Not only did Emma supply the deft strokes for the club’s Facebook page, she also set to work on a huge canvas acknowledging club and country which she’s so generously offered to auction for charity.
“I’m about a quarter of the way through it now, and I’ve been working on it for the past two days,” Emma says of her latest project.
Proceeds from the sale of the piece will go to The Fred Hollows Foundation. Since 1992, The Foundation has restored sight to well over a million people.
Fred Hollows had a strong connection with Indigenous Australians, travelling to over 465 remote Indigenous communities and establishing the first Aboriginal controlled medical service, which still exists today.
Though she’d never boasted any formal training, Emma has long felt the profound urge to paint - a passion for the palette she and her brother, the former Hawthorn footballer Carl Peterson, shares with their ancestors of Meekathara - the “place of little water” in the mid-west region of Western Australia.
“My aunty was a painter and my great grandfather too, but I don’t paint traditionally because I wasn’t taught the traditional way... so I adapt,” Emma says.
“I enjoy painting as a hobby because I’ve found that when I force myself to paint I can’t paint as well. I often come home from work and paint until one in the morning because I find the process so relaxing... and I often look back at a painting and say ‘How did I do that?’”
Emma MacNeill with her Carlton inspired piece which will be auctioned for charity.
It’s worth noting that Emma has only been painting since last June. Right now she works with acrylics, but down the track seeks to explore different oil bases and discover new textures.
Little wonder she considers this latest offering so ambitious.
“I remember completing a little drawing at high school, but nothing on this scale,” Emma says.
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The incomplete piece as of Thursday, 17 May.
“I’ve been painting since last June and my first painting was for Mitch. I also painted Mitch’s footy boots as a way of saying I support him and Eddie Betts loved the design so much that I painted his boots too.”
From Kununurra near the Kimberleys to Carlton, Victoria... Emma MacNeill is quite literally making her mark.
If you'd like to place a bid on this remarkable piece of artwork, click here. Auction ends on Thursday, 24 May.
