Emma Jeffryes is one of Cornwall’s best-known contemporary artists. Her loose and yet vivacious, bright and often joyful paintings are so popular that, for many people, they define the essence of their habitual subject- St Ives. But if Emma’s work is familiar, there is one fact about her that is not widely known. And it might just go a long way to explaining her extraordinary success.

“On my 18th birthday, I ran the London Marathon,” reveals Emma. “I was the youngest female runner for the event. “I’ve always enjoyed running, though it’s not a part of my life now.” We’re talking in the living room of Emma’s Carbis Bay home. Emma is natural, ingenious and articulate - but modest and down-to-earth, too. She lives just a half a mile from the turquoise waters of St Ives Bay with her husband former Porthmeor Cafe chef turned sports Physiotherapist Ben Donaldson, and their children, Sunny, 11, and Asa, 9.

The arrival home from football training of Liverpool fan Asa prompts me to ask if sport has been part of Emma’s life. “At school, I was only good at one subject- art,” says Emma, “but I was quite sporty. I played in the lacrosse team and used to do a lot of running.”

Born and raised in Hertfordshire, Emma went on to study at Watford College of Art, Middlesex University (where she graduated with a BA in printed textiles) and the Royal College of Art, where she completed an MA in printed textiles. For much of her time as a student, she pursued her love of running. “It wasn’t always easy to find the time, but I kept at it,” she says.

The more we speak, the more it seems that there is a connection between Emma’s love of sport and the outdoors, and her success as an artist. To run well takes discipline and dedication; to be the youngest female competitor in the London marathon in 1985, on one’s 18th birthday, is no mean feat. And Emma’s career, I soon discover, took off less like a marathon runner and more as a sprinter bursts from her running blocks.

“I was very fortunate in my mid-twenties,” explains Emma. “I started working for an international design agency called Artisan while I was still at the RCA. After finishing my MA I lived in London and worked as a freelance textile designer, for Artisan and others. I was lucky to be taken on by Monkwell, a leading fabric business, when I was at the RCA.”

Emma’s break with Monkwell was remarkable for one so young. She was asked, along with two other RCA students to submit designs for a Monkwell collection; Emma’s design sold the best- and sold out. Monkwell then commissioned her to design an entire collection, called Postcards, which was launched in London in Chelsea Design Week 1997.

Emma was up and running, but as a textile designer, rather than an artist. She embraced the opportunities that came her way, with a refreshingly astute eye on the need to be commercial: “Some people left college thinking they could do their own thing,” she told Joanna Watt in an interview with Perspectives on Architecture magazine, in March 1997, “but that’s not practical. What you want to do and what you can do are two different things.”

But Emma found time to do her own thing. She spent less time running, and spent more time painting. She first visited St Ives in her last year at the RCA, and ever since would return often to the town, to wander its cobbled alleyways, take in the ambience of the place, and paint. Eventually she had created a collection of 12 paintings of St Ives, which she was encouraged to show to the New Craftsman Gallery, one of the town’s most historic galleries. “Again, I was really lucky,” says Emma, “All the paintings sold quickly, and I thought, ‘this is something I could do for a living’.”

And so, in late 1997, Emma took the plunge, moving from London to St Ives. For a while, she continued working as a freelance textile designer, but soon enough, was doing well enough with her paintings to opt to become a full-time artist. It’s easy to see why. Painting with acrylics, on board or paper, Emma’s work has echoes of the great French Fauvist painter Raoul Dufy, not to mention Matisse and, closer to home, Mary Fedden. Her style is free and fluid, and yet intimate, as if her affection for St Ives- and Cornwall- cannot help but come through.

Emma makes no bones about it: she adores the place she calls home. “I’m as passionate about St Ives now as I was when I first came here from London to paint. I love the bustle of the town, I love watching the fishermen going to sea from the harbour, I love the ancient traditions like Feast Day. It’s a wonderful place to be, to paint, and to bring up children.”

More recently, Emma has expanded her horizons. Having been represented in Cornwall for many years by The New Craftsman- with whom she has a show of new paintings starting on April 12, entitled From The Lighthouse- she has enjoyed visiting Dartmouth, in Devon, and painting its port, thanks to representation by Ainscough Gallery. “I’ve made two trips to Dartmouth, and both times had wonderful weather,” says Emma. “It’s a great place. I felt very happy and at ease, watching people coming and going in their boats.”

The sea, indeed is crucial, looming large in almost every one of Emma’s paintings. “I love the sea, and feel very drawn to it,” she says. No surprise, also, that she has competed in the St Ives biathlon, and was once the first local female swimmer home.

Emma still swims in the sea- when the weather is right- but running has been replaced by cycling. Last summer she and Ben competed in the 100km Land’s End Sportif race, which entailed many training runs along the coast road between St Ives and Sennen. “It was fantastic- the scenery is so stunning and inspirational,” says Emma “We might do the race again this year.”

Meanwhile, as she gears up for her April show, at The New Craftsman, Emma reveals that she will also be taking part in a small project with The Tate St Ives Shop to mark the 21st birthday of the iconic gallery. Then she smiles, and says: “I’d better not say anymore- it’s going to be a surprise.”

What’s not a surprise is where Emma Jeffryes finds herself, midway through her career as an artist: ably maintaining the momentum of her sprinters start, and in it, moving fluently and happily, for the long run.

Alex Wade - 2014