What’s your business name and what do you do?
From day to day, I introduce myself as Raquel, but as a business I go by Raquel P Miller. Raquel P Miller is how I sign all of my work, and embodies all the parts of me that I want to share as an artist. Primarily through painting, I am exploring my emotions, memories, grief, longings, and dreams and finding ways to communicate as I discover my own visual vocabulary. Most importantly, I want to ‘feel’ and express the unexpressed through art making. I’m longing to communicate through my work and longing for my work to communicate back to me. In that process, I want my work to allow space for a viewer to be able to feel and respond, to question, to confront, to dream, too. My art practice is at the core of my business, but it requires a lot of admin work like maintaining my website, photographing and editing all of my work, organization, emails, applications, research, and learning.
How did you learn your craft?
I like to consider my childhood years when I was coloring and drawing on the floor as the beginning. Those moments were where I learned to love creating and found comfort from the act of it alone, where it became so much a part of me that I never really had to question it since. But more officially, I received a minor in Studio Art with a concentration in Painting and Drawing from the University of Southern Maine, where I was involved in foundational painting classes. After college, I continued to learn and pursue my art on my own, so part of me resonates with the label of being self taught, for the non-traditional ways I have continued to learn outside of an academic setting. I’ve participated in classes with New York City Crit Club, attended a workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts where I participated in a workshop led by Daniel Minter, and currently take classes at Mill Pond Ceramics with Emily Armstrong. I learn a lot by engaging with the world around me, slowing down, observing unnoticed moments, by reading, and viewing other work, and seeing art in the everyday moments.
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
The ability to express myself and communicate. Creating something tangible by engaging with myself, my heart, and my mind that I can then hold in my hands or run my fingers across. Creating something sacred.
What do you enjoy least?
Something I struggle with is how to engage on social media as an artist. Sharing art and discovering artists through social media is really incredible if you think about it, but when the feeling that posting outweighs the process and practice is where I start to dislike it. It’s important that I share in a way that feels healthy to me and uplifts my creativity and practice. To balance this, in 2021, I started to write a monthly newsletter and that has been a really healthy shift for me.
What’s one thing you wish people knew about your work?
I try very hard to give validity to each piece I make. I try to see something in each painting or drawing I make because I believe they all add up, creating context for my past, present and future work. This act allows me to combat the part of me that wants to aim towards a concept of “perfection.” If I am too critical of each piece, then my mind towards my work, my practice, and myself starts to become so critical that I don’t see the value in any of it. Suddenly, I don’t want to share it at all. And so I figure, if I share *mostly* everything, I am sharing myself, sharing imperfection, and the journey in my artistic practice, rather than the perfectly curated, selected piece of work that doesn’t give life to the process of how I got there through making everything else. That’s also why my website shares so much of what I make.
What’s one artist you look up to?
Some artists whose works or words or stories that have given me strength in my practice would be Ruth Asawa, Ana Mendieta, Josephine Halvorsen, and Lois Dodd.
What do you do when you’re not creating?
I love reading and checking books out at my local library. I like to write–mainly in my journal, but also creatively, and will attempt a poem every now and then. In 2022, I graduated from the Maine Master Naturalist Program so I love birding, admiring ferns and wildflowers, and looking at trees. I still consider myself an amateur, but I do volunteer by leading Tree Walks in downtown environments like Biddeford and Westbrook. I also really love to go on a walk, drink coffee, eat pastries, swim, and kayak.
Night owl or early bird?
Night owl at heart. But I am trying to embrace early bird life when I can.
What's your favorite place in Maine?
East Point Sanctuary in Biddeford Pool. That, and Timber Point Trail.