“Habitat: Emily Noelle Lambert”
by Katherine McMahon
ARTnews, January 7, 2016
Habitat is a weekly series that visits with artists in their workspaces.
This week’s studio: Emily Noelle Lambert; Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
“How do I get started again?” “Where do I want the work to go?” “What do I want it to be?” These are a few of the questions Emily Noelle Lambert, 40, was asking in her Greenpoint studio on a recent evening in December. The artist was wrapping up the semester at Parsons (where she teaches a freshman foundation course called Integrative Studio) and was about to dive into her next body of work. Lambert said that the two six-hour courses a week and her independent studio practice feed each other. “Sometimes I try out ideas while I’m teaching and that informs my work later.”
Lambert grew up in Pittsburgh and moved to New York City in 1999 after spending a few summers interning at Jane Hammond and Mary Beth Edelson’s respective studios while in college. “Coming from Pittsburgh, there was a lot of craft, but I had not met too many purely fine artists, especially women,” she said. “It was amazing being in their beautiful studios and seeing the lives that they were making for themselves. I always wanted to study art but the big question was always, How do you survive?”
Lambert has been surviving in her Brooklyn studio since 2002, a space she got from jeweler Jane D’Arensbourg, who now works in a neighboring studio space.”It’s kind of amazing that we’ve been able to stay here so long,” Lambert said. “I’m not quite sure the reason, but I thank my landlord.” Her studio is peppered with found objects and materials for her sculptures including driftwood and old barn beams that her family in West Virginia saved for her.
Lambert is currently making ink drawings while gearing up for her next series. Her work is featured in a group show at Bannerette Gallery that opened December 20, as well as a group drawing exhibition at TSA New York, opening January 8. Below, a look around Lambert’s Greenpoint studio.