Spotlight on Art: The Nest

“See Deeper Into Paintings…”

The Nest by Lisa Miller | Oil on Canvas | 50 x 40 inches

The Story Behind The Art “The Nest”

This painting is rooted in nature and an experience I had as a child in the forest. When I was in 5th grade, my whole class went to camp for a week. It was an entirely new experience to embark on this 11-year-old archetypical hero’s journey of sorts with all the other kids I went to school with. We did all the usual things: fishing in streams and kumbaya by the campfire, sleeping in cabins and eating meals en mass in the mess hall. But for me I found the magic - and met myself - in solitude and in nature.

While on a nature walk in the woods, our teacher challenged us to seek out and settle into a quiet spot of our choosing, for an hour and a half. A chance to create our own place in this new world that we were exploring, so far away from the world that we had known until then. We had each been given a mimeographed science workbook that was filled with so much information and educational activities. For me it was like a treasure map, telling of all the birds and insects and forest animal and plant life that we were now immersed in and living along side. I couldn’t wait to find my spot and let my imagination go free. A structured activity immediately became an opening for my curiosity and creativity.

As I broke from the pack and began walking contemplatively on my own, I found the perfect spot - a small clearing in the forest set against the broad brown trunk of a fallen pine tree, that had grown covered in soft green moss. The ground was a carpet of pine boughs that I matted down as I sat Indian-style and nestled in. As I looked up I could see all the way through the canopy of the trees to the sky, reminding me of the layers of this new forest ecosystem I was now part of. The sunlight filtered back down in dappled dots that danced across my upturned face and over my shoulders, back into the forest depths. I was well-prepared for this by my Mother, who provisioned me with art supplies and packed everything in ziplock bags, in case of rain. So I inflated one plastic bag into a makeshift pillow, and leaned back, admiring my handiwork and settling into my newfound nest. I didn’t think about the other kids or anything else. I felt totally safe and secure in this domain of mine that I had created with my own hands and ingenuity. It was a mystical experience, where time stops and the reality of awareness fully steps in to embrace the present moment. I could have stayed there forever.

Go Deeper Into The Art “The Nest” 

I wanted to make a painting about my experience in the forest that I described above, having recognized it as being being a Signal Moment* in my life. I desired to express in my art that awareness of being connected to all that is in the natural world, and feeling safe and protected, having carved out my place in it - to be in the world and of the world at the same time a distinct “I”. And I knew I could go deeper into exploring the feelings through creating a painting, a tangible, visual expression of that experience - both to know myself better and to share the experience through my art with others - and ultimately with the person who will own my painting, who will experience the art itself through living with it in their home - thus making the experience itself eternal and infinite. 

Early in the painting process, after the underpainting, when I was laying in gestural brushstrokes, the overarching Madonna and Child imagery appeared - to my surprise and awe - as I had intended to make the painting entirely abstract. The painting is always a dance between the artist and the art itself, so I developed it further while keeping the loose freshness of how it emerged.

I'm playing here with a lot of ‘as above so below’ ideas and you can see this especially in the blue leaves agains the green. The green shows us the fresh emerging young leaves, and the blue reflects the clouds that pass across the blue sky, having come down to earth in a more tangible experience of the divine.

Throughout the painting I’m exploring the feeling of one-ness and connection to nature, as paralleled by the natural movement of an 11-year-old growing up in the world, at the beginning of the process of individuation - and how this unfolds in harmony with the cycles of life and nature.

I wanted to ground the painting with colors that you can really see and feel to convey a very earthy loamy forest floor that really anchors the visual plane and painting experience. The colors underscore that deeper sense of feeling secure and safe and protected - a feeling that touches our individual experiences - but also goes beyond that which exists in personal memory to something shared and universal. 

The stars in the sky above appeared in the painting glazing process and I liked that effect so I added more. I wanted to bring in this movement between heaven and earth, the transcendent and imminent. The stars then informed the area on the left, where the dappled sunlight shines down from the forest canopy. This evolved into five golden seeds in the earth, for me, showing life in potentia and the eternal support of nature that brings everything in the universe to full development.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey - going deeper into my painting, “The Nest”. Details about the painting and more information about my work can be found on my website, linked below. And I’d love to know what YOU see in this artwork, the ways in which it touches your imagination and if it brings up any personal experience from your life. Just hit reply and send me an email!

Let your light shine,

Lisa

Express Yourself!

Hello!

I keep thinking about the handprints that show up in the wall art of prehistoric cave paintings. And wondering what feelings or sense or desire brought that particular imagery, that particular mode of self expression, from those early humans, into being.

We know from the cave paintings what was going on outside them - their environment and experiences of daily life were chronicled on the walls of caves: animals and the hunt, sun, rain, mountains, clouds - a primitive form of symbolic language depicting things and ideas.

But the deeper question for me is - what was going on inside these ancient ancestors of ours - what was that something within them that yearned to be expressed, that caused them to make their mark in their world? What is the something - that inspires a human to draw an image of their own individual hand into the bigger story of life - as if to say, “I am here, I exist. I matter in the greater continuum.”

The handprint is a universal symbol of humanity, something we all share. And at the same time it is totally personal to the individual. Our hands are directly related to our feeling functions as humans. It is literally through touch that we interact with the world, we write or paint, we share and receive information. And figuratively, we emphasize our feelings and express ourselves with gestures. Our hands are an extension of who we are and the means by which we form, change, and bring our world into being. They are the conduit between our selves and the collective.

Central to the human experience is a desire to make our place in the world and to find out who we are in relationship to ourselves and others. Artists perhaps even more so! Our feelings tell us who we are and our hands help us express that. E.E. Cummings in his 1955 “Poet’s Advice to Young Students” writes “Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know. But not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people. But the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.”

I remember when I was in preschool, my teacher observed to my parents that “Lisa can create anything she wants to with her hands”. That brain-hand coordination, that extension of self to naturally express and create, is essential to who we are as humans and inseparable from our existence as humans. And in order to move in and out of our environment and back to ourselves, we have to know ourselves. Art is a triumph of the true self, and one of the purest ways we can access that truth.

The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead defines art as “the means by which we seek to understand ourselves and the world”. We are all creative beings and participate in a million forms of ‘art’ in many different ways - as both the creator and as the receiver. The point of life is to bring our authentic selves, our souls, into full development. When we express ourselves, when we create art and share it with others, it touches something in them too, that wants to be expressed. And together we create a world where everyone can thrive and shine.

I'll leave you with one final inspiration from James Hillman, who writes in The Soul's Code, “There is more to human life than our theories of it allow. Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular path. You may remember this ”something" as a signal moment in childhood when an urge out-of-nowhere, a fascination, a particular turn of events struck like an annunciation. This is what I must do! This is what I've got to have! This is who I am!" 

I'd love to hear from you - hit reply and share with me what that “something” is for you, and what you are doing today to Express Yourself!

Let your light shine,

 Lisa

Show Up As You Are

The Artist's Life and Finding Order in Chaos

Dear Fellow Portal Travelers!

The movement between artist and world has always fascinated me. It is said that the artist must have an essential self to return to again and again, in between the other parts of life. But there is something flawed in that model - that idea of separation between life and art. That life is what you do outside the studio, and art is what you do in the studio.

 When I think this way I can get caught up in trying to find some illusory place of order away from the chaos. That will enable me to forge this giant leap transporting me instantly from a busy life to that other magical realm of serene inspired productive art-making.

The world has escalated to a state where we experience so much coming at us, so much stimulation and input, there’s a real need to reverse the direction of the information, and let the faucet flow out through us.

This is easier said than done. Life is about growth, we are here for the full development of our souls, and art is the way we do this. But life is created in the present moment. And the key to this, as they say, is to “Be where your feet are!’ That is where the magic is found.

My husband tells people how lucky he is to be married to an artist because we see the world in a different way. It slows him down. And it opens up ways of looking at the world that he never thought of before.

When we first started spending time in Santa Barbara I was instantly captivated by the ocean. I’d been going to the ocean since before I could walk and I find it so relaxing and peaceful. I’ve always wanted to live at the beach. And I found very quickly that living here was all that and even more. With the ocean as this omnipresent backdrop to life - I started seeing deeper into it. The way the ocean is always slightly different every day. I was drawn to the visual layers in the water, the variations of color and depths and the movement of the currents - until that was all I could see when I gazed at the sea.

I began painting at the beach. I’d pack up my sketchbooks and watercolors every day along with our beach chairs, and towels and picnic supplies. And amazingly - I started making these calm, meditative paintings. The beach is a quiet place where we can meet our true selves, exactly as we are in the present moment. Where the noise of the world naturally dissolves into the rhythmic, comforting sound of the waves creating a natural sense of order.

The beach became my sacred space. And as Joseph Campbell writes, Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.”

This process of “getting in the studio” has always taunted me as something to figure out, something to master - yet eluded me at the same time when I try to grasp it outwardly. Because like the ocean, life is different each day, and we are different every day. And what I have found is that the present moment, that sacred space where I meet myself, becomes what I have begun to refer to as my ‘Axis Mundi’ - a still point in an ever changing world. In that place, art and life converge effortlessly and I paint wherever I am. Robert Henri reflected on this experience, writing “The object isn’t to make art, it is to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable.”

We all interact with the world and experience the world in our unique ways. And we all share that desire to find a place of peaceful centering where we can be ourselves. (I’ll write more about the studio practice in the next Portal, because it applies not only to the artist life but life in general.)

So for now, the thing I know to be true as instructions for living as an artist or as a human - or both - is to Show Up As You Are, and Start.

I’m sharing below some of my artistic creations that support meeting this Present Moment Self - my ocean paintings, Cloudstones, and a studio playlist that I hope you will enjoy - however and whatever magic you are creating in your life, today.

Let your light shine,

Lisa

Postcard from The Portal

Hello!

My first studio email, THE PORTAL, went out a week ago. I’ve always said that the joy in creating is bringing something into being that did not exist before. There is also this other less-talked-about aspect to the creative experience, however, that verges on awe and terror, exhaustion and excitement, when you work so hard for so long (THE PORTAL has been in gestation longer than a human baby!) to bring that thing from an idea in your imagination all the way to full actualization. You send it out into the world as this brave form of self-expression and at that same moment you let go of a brand new thing that will take on a life of it’s own.  

And on the other side of THE PORTAL, at this point of creation, I had a realization - and an unexpected gift - that all of a sudden, I have a blank slate, a brand new canvas and medium for my creativity and expression. It is a wholly new feeling and awareness to be part of this thing as it evolves and I evolve, and continue to grow my art and studio and share my world with you. 

So, needless to say, after all that heavy-realizing I did on Friday, I was ready for some rest and quiet. Time to ‘fill the well’ again, so to speak. To immerse myself in a place of quiet outside me, to touch the quiet place inside me. So on Saturday, my husband John, Max the poodle and I hopped into the car to go to one of our special, retreat-from-the-world, sacred places - the Krishnamurti Library and Retreat House in Ojai.

A Quiet Place of Inspiration

We’ve been going there since the early days of our courtship. I forever cherish a copy of Krishnamurti’s beautiful book on meditation “This Light In Oneself” that my husband inscribed for me in August of 2014 “For you Darling, With all my Deepest Love, Your John, on the occasion of our Picnic Lunch Under the Big Pine Tree at Krishna-Ji’s Cottage.” We’ve had many picnics there since then, and after this weekend’s again under the Big Pine Tree, I took out my sketchbook and paints and began to draw my surroundings.

Ojai is this lovely little California village, located just over the hills from the sea, that hits all the notes of quintessential Old California flavor meets New California individuality. The landscape is a symphony of rolling ranchland dotted with oak trees, with orchard of Orange trees and native agave plants, against a backdrop of the mystical Topa Topa Mountains.

Art as a Meditation

I’ve been drawn to the distinctive hand-built stone walls that go on for miles - bordering each farm like a lyrical thread across the terrain that divides, yet ties everything together. There is something about the placement of the stones and the solidity of the wall - the groundedness - the feeling of eternity that these stone walls convey, dating back so far and yet feeling like they’ll be here forevermore. So I began a painting of a stone wall at Krishaji’s - first pencil drawing and then watercoloring the stones to enliven it with presence, with pattern and unity.

The drawing of the wall became like a meditation in itself, fully consuming me and guiding me on, while I was totally present to the moment. As Thomas Merton says art is where you find yourself and lose yourself at the same time. And that’s what happened.

Artists are forever trying to capture something - a felt sense - of the eternal. And when we express it in a painting, it too becomes eternal.

I’m sharing some photos from my painting session under the Big Pine Tree at Krishna-Ji’s house below, and two favorite paintings of mine of the California landscape that capture the eternal.

Let your light shine,

Lisa

My makeshift studio at Krishnaji’s Cottage Under the Big Pine Tree

Max the burgenoing art-aficionado

Often in my sketchbook when traveling I will make a location plaque within the painting like I have here. The drawing and painting of the stones one by one to fill the page became like a meditation in itself. I’m drawn to the stone walls - the permanency - the underlying foundation, a sense of constancy in an ever changing world - but with this variation on a theme of sorts - as the eye follows the different sizes, shapes, shades of light and dark, and colors - each stone is part of the whole. And they are all there together, with a sense of the infinite in the immediate moment. 

Quintessential rolling California hills, always evolving somewhere from green to gold, the eye pauses on certain moments as it tracks the landscape across the page. On the left, the sky, clouds, feeling of clear lightness and air comes down and touches the land, for a moment of quiet harmony. As above, so below. 

Welcome to The Portal

Hello!

I’m so happy you are here. That you’ve said ‘yes!’ and walked through that metaphorical opening where the light shines in and illuminates the journey.

THE PORTAL is the place where life is high vibe, inspired by spirit and filled with magic. Where we experience the sheer beauty and transformative power of art. Where we travel with our fellow seekers on the path of personal growth, exploring the realm of creative expression and spiritual connection.

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The Place Where The Light Shines In

THE PORTAL is more than just a newsletter. It is the entrance into a sacred space where art meets life. It offers exclusive access to my studio where I make paintings and art objects, inspired by beauty and moments of transcendence in our daily experience. THE PORTAL is a dispatch from my private atelier that gives you behind the scenes access to my creative process and the deeper meaning behind my art.

THE PORTAL is the place where I write about the unique journey and practices of life as an artist. As I encounter ongoing inspiration and insights, I’ll share my discoveries here - including poems and reflections, revelations and illuminations - from my explorations and from like-minded souls who have walked the journey before us - in contemplating and creating a life of meaning and substance.

“I Can See Farther Into Paintings”

I love poetry because it speaks to the invisibles in life. Things that matter deeply and give our lives meaning - love, trust, faith, hope, imagination, yearnings, creativity, consciousness. That which we cannot see, but we can feel. Invisibles exist in the space between things, in those moments of pause and reflection in our daily life. When we take a moment to shift our focus to that which we cannot see, we open ourselves to fresh inspiration to create our lives like a brand new canvas that we are given each day, upon which to paint our masterpiece.

My art is also about the invisibles. A painting is an object of immense beauty and inherent value. But is it not also something tangible that touches the intangible? An aesthetic experience that connects with a place deep inside us - something unique to each of us, something in potential, that wants to be awakened and brought to the light of consciousness. That it is our life’s true purpose to bring it to life in its fullest development through us. I believe this is the path to true happiness.

I have been told many times by my collectors that my art has this ability to touch something deep inside, and reflect back the essence of that invisible thing, an answer or illumination, to the person. It is when these nascent energies reveal themselves to us - a gift we can receive, trust and follow like a path of stepping stones that appear with each step we take - that we see our soul’s guidance. By going deeper “to see farther into paintings” and ourselves, we find the true meaning of our lives, and in concert with inspiration, we forge the way ahead.

Let Your Soul Grow

I’m reminded of a favorite saying: “You can’t fix what is already good. And that is the Soul.” We just have to feed it and help it grow. Nurture, cultivate, create supportive conditions inside ourselves and around ourselves.

That is what THE PORTAL is about. An email like none other, filled with art and inspiration that speaks to the soul, uplifts the spirit, feeds your inner seed so you can flourish in creating the life you are meant to live, with connection to your true self and others in the world, and in harmony with the spirit of the greater universe.

So, here we are. At the beginning of a brand new journey, an auspicious “opening” to take a moment, let the proverbial light shine in, and step into a higher perspective.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Until next time…

Follow Your Bliss

"Follow Your Bliss" (12 x 12 inches, oil on canvas) invites you to connect with your inner light and divine creativity. This painting serves as a reminder to pursue your passions and awaken to your true essence.

Metamorphosis

"Metamorphosis" (72 x 48 inches, acrylic on canvas) symbolizes transformation and growth. Featuring five butterflies in various stages, this piece illustrates the beauty of change and the interconnectedness of our personal and collective journeys.

Beach Day

"Beach Day" (12 x 12 inches, acrylic/flash paint on canvas) captures the serene, relaxing feeling of a summer beach day. This piece transports you to a place where the sun warms your skin and waves gently lap at the shore. Perfect for bringing a touch of summer bliss into your home.

Energy Essence Art Cards

(Set of 8)

Each Art Card is created intentionally by Lisa Miller, enhanced with Bach Flower Essences and amplified with Gold Leaf, to express the energy of love and bliss.

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