[3] In 1956, she was a charter member of the Orleans Gallery, located at 527 Royal Street, which was the city's first collective artist-run and operated contemporary art space.

From 1951 to 1952 she is enrolled at the New York Sculpture Center, first working in clay and pewter along with classmates Dorothy Dehner and Louise Nevelson.

Settling back into New Orleans in 1953, she turned her French Quarter apartment into a fully equipped metal working studio.

Twenty foot bronze aquamobiles were commissioned in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, New York, and smaller water-propelled works were exhibited in museums throughout the South.

During this period, the evolution of Emery's practice expanded to include magnets and Aquamobiles, which were inspired while she washed a spoon doing the dishes.

From 1969 to 1970, she taught at Tulane University School of Architecture, and received private instruction in the engineering department's water lab and machine shop.

[8] Emery organized the 1976 International Sculpture Conference in New Orleans, which included lectures by Isamu Noguchi, Yaacov Agam, Hilton Kramer, Beverly Pepper, Irving Sandler, Seymour Lipton and George Sugarman.

[11] In 2010, thieves broke into Emery's studio, and "...stole some tools, copper pipe, and a huge 13-segment sculpture called the Morrison Aquamobile."