An Artist's Life: Deborah Jane Milton, PhD

Sacred ARTivisim has taken a step forward. My first self-published book is now available from me, directly or Amazon worldwide, and hopefully soon, your favorite local independent book seller, too. Right after the last of the 200 copies of the limited edition of the handcrafted version of Ode to Gaia were gone, a woman – a stranger to me from out of state – emailed me and asked to buy 20 of the books. I took this as a message from the universe that I needed to take the plunge into self-publishing and explore the print-on-demand capabilities of our modern era. Of course a miracle occurred as soon as I made that internal decision. A half day workshop on self-publishing was being offered on the island where I live and a friend offered to give me the tuition!!!! Here’s the result: 64 pages, 31 paintings ( 13 additional from the first version and a handful painted just for the book ), 2 pages to inspire your own creativity, and 3 pages of global interconnectivity via the WWW ( worldwideweb ). I am so pleased to have a way to share my message calling for cultural transformation, personal expansion of consciousness and a shift in values so that all life, including our own, can flourish on this small miraculous planet. Here is a sample double page spread:

The longer I live the deeper my commitment grows to art as the universal tonic, the great medicine, needed by humankind.  Art, the truth teller, the wisdom keeper – this is the art of intuition, heart, prayer – soul inspired and spirit assisted art – the creativity that comes through everyone of us humans because we are creators creating…whether it be words,-  written, spoken or sung,-  movement, rhythm, the centering of clay on a wheel, crayoned scribbles, beribboned prayer sticks, woven baskets, knitted shawls, mandalas drawn with feet in sand, feathered masks, a garden tended by hand and food prepared with love, it is all art with a capital A…for the brave, the true, the human(e) – that means every- two legged one of us who walks this earth in these troubled times. Art heals.

To give you an idea of what I mean, watch my 3 minute video called From Grief to Grace.

or this short one called Making Artful Prayers.

To put my heart where my mouth is, in June 2016, I purposefully spent time looking horror in the eye.  I spent meditative time in an Old Growth Clear Cut on Vancouver Island, in the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Preserve to be exact. I had already begun a hand crafted artist’s chapbook called Ode to Gaia but the vigil changed me. The fresh stump of a 500 year old tree in the middle of a new clearcut of an ancient forest spoke to me. The book needed to include that surprising conversation and two new paintings came through me specifically to illustrate that. An edition of 200, each book cover is unique, each book signed and numbered and includes 17 Gaia paintings as well as three options for you to color pages yourself! $35 @ with an additional $5.00 for postage.

To put my heart where my hands and mind are, I’ve begun teaching a new painting series called Painting Poetic Prayers for the World ( humorously subtitled Gaia with a Twist ). The combination of words walking with imagery along the many stepped painting pilgrimage makes my heart sing. Prayerfully, we purposely embed our human selves, our animal selves, in the 13.7 billion year history of this cosmos, this galaxy, this planet. I hope that we will have an exhibit somewhere/somehow when the paintings are complete – to show an imaginative vision of possibility for continued life on this small blue dot in space.

Here are some of the painted galaxies. Aren’t they glorious?

To put my heart where my feet and belly are, I’m happy to tell you that I will be having a show at Bainbridge Performing Arts on the island of Bainbridge just west of Seattle for the month of April 2017. First Friday opening April 7th . More details coming. The show will be called The Many Faces of Gaia. Here’s an image of a work in progress. Gaia #72 – Benediction.

To put my heart out there, I call on you to make art a form of your own Sacred ARTivism, your version of subtle activism. If you’d like to know more about that term, click here.

Create the changes within yourself that you want to see in the world. That takes couer-age, takes heART. Together we can do it!