Emily Brooks Millar / A Frog So Small
It’s a Wednesday morning in Glasgow. I wipe away the remnants of yesterday’s work to reveal the familiar scars of my desk; knife marks, acrylic stains and dents that have slowly become part of the furniture. This morning feels different though. I think I’ve finally worked out what A Frog So Small looks like.
The beginning of this series arrived in a brown paper parcel. A few months ago, I made a new friend named Lisa. She sent me a childhood favorite: A Dog So Small by Philippa Pearce. We share a love of literature, small animals and stories with a murmuring undertone. It wasn't a research recommendation or an exhibition reference. It was simply a thoughtful gift that arrived at exactly the right moment. I've never been very good at forcing ideas. Most of my work grows out of ordinary things - a conversation, child-like moments, a sentence that refuses to leave my head. The book sat in my studio for weeks before I realised it wasn't just something to read. It had quietly become the beginning of a new body of work.
For a while I wasn't sure what form the work should take. I tried painting first, but it felt too heavy. Digital illustration felt too light, and clinical. Wax drawings somehow ended up looking like something printed on an old biscuit tin - not in the charming way I'd imagined.
Eventually I began printing onto organic cotton. The softness of the fabric felt closer to the experience I wanted to create. It carries the image differently to paper or wood, warmer somehow, and more in keeping with the feeling of opening a well-loved children's story.
This is the first time I've worked with fabric in this way, and it has quietly changed how I think about making images.
The Frog had already been living in my work for some time. He first appeared in my I'm a Perfect 10 series, representing forgiveness. Not as someone who has all the answers, but as a character trying his best to embody them. He felt like the natural companion for Ben Blewitt's journey through A Dog So Small; hopeful, slightly naïve, and willing to believe that small things can carry enormous meaning.
The three editions in A Frog So Small follow that feeling. They aren't illustrations of the
novel so much as conversations with it, borrowing its warmth and quiet sense of wonder.
Looking back, it's strange to think that the whole project began with an unexpected parcel through the letterbox. Some gifts ask very little of you. Others quietly change the direction of your work. A gift is a gift, and should be treated as so.
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