Millie (Emily) Marie Cardenas is a true polymath, continuously exploring and learning as many media as possible as well as she can, and applying those skills in a multidisciplinary art style. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cardenas was brought up in a large traditional Irish and Polish Catholic household. The arts have been with her since birth, learning how to draw from her uncle Joey before she could write or even walk.  She continued into the world of education at Catholic grade school, where the arts were often celebrated, and after school and during summers spent large amounts of time learning crafts and sewing from her grandmother.  Moving on to Pittsburgh Carrick High School, which, oddly enough, had a strong arts program and an association with external after-school art programming at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, she was able to learn ceramics, metalsmithing, and digital and film photography.

She uses all the tools in her belt to their fullest potential, exploring what she can do with them, even if it’s unconventional. Cardenas is deeply inspired by connection and community, aiming to center on building community in any way possible. She has done this since high school and cultivated a strong community at her local library, becoming the first winner of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Teen Community Advocate award in March 2015 after volunteering hundreds of hours one summer. She dreamed of doing what her local librarians were doing for her and hoped to develop some kind of community programming she could lead one day. 

Having moved on to pursue further education at Point Park University, Cardenas progressed in a Public Relations and Advertising program. Here she learned some graphic design, studio photography, and comedy writing. Though she struggled and was unsure of the field, she persisted because it was a practical use of her art skills, or so people told her. She participated in a single group juried photo art show with her series titled I’m Just Tired, depicting how higher education was making her feel. She felt out of place at the show, feeling more like an artist than a photographer.  She dropped out in her fourth year following the death of her father and, during the pandemic, moved to Baltimore, MD, on her own to challenge herself and explore. 

During this time, she started to develop her style and explored her strong emotions and loneliness through oil pastels, tempera paint sticks, and a lot of self-portraits. Briefly, working in advertising as a social media manager, art was calling her, and she slowly pursued art, dabbling in all the ways she could: offering commissions, making stickers, selling at some art markets, trying out a handful of teaching opportunities. But none of it was making art how she felt called to. So she started to create for herself and explore what she feels when she feels it. She creates truly captivating paintings with texture and 3D elements that evoke the feeling of a living, breathing piece.