HEART/HANDS - ARTFIELDS, LAKE CITY, SC (2019)

QUICK FACTS

• Medium: Papercrete, acrylic, latex (63 sculptural tiles)

• Location: Downtown Lake City, SC — beside Pizza Roma and across from TRAX Visual Art Center

• Program: Submitted through ArtFields’ public art installation proposal process, a track separate from the main competition to expand outdoor work

• Recognition: 2nd Place, SC Festival of Flowers Juried Show (2022)

For ArtFields 2019, Emily created Heart/Hands, a 9 x 7 ft installation consisting of 63 handmade papercrete tiles. The work served as a memorial to her father, who passed away suddenly at age 63. The material itself carried personal and communal resonance: shredded estate documents and discarded newspapers were embedded into the papercrete mix, connecting grief, memory, and care in a physical form. Scaled to reflect the size of an adult human heart—often compared to two fists—the work also connected personal loss to broader concerns of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular health.

IMPACT

• Professional Recognition: Honored with a 2nd Place award at the Greenwood Festival of Flowers Juried Show.

• Material Innovation: Advanced experimentation with papercrete in large-scale installation, using a bespoke temporary mounting method.

• Arts in Public Health: Functioned as an early arts-in-health work, linking grief, anatomy, and chronic illness awareness by drawing attention to the connection between type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular health.