Last week I featured the human form and this week I am focusing on the face. The great thing about this time in my history is that I feel I am catching up on painting all the things I love most about art.

When I talked to my husband about the variety of work I am doing, he said, "you are covering all the bases of the human experience from abstract to reality!"

Faces have been my devotion right from the start of my knowing that creativity would be my life course. It continues to fascinate me to this day.

I loved drawing the figure through my childhood and college years. See images below from the early years of my artistic development.

What I appreciate most about the new work I am doing is that it is all experimental. I now express from a new vantage point. It was all about control in those days and now, it is all about LETTING GO!

The body is such a natural landmark of luscious curves and quiet canyons of intimate elegance.

I invite you to share your thoughts & favorite photos of figures for my take heart page.

Below are 4 images done in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2020. They are all part of my historic journey learning to develop eye hand co-ordination.

I have not done an intense "Jesselism" piece in a while and somehow I woke with the spirit of the Buffalo/Bison in my brain. Letting go to the paper, and giving way to different incarnations, is both powerful and precarious.

During this painting process, I asked both Joy West and my husband, Gary, to give me their visions and insights. I am left vulnerable, yet wide open, when I ask for other people's opinions in the middle of a work of heART.

My Muses
I respect both of Joy & Gary when it comes to their intuitive abilities. They both had great advise and I gently moved and changed the painting following their rhythm and yet listening closely to my own truth.

The end result held a certain magic for me and even though the other paintings have their own appeal, I think Buffalo Power represents the best of all the versions I painted.

The good thing about taking photos as you go is that now all the other
images are available as prints and products at:

Jessel Miller Buffalo Versions.

I welcome all of you to share your thoughts and feelings about any of these pieces. Respond at jesselgallery@napanet.net

LOVE
JESSEL and the Buffalo/Bison

Happy Friday Everyone.
Here are 2 flower arrangements to add color and beauty to your day and to let you know I Care About YOU.

Big Hugs from Afar,
Jessel

Some images are messy and confusing, yet they tell the truth in simply ways. This began as a wolf painting and the bear pushed it's way into the picture. I move aside and just let the energy flow through me.

"Wolf Teaches us about living our life powerfully, more freely and passionately guided by instincts. Look at what supports your authentic self and the true expression of yourself. Do not be led by others, follow your true self and passions.

Bear teaches us to stand up for ourselves, our love ones and for what we believe in. Do you need to be alone, to reflect and contemplate your life journey? Like the bear, we should follow our instincts and call on our own wisdom. Bears show us that wisdom comes from within. We are one with Creation, one with all."

Discovery - Full Circle
 It is said that after a long series of events or changes, the same situation that you started with still exists.
My journey over the last 6 months came Full Circle this month.

About 10 years ago I began to play with acrylics. Most of my artistic expression has been created in watercolor. I was told, just after graduating with a Degree in oil painting, that I had atopic dermatitis and would have to "give up art." I told the Doctor that I would never give up art. I would just change mediums.
Watercolors fascinated me in high school, so I started down the very long path educating myself in this new medium.

As a young child  I trained for the Olympics in Gymnastics. One of the greatest lesson I learned on the balance beam was "never look down; always look to the end of the beam and you would not fall off." The concept was to keep the goal in your mind as you walk the narrow beam. To this day, it has served me well as a life lesson.
 
With this in my mind, I began my 15 year devotion to a new medium and put myself through years of training to learn the intricate and complicated nuances of watercolors. Now, as I develop and grow into another new medium- acrylic, I have followed the same road of daily experimentation.

The circle began with acrylic abstraction in December 2019. I then went to intense realism and now ,I am slipping back into complete .  I float for a time in a place of quiet meditation.

It feels good to have something to say with all the recent complicated concepts found in my figurative work. It is also wonderful to murmur wind-filled whispers to the world and allow space between words and responses.
 
I watch as my cats take long, lingering moments to stare out at the world and never say a word. I am lounging in the luxury of stillness on the roof in the evening and letting the paint drift and flow.