Emily King is King! ...music for her journey: Cristian Amigo

Emily King is King! ...music for her journey: Cristian Amigo

Dear CalArts Community:

I am writing to let you know that I am grief-stricken by the death of BFA4 Art student Emily King (Menghan Zhuang). She was one of my forever favorite students and took many sound and music classes with me. We talked together a lot.

Emily was creatively a six-year girl in the body of a young woman. Her head was always in a bouncy art cloud and she could have easily walked off a cliff while listening to birds. 🙂 But she could already see underneath the surface of things. Emily also had the essential X factor required of visionary artists. And so much curiosity! Too much sometimes.

I hope that what she created so far is somehow turned into a public experience of her work as she might have already reached a significant level of artistic achievement while at CalArts. Her vision was definitely up there in the high notes. Emily wanted to communicate with everyone and everything. She could render joy and be true. Complexity and a central symbol joined. Who can do that?

I cannot wrap my head around what happened to her. I cannot even think it. But as my student, she was a beautiful and gifted young person who I mentored and believed in. I still believe in her. A symbolic daughter is gone. A real artist has left this plane. Only grief and memory remain.

I will miss her terribly. I will never forget her. Curious dark eyes underneath huge glasses like you were over an upside down microscope with Emily looking up at you. She was funny for real like a cartoon. The world is diminished and deprived by her absence.

-Cristian Amigo

Emily King is King!