About the Artist

Emily Flanagan grew up in a town of 600 people in the far north of North Dakota — close enough to the Canadian border that the winters were long and the skies were endless. She was convinced she'd be the first one to leave. When she and her husband moved to the big city — Fargo — she made him promise it was only for six months. Then life happened. They lost his mother not long after they were married, and in that grief came a clarity she didn't expect: that roots matter, that family is everything, and that home is worth staying for. Thirty years later, she's still here, and she wouldn't change a thing.

For years Emily worked as a marketing consultant for financial institutions across the United States — a career she genuinely loved and excelled at. Eventually, the pace caught up with her and she was left with the feeling that there was “something more” out there for her. She retired without a clear picture of what came next. Then Covid happened, the world went quiet, and the stillness she'd never had time for suddenly had nowhere to hide. One afternoon, she picked up a paintbrush. No training, no plan, no expectation. Something clicked. What started as a quiet experiment became an obsession, and the rest, as she'll tell you, is history.

She thinks about art like music. Almost anyone can sing a song that's already written. But someone had to imagine it first — write the words, find the melody, make it move people. That's where true artistry lives. That's what she's chasing. She's the first to say she has a long way to go technically, and that excites her more than anything. She feels like she's just getting started.

Her work is fed by a deep love of storytelling and travel — internationally and across the United States — and by the belief that you have to get out and live the world to have anything worth painting.

When she's not in the studio, Emily is with her family — three boys who have grown into men she genuinely admires, each carving out lives full of purpose, love, and promise. Watching them thrive is its own kind of art. She also volunteers as a Hospice companion, a Make-A-Wish volunteer, and a baby cuddler in the NICU. She considers herself, without hesitation, the luckiest girl in the world.