Sacred Stillness
Capturing the Spirit of Beautiful Places.
Maria Miller Brings Nature into Focus…
From Open Space studio in Mount Shasta, Maria Miller wants to bring the beauty of the outdoors inside. “I’ve painted since I was a little kid, and I use it as a way to capture the spirit of beautiful places that transport me, and then try to recreate that opportunity for people within their homes. Of course, I want you to get outside and go on that hike, but I want you to also be able to experience it without having to do that hike every day,” Miller says.
Originally from Pennsylvania and later by way of Southern California, the beauty of Mt. Shasta, and Siskiyou County in general, has become Miller’s muse. “My husband and I relocated from Southern California to Mount Shasta last summer, and it has been an interesting journey of deepening my relationship to the land here and capturing the beauty of the North State, because what we have here is just so spectacular,” Miller says. She likes to paint en plein air, or outdoors, and loves the use of color. “I like to work quickly, so sometimes I work small because I want to see it come together. Often, I’ll bring my gouache (paint) or my watercolors to the side of the river and hang out or camp somewhere with a view for the day and get a piece underway. From there, I usually finish it back in the studio and work from photographs that I’ve taken on my phone, or that my husband has taken because he’s a landscape photographer. I’m always trying new things. I do have some training, but I’m also pretty rebellious. I really don’t like to be told what to do, especially not by the masters. One day, though, maybe I’ll mature a little bit to be more teachable,” she says with a laugh.
Miller’s journey to Mt. Shasta is the result of several leaps of faith. “I have frequently in my life listened to a call, whether it was to a place or a person. I moved with two suitcases from Pennsylvania to San Francisco because I had just met this guy, and, after three days of knowing him, I had the sense that I’d marry him. But I also knew that if we lived apart cross country, that would never happen. So, I found a way to make it happen, and written the adventure from there. The call of Mt. Shasta was similar in that I just knew that I had to go. I had first heard about it when I was around 18 from a customer at my parents’ health food store back in Pennsylvania. She talked about Northern California and her amazing experiences there. Since then, it had been on my radar as a place I wanted to explore. So, when my husband and I got engaged, I wanted my in-laws and my parents to meet on neutral turf and we settled on Mt. Shasta. We spent a long weekend up here, and when we were getting ready to leave, I just started crying. I really didn’t want to go. The next time we came back two years ago, I told my husband, ‘Well, this is my home now, so you’re just going to have to figure it out.’ It took us about eight months to get things in order, but here we are.”
For Miller, being an artist in Mount Shasta is a weighted, but lofty experience. “Living here can be overwhelming because there is so much I feel deserves to be painted and wants to be painted, and so much that I want to paint. It’s kind of like church with the beauty of connection to God through the landscape. There is an urgency I feel to capture the light and the seasons. It’s always dynamic, and it feels like I’ll never be done. But I actually also love that. It’s sacred. Because there’s something about this place that really just beckons me to sit still and be present in the landscape. Even though I have a monkey mind and all these things I want to do, the peace still happens.”
Not only does Miller paint the landscape, she’s also doing whatever she can to protect it, donating 2 percent of her art sales to the Siskiyou Land Trust. “I have been really fortunate to learn about and volunteer with the organization since just after we arrived in Mount Shasta. It’s my intention to support Siskiyou Land Trust not only through donations, but by helping to spread the word about the amazing work they’re doing to help get more people to care about conserving this beautiful area. I realized that without work like theirs, the landscapes that I get to capture on canvas, including Sisson Meadow in the heart of Mount Shasta City, might not be there down the road.”•
Open Space Studio • www.openspacemtshasta.com
