Glenna Mills

When we come out of the womb, we’re momentarily blinded by the light. It takes a while to adjust to color. There is a breeze that crosses our naked bodies, We reach out to touch what we cannot really understand. And then we hear “I love you.” and we know we’re okay.

 

As artists, we search for the meaning of the work we create. We’re affected by the history of the past and the possibility of the future. As a child, I sang songs from the radio, arias I created, and hummed as I played. In high school, I acted in plays. In college I was intrigued by science and music and art. Movement within a scene became the subject of photography. I made short films, with one housed in the Belgium Film Archives. The University of Minnesota opened the doors to clay and teaching.

 

Living in farming communities teaches us to breath in the seasonal airs, to study the flight of birds, the mating of creatures, birth, death and the mystery of the universe. When I began to study art, I was curious about how I saw things. I didn’t want to be instructed because I was afraid that whatever I was meant to be might be distorted by the will of others. At the same time, my finished work is judged by others and this can affect my faith in ourselves. I was willful, of course, and this helped me to honor my work. One must, because the ultimate goal is to sell, to show, to gain attention. Can we work in isolation? I don’t think so and part of this may be because we ultimately create so much work we need to get rid of it and we need to eat.

 

We are constantly asked what we do, and the answer often needs to rest on how legitimate we are in our profession. The history of art was the first time I saw any works by other artists. I’d never been in a museum or gallery. I admired works by the impressionists initially but then along came Picasso, African art, Kandinsky, Miro, David Best, Judy Chicago. I found when I worked I could concentrate and let my inner genius flow when listening to music. Phillip Glass, Reich, Talking Heads, Meredith Monk.I had discovered that being able to see the world clearly, as in exactly, was not something I could do. I had a tendency to wander away from the real and to distort an mage, change a portrait to express some emotion or other. The artists that excited me did the same. I could feel the genius behind the work because they were creating what had never been seen before.

 

Over the course of the years. I have explored writing, voiceover, playwriting, sculpture, and painting. I’ve had one play produced, Nights Like These, in Berkeley, California; done voiceover for a children’s CD of Nathaniel Hawthorne stories sold on Amazon’ and participated in a radio play in front of an audience.

 

Three years ago I sold my kiln and began painting. I suppose this happened because I had accumulated a number of photographs of ancestors who lived in the late1800’s, as well as my own photographs. I began manipulating them on my computer. I felt that some of the images demanded size and so began transferring the manipulated photos and drawings to canvas. I could then continue working the images. Emotions and story lines underline each image.

 

How do I show emotions or story lines? I believe that if you allow your hands to do whatever they appear to want to do, you have given your mind access to thought. For example, I begin a clay sculpture like bread making and rising. As I watch the clay, my hands begin adding elements like legs, heads, hats, I stand back with each development and begin to understand what is coming out of this clay. I created a horse wearing boots and a cowboy hat and before I knew it, he was carrying women of the night on his back. Title: Gong West. My painting, Bygone Days, was made up of the house that generation lived in and the people who have come and gone. They are a part of the house and I show this by abstracting them into the house and out. Great grandfather to baby, among the

flowers and windows.

 

Trusting my use of color and meaning is scary. I have days when I am astounded by how well the painting is coming along, and then quiver at the possibility that I’ll ruin it. I am lucky in that I have the sense to trust an outburst. I may suddenly lash out with a color I hadn’t anticipated using. I’ll follow a shape and then another and end up with an abstraction that is absolutely right because it brings out the emotions of the subject.

 

My life as an artist has been as determined as if I had the talent to be a scientist or technician. Trusting our immediate instincts can help us direct ourselves to be the best of who we were meant to be. What is it then that leads me to this time in my life? I would say that I feel as if I haven’t reached in far enough to find the source of my creativity. What had I gained when conceived and developed in the womb? In that very place we are wholly ourselves. The world has not interfered except as a muffled sound and surprising movements. I can feel a presence that is pushing at my imagination. At some point all that is within me will come out. I cannot judge for if I do so, I will lose what might give me a deep, and warm revelation on life.