An Artist's Life: Deborah Jane Milton, PhD

Safe Passage II – After moving to my country place north of Missoula, Montana, and establishing a creative retreat center called
Athanor Arts, I had a huge sacred studio and workshop space in the form of a yurt. There I could spread out and I began painting
big watercolors. This one was approximately 48″ x 36″.

Seppiko-san – I visited my daughter in Japan and climbed a mountain. The view from the summit stunned me with revelations
about culture and geography, old lands and new, the wisdom of time. You can tell I still stumble for words,
yet the image captures the essence for me.

Mission Mountain Sky – The mountains north of Missoula, Montana are sacred ground to the
original peoples of that region. The painting reveals one of the reasons why. Delight for me
was having this image confirmed by a tribal man who attended the exhibit where this image hung. He said simply,
“Yup, I see it that way all the time.”

Poppy Seed – Poppies entrance me! I included this image so you can see my development
as an artist by comparing this one to the one I did in the Spring of 2011. You can find that one in the gallery 2009 – 2012.
Not sure one is better, just different.

Thanks to my friend, prolific author Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, I was given the opportunity
to illustrate a book about the spirit bear, the white black bear found ONLY in British Columbia
The book came out in 2004 and I still have copies available if you’d like to purchase one. $15.00 @
Perfect for young readers.

   Since I had to paint realism for the book, I practiced by painting
the bear in whimsical contexts first.

The spirit bear and the tree are essentially the same in both realities!

Painting realism affected my style for many years. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to appreciate
how much more freely I expressed myself
in those earlier years when I thought I didn’t know what I was doing.

Meeting the Unexpected

       A young executive, stressed by the frenzied pace of his e-market world,
seeks solace by paddling on a placid pond.
What to his wondering eyes should appear but the crack between worlds.

No one prepared him for this.

 His dog offers no defense since he’s seen it all before.

What’s a man to do?

Fish Food.  Reciprocity inspires me. Giving back fills me.
This image reminds us that we are all, in the end, the fishes’ food.

Carried Away – 

Flight of time links
our storied lives,
babe to child,
adult to elder, oh,
so quickly!
How will your next chapter read?

Based on an old sepia photograph of my Mum reading a newspaper circa 1912.
Original is available, framed 16 x 20″, cost $250.

 Epona

Ancient Europeans revered the horse as the goddess, Epona,
who wed the fertility of the land to the fertility of the people,
who carried the sun across the sky and the warrior on her back,
who made journeying possible.
The faint memory of our reverence for the horse goddess
lives today in our familiar word,
pony.

No wonder we love horses whether we ride or not.

Odin’s Wood offers an example of fluid experimentation. Relatively big by watercolor standards,
measuring approximately 24 x 48″, I stretched paper stapling it to a board. Then I poured several layers
of paint and began lifting color to carve out imagery, darkening around some shapes with pigment to
delineate others with negative space painting. A joy!

Dragonfly was commissioned and represents one of my mixed media mandalas. My own geometric design primarily
in watercolor with metal foil and crystal embellishments, acrylic stenciling on the borders, and the use of multiple layers
and masking fluid for the ancient art symbols from six different cultures. It is relatively big – 36 x 36″.

This dragonfly mandala serendipitously led to another, even more elaborate mandala commission.

The commissioner is a weaver devoted to both Montana and Peru and the long history of textiles there.
The inner ring pays homage to the llama’s and the indigenous reverence and gratitude for nature which supplies all
our needs. The flowers in the center represent a despacho offering.
The next ring represents weaving patterns from ancient to modern
and the ring surrounding the textile patterns is devoted
to the landscapes, vegetation and mountains the weaver loves.
Devoted to the divine feminine, the image of her metaphorically shows her
as the Lady of Guadalupe, iconic in Mexico and cultures south.

Since her weaving studio bears the name Tela Luna, the cycles of the moon are present in all their glory in the background.

Image was approximately 36 x 50 and rendered primarily in watercolor with metal leaf, pen and ink, Swarovski crystals and Scribbles embellishment.

Moonbeams – One of my earliest truly mixed media images. Base is still watercolor but
that is overlaid with oil pastel. I love how much more easily I can conjure textures as I break away from strict
watercolor work.

Moontree – An example of a luminous pencil mandala using black paper and white pencil
as the first layer. This image came forth as I demonstrated the technique at one of my
mandala workshops.

The Juggler was inspired by a young woman at a May Day celebration
wearing a crown of flowers. Though you can’t tell it here, her halo is gold leaf, my first
official experimentation using metal foils. This is also a fascinating piece because
I used only the three colors shown in their pure forms in the flowers: ultramarine blue, alizarin
and hansa yellow medium. All other hues are mixed from those three, but for bits and pieces of
oil pastel here and there. I adore this image and am surprised I still have it in my collection.

She’s framed in elegant champagne silver wood – 31″ x 40″ and costs $1500.

 Bearing Light – Another image I began while teaching a watercolor class where we were practicing layering and masking.
To my surprise, an owl appeared behind the turtle. Surface changes were made with oil pastel.
In fact, there are places where I lifted the pastel in order to reveal the watercolor beneath
kind of like scratchboard techniques.

The Berry Picker – Watercolor, oil pastel and pencil. She’s still available. Framed in black wood with antiqued gold trim at 27″ x 31″
She’s $895.