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erin murtha
erin murtha (Bedtime At Nine, Poshdolly, and The Lazy Mystic) is an interdisciplinary artist whose artwork often focuses on exploration of memory and its degradation over time as well as community, consumerism, and data. She has a love for themed anything - from restaurants to art shows to wardrobes - and often creates mini series of works tailored to specific themes. Due to her generally curious nature, she often lets the medium define the story of a piece, but tends to be drawn to textile again and again due to its malleability mimicking the effects of memory. Her work is driven by curiosity (of a subject, material, interaction) and is colorful, whimsical, and often lightly humorous. Her pieces have won awards, appeared in galleries around the region, and even found esteem in faraway lands--specifically Denmark.
Alongside being an artist, erin murtha is a doll collector, a local ‘influencer’ (in jest only), an amateur mystic, a member of an arguably real band, and full-bodied bubbly weirdo. She’s not the funny aunt yet, but last I heard, she’s still trying.erin lives in Sioux Falls, SD with her incredible husband, Sean, and her collection of Japanese dolls.
Some collections:
Kitten Nugget Tarot deck
erin designed a 78-card tarot deck. Well, she actually ended up with 82 cards thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. It's found a home in at least 9 countries and 38 states.
Want to learn more? Shoot an email over or join erin on social media.For Art Purchases start a conversation through email or on Instagram
For Commissions and Customs I don’t often entertain commissions, but if the project is right, I’m down. Open to chatting.Fun Fact My artist signature is often a cat or cat head because I once made a joke that I would try to sneak a cat into every piece of work and I thought this might be the easiest way if I wanted to truly follow through on that joke. I’ve been using a cat in my signature off-and-on since at least 2nd grade.
Textile
My textile works are predominately an exploration into memory. I create or re-create many objects from my life that I want to study in a new way for varied reasons. I.e. once a year I treat myself to little Debbie valentines cakes. What is it about the cakes that draws me in? I spend time with the packaging and meticulously recount details. I am drawn in and now have a permanent fixture to document my obsession.
Girlhood Objects
This series began in 2024 and is based on objects I either had or pined for as a teen girl. The fashion plates were at my grandparent's house and each time I visited I hoped I would get some quiet time alone to play with them. The crayons were housed in an old Planters Cheese Balls container. My aunt had to get them out of this closet where I thought you'd fall through the floor if you went inside. It was always a little exciting and terrifying.
Jello
Like so many folks, I'm absolutely intrigued by 1950s culture. Specifically, I wanted to delve deeper into the fascination with gelatin. Of the various fads and novelty crazes that have swept across America, aspics are possibly my favorite.
Hangry
This section is about food. The foods we love, the foods we hate. The foods we love to hate and hate to love. Pre-packaged for our convenience.
Cake.
Cake carries weight; the celebration, the emotions... birthdays, weddings, graduations, funerals... cakes are a part of a lot of moments in our lives. A lot of big moments. Cake Parade, an art show at Ipso Gallery in downtown Sioux Falls, paired 5 bakers with 5 artists. These pairs came together to inspire each other to create an art piece to go with an edible work of art. For this series, I played with moments in our life when we might eat cake alone, or what it might look like if we did.
The baker I was paired with was the best in the world - my mother, Brenda Murtha. Our art was eerily similar.
Installation
Sean Hartka (my husband and favorite human) and I have had the pleasure of co-creating a few live performance/installations.
Color Study was commentary on the Pantone colors of the year and a subtle hint to gender roles. This was an immersive installation complete with pink treats and blue treats for our guests. As a fun bonus I conducted a short musical social experiment to keep myself engaged. I do not have data on this.
Lucid Dreaming was a surprising and small dreamscape of a cat with big goals and even bigger adventures. When we went out to check out the space, we fell in love with this super boring room that had the most amazing cut out with a light inside and a little string to pull. Sean and I worked out one of our favorite concepts to date.
Again we fell in love with a small space and this time it was a closet. Chatroomwas a 100% independent team vision between Sean and me. We came up with the idea in the exact same moment and we knew we had to do it. Chatroom was an interactive experience hidden in a closet where we engaged in small talk and found (dis)comfort in strangers for a structured 7 minutes of small and big talk. A play off of the chat rooms of ye olden days, social media, IRL conversations, and a nod to the 7 minutes in heaven game of youth. (Haha)
Also, we brought snacks.
Digital
A play with the digital realm. This are where I am at my most playful. Rarely a day goes by that I haven't doodled SOMETHING... often on napkins, coasters, post-it notes... A lot of time I get inspiration just from my own sketches or drawlings (as I like to call them). I think not forgetting what it is like to have that childlike wonder and freedom of expression is important in my artistic process and I'll typically refine and re-work for textile pieces, which require more control.
