have some friends in the industry who gave me a lot of tips and tricks and resources, and I taught myself. I started on fake skin and fruit, and then I started on myself and then friends and family, and it just grew from there.

[00:04:06] Brett Barry: Tell me a little bit about this collaboration with the Thomas Cole Site. How did that happen?

[00:04:10] Kelsey Lue: So, Beth, the education coordinator at the Thomas Cole Site, reached out to me a few months ago. She was very passionate about the project, and her passion definitely inspired me. We went through the museum. She showed me some of Emily's work. I was able to photograph some of the work myself and spend time with it. I spent about a month with the work before I even started drawing.

[00:04:34] Brett Barry: Had you heard of Emily Cole, or what did you know about her before Beth reached out?

[00:04:39] Kelsey Lue: I actually knew nothing about Emily Cole, which was surprising to me because, in college, I actually took an art history course that covered Thomas Cole and the Hudson Valley River School, and Emily Cole was never mentioned in that, which was surprising to me. You know, women deserve a place in history just as much as men, and her work really stands out and is so beautiful, so I'm really grateful for the Thomas Cole Site for taking this time to put together this curation of her work and give her a voice in this space as well.

[00:05:12] Brett Barry: Do you see any parallels between how tattoos may not be seen as high art and how Emily Cole was advocating for ceramic art to be seen as high art? Is there a link through time between you and Emily in that way?

[00:05:28] Kelsey Lue: I absolutely feel that way so strongly. I feel that there's a lot of camaraderie between her and I and the parallels of time. I think not only were art forms being seen as less than ceramics and tattooing in the past—it's growing now, and there's more space for both of these, but definitely through time people have struggled with these art forms. Even now in some spaces, tattooing is not seen as fine art. It's not seen as an art form at all, but luckily I live in a nice little bubble where the people that I have the privilege of working with do appreciate my work and do see it as art...

[00:06:06] Brett Barry: So tell me a little bit about tattoos and what is popular. I assume that there's trends. What are you seeing lately? How has that changed, and maybe how does this event fit into that?

[00:06:18] Kelsey Lue: Yeah, absolutely, there are niches within the tattoo community. There is a big movement in tattooing, becoming much more of a collaborative effort between client and tattoo artist. I think in the past there was this immense pressure for people to come into a tattoo shop, pick something off the wall, and get it as is, and there was really not much room for collaboration between an artist and a client, but I think now, in trends of tattooing, it's less of a trend and more of just people having a voice in the tattoo process, and I think that really comes through, especially with my work. 80% of what I do is custom work, and it's a lot of back and forth with the client a lot of time before the appointment starts, moving a stencil around, lots of freedom for people to make choices for their own bodies...

[00:07:13] Brett Barry: Do you find that more of your clients are female?

[00:07:15] Kelsey Lue: I would say that 70% of my clients are female. I think it has a lot to do with my subject matter even prior to this collab. 80% of what I tattoo is flowers, and I'm not saying that men don't get flowers, but the majority of my clients are women, and I think that my feminine energy and touch kind of draws that in.

[00:07:42] Brett Barry: How did you decide which of Emily's designs to adapt into a tattoo for today's event, and what is that process like? How do you take something like that and make that adaptation?

[00:07:54] Kelsey Lue: Like I said, I was able to walk through the Thomas Cole Site and take some photos on my own of some of her objects, some of her watercolor paintings, and I really resonated with those that I could see in person and see with my own eyes, and I sat with them for about a month, and I kept them very similar to her original designs because, one, I wanted to honor her in that way, but two, we have very similar styles, and her botanical illustrations are just so beautiful as is, and that feminine delicacy that reads through is, like, very similar to what I already draw on my own in tattoo, so it was a very easy transition to take her work and make it into my own.

[00:08:41] Brett Barry: Emily Cole's 19th-century watercolor of a thistle was the basis for a tattoo design that attracted Jaime Pedersen to the shop.

[00:08:49] Jaime Pedersen: Hi, my name is Jaime Pedersen, and I'm here to get a tattoo from Kelsey, so I've known about the tattoo shop for a while, and I've been wanting to get a tattoo, so I saw the event that's happening today on Instagram.

[00:09:03] Brett Barry: Is it appropriate to ask how many tattoos you have already?

[00:09:07] Jaime Pedersen: Yeah, just three. Oh wait, no, four. This one that we're adding to, yeah.

[00:09:12] Brett Barry: What do you know about Emily Cole?

[00:09:14] Jaime Pedersen: Nothing.

[00:09:15] Brett Barry: Okay.

[00:09:17] Jaime Pedersen: And local... 19th century—that's about as far as my knowledge goes, though.

[00:09:24] Brett Barry: Lucky for us, Emily Cole experts are within a mile of Hummingbird, just up the road at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, so as Jaime settles in for her thistle tattoo...

[00:09:36] Kelsey Lue: Alright, are you ready?

[00:09:37] Jaime Pedersen: Yep.

[00:09:37] Kelsey Lue: I'm gonna start with just a little line, just so you can feel the spot.

[00:09:40] Brett Barry: We'll take a quick break, and then it's off to Emily Cole's house with associate curator Amanda Malmstrom.

[00:09:49] Campbell Brown: This episode is brought to you by Briars & Brambles Books, the go-to independent book and gift store in the Catskills, located in Windham, New York, right next to the pharmacy, just steps away from the Windham Path, open daily! For more information, visit briarsandbramblesbooks.com or call (518) 750-8599; and by Hanford Mills Museum. Explore the power of the past and learn about the ingenuity of the historic milling industry. Watch the waterwheel bring a working sawmill to life! Bring a picnic to enjoy by the millpond. For more information about scheduling a tour or about their 2025 events, visit hanfordmills.org.

[00:10:33] Brett Barry: Just a mile from Hummingbird Tattoo in Catskill, we joined associate curator Amanda Malmstrom at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, where Emily Cole's art is on exhibit, including the very watercolor that inspired Jaime Pedersen's tattoo.

[00:10:51] Amanda Malmstrom: Yes, I am Amanda Malmstrom. I am an associate curator here at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York, in the curatorial department, working on exhibitions, publications, and displays here at the historic site and museum.

[00:11:07] Brett Barry: Could you refresh all of our memories on the importance of Thomas Cole to the art world and also tell us about the women who inhabited this place?

[00:11:16] Amanda Malmstrom: Of course, we are the historic home of Thomas Cole, who is often cemented in our Art History 101 books as the father of the Hudson River School or the founder of American landscape painting, which we complicate and trouble here at the Thomas Cole Site, but he's an artist who really found inspiration here in the landscapes of the Hudson River Valley and Catskill Mountains, putting paintbrush to canvas and also pen to paper thinking about the industrialization he witnessed firsthand happening in the area, so we interpret him as a proto-environmentalist who used art and writing to push back against unfettered development here in the Hudson Valley.

[00:12:03] Brett Barry: And this house was actually owned by his wife or his wife's family?

[00:12:08] Amanda Malmstrom: Yes, this house was built in 1815 by the Thompson family. By the time Thomas Cole comes here for the first time in 1825, we're celebrating the 200th anniversary of that trip this year. Maria Bartow was living here who was the niece of the owner of the house. Cole is renting a cottage next door, eventually falls in love and marries Maria Bartow, and moves into the house, so this home was actually never owned by Thomas, even though the name, you know, he is our namesake. This home was always kind of run, owned, and stewarded by women, so Thomas Cole moved in here [1836]. They would go on to have four children: two sons and two daughters. Emily Cole being one of those daughters, she was the only one of their four children to really continue the legacy of her father, becoming a professional artist in her own right but being known as "Catskills china painter who sold exhibited her painted flowers on chinawares." Emily Cole was only five years old when her father passed away, but I like to imagine if they had truly been able to spend more time together that Emily and Thomas would've talked about art and would've gone on sketching trips as well together, but we do see in Emily's work the influence of her father, even though they never spent a considerable amount of time together.

[00:13:42] Brett Barry: She was five when he died, so you could say maybe some of it passed genetically, but what was her formal training?

[00:13:48] Amanda Malmstrom: Yes, she was a student at the National Academy of Design, which was actually co-founded by her father in New York City, so even though, yes, she was only five years old when her father passed away, you know, she seems to have had some sort of support, kind of indirectly through her father. She would've also grown up surrounded by her father's paintings in the house in the new studio. Knowing that your father was an artist perhaps encouraged this career, but also artists like Frederic Church, who was Thomas Cole's student, mentored Emily Cole. We have a letter that he writes to her after she expresses that she's not very satisfied with her artistic production in art school at this point, and Frederic Church said he was glad to hear it because that means she knows exactly where her defects are and she can improve, so she had mentorship from the most famous artist in her time [Frederic Church], so seems to have had this network of support through these Hudson River School circles.

[00:14:57] Brett Barry: You know, I'm curious whether—I don't want this to come off as a nasty question. Would we know about Emily Cole if there were no dad that was this huge superstar in the art world?

[00:15:10] Amanda Malmstrom: You know what? I think that's such an important question. Emily Cole was not a leader of the china painting movement. As you know, Thomas Cole was a leader of the landscape painting movement tradition, but I still think she—her work—has so much to tell us about the ways in which women were able and not able to access certain artistic networks and certain networks of schooling, but definitely in her time Emily Cole was well-known in this community as kind of the premier china painter. She would've been well-known in New York City circles of ceramics, so I'm just grateful that her work and the fact that we have her work allows us to talk about just another chapter in our history and kind of this network of women who maybe weren't, well, well-known household names in a world that didn't see women as professional artists. By 1893, there were over 25,000 women in the United States who were practicing china painters.

[00:16:17] Brett Barry: Was the china sold as art pieces or as functional dinnerware?

[00:16:22] Amanda Malmstrom: Both. It kind of straddles both of those. It would've been probably the nice china that you would have at your home that you would display in your cabinets. Maybe you would bring it out for your most esteemed guests. This work is fine art, and that's really true to the historic story as well. Emily Cole was a founding member of the New York Society of Ceramic Arts in 1892, and this was a group of mostly women who advocated that ceramic artworks—china painting—are fine art and really should be displayed in museums and galleries as fine art. You know, you still go to museum galleries today, and the china and the ceramics are in hallways, and these gold-framed oil paintings get their due on the center of these gallery walls, but we really wanna kind of complicate that and really present these ceramic installations by Emily Cole, but also our seven or eight contemporary artists, as fine art and as art worthy of contemplation and spending time with.

[00:17:35] Brett Barry: Was china painting a niche that women had at that time that was more accessible than other forms of art?

[00:17:42] Amanda Malmstrom: Definitely, yes, it was. China painting was seen as appropriately feminine because it allowed for these women artists to create objects that could be displayed in the home. They had this, like, domestic association with them, but it still acquired a lot of skill and knowledge of these kinds of chemical processes that ceramic firing entails, but definitely a more accessible niche in the art world.

[00:18:11] Brett Barry: Do you know how Emily Cole's work was received during her lifetime?

[00:18:16] Amanda Malmstrom: Yes, we do—through some archival research, we have exhibition reviews of her work, which is fantastic, but critics have called her work highly prized and much sought after. They've kind of talked about her flowers as being really successful in that they're very naturalistic, and one critic said that her flowers, even though cemented on porcelain, seemed to live and breathe the soft air, which I feel like is a lovely description of her work and shows that she's really painting these flowers from direct observation, and I feel like that's really taking a page out of her—her father's artistic mantra of going out into nature, looking with your eyes, sketching, and really trying to communicate some sort of truth to what nature presents to us.

[00:19:13] Brett Barry: Could you describe in your own words how you feel Emily depicted the flowers? What was her style [if there], if it was unique in some way?

[00:19:23] Amanda Malmstrom: Totally, I think her work is definitely unique to her own hand—her own worlds that surrounded her being—living here at the home of her father and being surrounded by the Catskill Mountains—definitely inspired by the Hudson River School style of artwork. Her work is very naturalistic. Her flower stems might bend in the wind. There's a petal missing, perhaps from a rainstorm that passes through. She doesn't always paint the flowers in their, quote, ideal states. Perhaps they're turning away from the viewer. Perhaps they are just a bud and actually haven't bloomed yet, so she really seems to be interested in cycles of life [cycles of floral bloom], and she really seems to follow these ideas of John Ruskin, who was so influential to the Hudson River School painters, 19th-century artists who really said that young artists need to sketch from nature and go outside. Her flowers, even though beautiful and enticing. They're not perfect, and so she really seems to sketch what she truly saw outside. They seem to be these floral portraits that capture the unique qualities of a single bloom, whether that be like a tear on a pedal or a missing leaf or a bud or even a stem that has—the bloom has fallen, really seems to be illustrating not an ideal bloom on every plate.

[00:21:03] Brett Barry: Did she have her own family, and how long did she live in this house?

[00:21:08] Amanda Malmstrom: She was a lifelong resident here at what was known historically as Cedar Grove. She never married, never had kids, but seemed to be a really integral member of her immediate family who lived here. She eventually became the owner of the home and lived here with her siblings and her nieces and nephews, which we know she gave kind of informal china painting lessons to, so she was living here when she passed away at 70 years old in 1913.

[00:21:41] Brett Barry: Pretty good.

[00:21:42] Amanda Malmstrom: Yeah.

[00:21:42] Brett Barry: 70 for that time.

[00:21:43] Amanda Malmstrom: And she was painting artwork up until, you know, at least 1910, so she really had many decades being active as a flower painter and china painter.

[00:21:56] Brett Barry: Okay, so Amanda, if you were to get one of these tattoos, which flower would it be?

[00:22:02] Amanda Malmstrom: It would definitely be the peonies. When I first came here to the Cole Site in June of 2018, the peonies were in full bloom—shortly after I arrived, I learned about Emily Cole, and I just seemed to have this connection to this bloom that brought me to Emily Cole and her stories.

[00:22:21] Brett Barry: You know Emily Cole better than most people. Do you think she would sign up for a tattoo?

[00:22:28] Amanda Malmstrom: You know, I like to think that she would. You know, she really seemed to have this deep affinity and love of flowers. Yeah, I like to think that she would. I don't know which bloom was her favorite, but I like to think about, you know, maybe if she was a member of the 21st century, she would be signing up and getting in line.

[00:22:49] Brett Barry: Back at Hummingbird, where Kelsey was wrapping up that thistle tattoo, I asked her the same question: do you think that Emily Cole would get a tattoo if she were here today?

[00:22:59] Kelsey Lue: I would like to think so. I think that she seemed to be a very outgoing and sort of paving-the-way kind of person, so I think she would've definitely come in and gotten one of these tattoos for sure.

[00:23:15] Brett Barry: And if you'd like an Emily Cole-inspired tattoo, Kelsey's got plenty of designs ready to go. Emily Cole's originals are on exhibit through November 2nd. Thomas Cole National Historic Site and Hummingbird Tattoo are linked in the show notes. Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast is a production of Silver Hollow Audio. Production intern and recordist for this episode: Izzy Schuyler. Transcription by Jerome Kazlauskas. Announcements by Campbell Brown. Until next time, follow us on Instagram [@kaatscast] and sign up for our newsletter at kaatscast.com. Don't forget to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts so more listeners can find us. I'm Brett Barry. Thanks for listening.

[00:24:04] Campbell Brown: Kaatscast is sponsored by The Mountain Eagle, covering Delaware, Greene, and Schoharie counties, including brands for local regions like The Windham Weekly, Schoharie News, and Catskills Chronicle. For more information, call (518) 763-6854 or email mountaineaglenews@gmail.com. Join us as a monthly member listener or make a one-time contribution at kaatscast.com/support. Thank you!