Emily was born in 1978 as the youngest of five to James and Carole Christensen and grew up at the foot of the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains in Orem, Utah. She graduated from the Waterford School in Sandy, Utah in 1996 and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting in 2001 from Brigham Young University. A mother of four (three lovely daughters and one much-doted-upon boy), Emily and her loving husband Gavin reside in sunny Mesa, Arizona. "I'm happiest when I'm lost in my thoughts. In my childhood home, Imagination was touted as the most precious faculty one could foster. I was raised under the influence of my dad’s 'Land a little left of reality.' It’s a wonderful place where imagination is king. Watching him translate his ideas and interpretations into paintings full of symbolic meaning, whimsy, and beauty made this action seem normal – essential even – to existence, like inhaling and exhaling. Once I recognized that burning sensation inside me was a need to decipher and a yearning to create, I began to make art on purpose. Eventually, my ideas morphed into their own symbology and visual language. I paint because I need to create, to imagine, and to make intangible and ineffable ideas and experiences touchable, viewable, and beautiful."