An Artist's Life: Deborah Jane Milton, PhD

Horse Flies – This is one of my first images where the miracle of painting negative space astonished me.
I was also learning that the fluidity of watercolor helps paintings paint themselves.

Cougar’s Gone – Honoring the grief over a cougar killed by a car.

Ghost Bear -This is the first image painted in response to a vision while holding
an Ecstatic Wisdom Posture  – 1993.

Bear Watch – Bears in Montana are compared to the canary in the coal mine. If our bears are thriving, then we know the rest of the habitat
can support all the other creatures including ourselves.

Bearing Down -I painted this image to express my dismay back in the early 1990’s over human lack of awareness that nature’s resources and resilience
are limited, that all life deserves to live and that our lives are immeasurably enhanced by a vigorous, thriving, complexly varied environment.
Sadly, we are still largely unaware.

Bearing UP – Ever the optimist, I know eventually humanity will fall in love with our inextricable relationship to the entire world in which we live!

Bear Dreams – Often the bears come to me in dreams; often I am doing my utmost to save them; sometimes they come to protect me.
Imagine that…

Brain Maps – My son sitting at my computer way back in 1995 inspired this image
along with the mythic deer and her baby who appeared in a dream the night before.
It represents how our psyches experience many worlds at once,
how our DNA connects us to all our ancestors and their ability to survive
which allows us to BE HERE NOW.

Turtle’s Truth – Image based on a dream of a tide pool on a beach being destroyed by rampant development of high rise hotels.
A turtle revealed that we all have two stomachs. One that digests food and the other that separates truth from lies!
Later, I was flabbergasted to discover Malidoma Some writing about this same concept in his book “Of Water and the Spirit.”

Sweet Mystery – I am compelled by the lives of animals, certainly, but flowers, plants and trees inspire insights for me, too!
This image shows the influence of learning about negative space painting from the book by Barbara Nechis titled:” Watercolor from the Heart.”
After I learned the dance of painting negative and positive space, my ability to paint intuitively expanded exponentially.

Life Tree # 3 represents my first real daring-do. I wanted to paint an image without any preconceived drawing,
wanted to build it up using negative space painting. It got so complicated at one point I turned it upside down
in desperation or so I thought at that moment. Actually it was divine inspiration because by turning the image upside down,
I forgot to be afraid and trusted my instincts to pull out the imagery. The other magic
in this painting was the “glowing” white of the paper near the sun. I knew that
richly represented the moon and didn’t touch it after it appeared
by accident.

Life Tree # 4 – This version of the Tree of Life represents a turning point for me.  I stood up for myself when a teacher “panned” my work. I painted this at a workshop where the teacher had been critical of me all along. She said I’d made outlandish color choices in this painting, that she’d been taught you mustn’t paint with colors that you wouldn’t wear. The next day I wore every brilliant color I’d packed in my suitcase. This image has been published in four different magazines, including Resurgence from the UK and Shaman’s Drum in the USA.

Just Traveling Through – One of my first spontaneous, full sized paintings on a  22″ x 30″ watercolor sheet. I started with juicy washes
and suddenly saw the mountains growing out of the sky on the right side. I knew they were a gift and the painting had to play with them.
Evolution came to my mind. I’ve neglected to mention that nearly all my paintings are accompanied by poetry/poetic prose. Please contact me if you’d like to see the words too.

The poem for this one is:

Sweeping swells of evolution roll over one and all
everything uprooted in its flood plain.
May this mighty tide grace us with humility and
make us aware of mortality’s gift.
We can choose the legacy we leave behind.

Waiting to See – An image inspired by hot pots at Yellowstone, I used lots of layers, stencils and splattering.
I snapped a photo of a man and woman appearing to be patiently waiting for the
ever present steam to lift and their patience and trust
captured my own longing for clarity.
are based on tourists who