Today we’d like to introduce you to Emery Blackburn.
Hi Emery, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up as an artist myself, and well encouraged by my family and those around me. As a young tomboyish kid with a hippie grandmother and a religious family, I seemed to always be between worlds. From my father, I got my bite, my drive to succeed and to prove myself in impossible situations. Most especially, along with the strengths, I got the even stronger motivator to never be like the parts of him that I had to fight against, or defend others from. From my grandmother, I got my sparkle. She was an artist herself, and like a trickster fae that was always laughing, along with her wild-woman sister Beth. They showed me what community might look like, even if I didn’t fully feel like it was completely my community. They hosted dinners, bonfires, fire dancing, music nights, and made silly films with their friends. They dressed up, blew bubbles, and just laughed. They never seemed to stop playing, and I don’t remember seeing that in the other adults I was around who were in the more conservative circles of my immediate family.
Ever since I was little, I always felt like there was this thing that was just out of reach that was pulling me towards it. Growing up in religion, for a long time, I thought it was God. I was fervent, and went so far as to travel on missions out of high school for a year, striving to feel that sense of fulfillment I felt I was drawn to. But despite still considering myself a spiritual person, life in religion was hard, and lacked connection for me, and grounding in the real world. I would experience pockets of that feeling I was searching for in intense euphoric moments, but it would never hold in the day to day. I struggled, feeling heavily isolated, like I was failing at life, and like there was still this thing that was pulling me forward just out of reach. When I returned from my travels as a missionary and attended an art college to study animation, I struggled there as well, once again straddling two worlds. I had decided to step away from the church, and been thrust into an extremely liberal environment that contrasted the conservative bubble I grew up in. I began exploring new ways of thinking of myself, playing with the idea of being something other than a cis straight woman, and doing the work to overcome the shame the religion had instilled in me.
Even still, I dropped out and was unable to graduate. That was a hard call, to admit to my mother, who I still felt mixed feeling for, that I was so depressed, I could hardly get out of bed. It was defeating, feeling like any attempts I made to find myself and gain independence and make it in the world would come crashing down to depending on the people I was trying to separate myself from. From there, returning home and wrestling with new ideas of myself, but being confined to the support of my conservative family, I burnt myself out of my passion for art, and didn’t return to it for another five years. I remember the confusion on my father’s face when I told him I couldn’t do anymore art for his company. He had a way of only hearing what he wanted to hear.
Through that time, I still felt that mysterious call forward, but now I began to look to more volatile things, fully leaving behind my christian morals. I experimented in many different ways, dipping into risky behaviors and finding myself in toxic dynamics, until eventually I became locked in with a mentally abusive partner who displayed heavy signs of narcissism. It wasn’t until things began escalating publicly that i finally was able to convince myself to leave, but by that time, I was pregnant, and chose to follow through with the pregnancy. Escaping that relationship put me in one of the lowest places in my life. I wrestled with watching mutual friends’ apathy towards a situation that almost completely destroyed me. Eventually, I split from that group all together, and found myself alone again, only keeping occasional contact with one or two people.
By the time I had gotten full custody of my son Milo after he had been born, and had established some sort of attempt at independence once again, I was beginning to dare to dip into my art, and had found myself in my first queer relationship with a nonbinary individual. While the relationship eventually took an unhealthy turn, and I found myself struggling with a manipulative partner once again, (albeit with much more experience than before), it was also the first relationship where I really initially felt seen and believed in. The relationship allowed me to begin exploring gender for myself, presenting more masc, considering hormones. I tried out a few names, and landed on they/them pronouns, eventually settling into a non-bianary/masc/demi-boy identity. Slowly, my art was returning, as was my perspective that the world might be a little better, and that there might be other people who believe that also. I returned the the Oregon Country Fair for the first time in years and felt that familiar call to create something. It wasn’t God, it wasn’t the gaping wounds that led me into toxic relationships, it was real, creative, expressive, and connected community. That was the first whisper of the Outer Realms.
The idea of building something expansive and art driven grew over time, initially as a desire to build a consignment shop in Salem Oregon that was artist focused, just like my grandmother had been a part of. As I separated from this last difficult relationship and moved to a healthier space, I found myself excited and partnering with artists who had similar goals and visions to create art driven community. Eventually, they would all fall away for one reason or another. Finally, I met Eliza, and she and I began building the first Outer Realms Art Markets, renting out space out of an empty warehouse and turning in into a magical atmospheric experience. I got my big fancy red coat and boots, and the rest is history.
A year and a half later, the Outer Realms has grown into a multi-annual market with a budding online community of artists. While Eliza is no longer with me in building this vision, and has moved on to finish schooling, I’ve gathered many other friends along the way who share similar passion for creative community, and I couldn’t have begun this journey without her.
On top of the creative community through the Outer Realms, I began selling my own art and got deep into learning print making. The creative friends I found through diving back into my art changed my life, and for the first time in years, I have my people; not some fleeting euphoric high I was chasing, but real and deep connections that ground me. With some of those artists, I now share a studio in downtown Salem, which has helped me grow my own art career even further.
I also ended up starting a Queer and Alternative family group, as I found I still lacked community as a single queer parent. It was slow growing, but through the group I found my current roommate, and my son Milo now gets to enjoy two other psudo-siblings in our little alternative family.
I’m proud of the connections and stability I’ve built in my life, and for the first time maybe ever, I enjoy my life, and I enjoy being me.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has never been a smooth road, although it might look that way now because of everything that I’ve built for myself. Every step has been a deliberate march forward.
I struggled with the challenging emotions that came with a critical and emotionally unsafe household. It was quite a bit of push and pull, of striving for independence, but needing support from the people that were ultimately hurting me, and the shame of failing one more time to make it in the world in the shadow of a financially successful conservative father. It felt like every time I needed to ask for support, it was like coming back to a chain leash and reinforcing the belief that there was nothing better out there.
It took me years to separate what success might look like as an artist, the only measure of tangible success being conservative men who looked down on anyone different from them or who might believe in a more generous world. I had to build that model from scratch. What did it mean to be successful relationally? How did I feel about my art? What did I want to create and why? How do I make it in the world and not compromise my ideals?
On top of that, being a single parent, newly queer, still unraveling my identity and trying to explore the things I wanted in my life. I felt so selfish, like I was robbing Milo of the things he needed by doing things for myself, but I knew that the more I was able to figure out what fulfilled me, the better a parent I would be. I hated seeing how miserable my mother had been for giving up her passions, and I never wanted Milo to experience me like that. I know now, I was right, but it was hard when everyone I knew was looking at me sideways.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am an artist myself as well as a market coordinator. I mostly create lino cuts and digital art of animals with weapons and a medieval flare, and make patches and upcycle clothing. Much of my art is based in the power struggles of an emotionally volatile household, and the wounds I’ve carried into my adult life from that. But I can’t talk about my art without also pairing it with the Outer Realms. They work in tandem, because I felt I was so lacking in creative community, that I needed to build it. I knew that there were artists in Salem, but I also knew that there didn’t seem to be as many outlets for them, and it is already hard to succeed as an artist.
I grew up going to the Oregon Country Fair and I loved the artisanal Community oriented vibe that seemed to only be found in these magical places, so I wanted to bring that to Salem.
It’s been really cool to see people come forward and want to be a part of this. We have had so many wonderful artists and vendors and even some volunteers come forward to be a part of this inclusive, whimsical and magical space, and I think people really can feel that it is bringing forward something Salem is lacking.
The Outer Realms is also deeply about taking care of the artists that come to vend at the events. It’s important to me, to be able to balance covering costs for the events, making vendor spaces more affordable, and of course making the event successful so that the artists can do well. To be honest, I don’t personally take away much from the events yet. This is only my second year, and I’m just getting to the point where I have covered and bought a lot of the larger equipment that I might need for the future. But that’s okay, I would rather have everyone else succeed before I start making things profitable for myself. And that’s why it works so well for me to have both my own art and the Outer Realms that I lean into. That way I’m not taxing one or the other to the point where it hurts the vendors or hurts my own creative process.
I feel like I have partly succeeded, but as for building a creative Community there’s so much work to do. The Outer Realms is kind of a driving platform for artists to be able to make a living and my hope is to create more opportunities for artists. It’s not the only art market out there, but it is the only fantasy/magical market in Salem. What am I known for? I keep being dubbed the bard, although I’m not as musical as I could be. I usually dress up in a grand red coat for my markets and shoot bubbles everywhere. I hope that is the image that sticks with people when they think of me.
I’ve been told multiple times I’m very ambitious. I would have to agree with that. The Outer Realms is just the beginning.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Salem? I grew up hating it, I never felt like I belonged anywhere here although there were pockets of interest such as gov cup and other niche places that seems to have character and history. I loved the alleyways and those magical liminal spaces, but I hated how conservative and cut and dry and bureaucratic it felt here. I feel like Salem struggles with building solid tangible feeling community, although it seems to be getting better.
A lot of that also was not understanding myself and what I was actually looking for.
I feel like Salem is like a massive sleeping giant, but we as artists and storytellers have the potential to make the stone move, and breathe life and lore into the place.
Now, I can see the glittering gems in the cracks of the city. My hope is to make them more visible, and to connect the pockets of scattered artists and creators to change the culture here to something that feels playful, creative, and alive.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dragonwolfcollective.com
- Instagram: @the.outerrealms
- Facebook: The Outer Realms
