
Natasha Miller – Featured Artist
I’d like to thank Natasha Miller for her charcoal-inspired landscapes and permission for inclusion as this month’s featured artist. To learn more about Natasha, check out her biography below and visit her links.
I’ve recently relocated to an artist loft space in Mesa, which is a southern suburb in the Phoenix metropolitan area. In a moment of serendipity, I stumbled upon a non-profit organization called Artspace. Thanks to my highly efficient obsessive disorder, I found it necessary to check, while updating the Gen Society site, if the words artspace (by definition) could be used jointly as one word. I already knew the answer but searched the dictionary anyway, and that’s what lead me to discover this organization days before they were accepting applications for their new location. Artspace designs work/live apartments, within their own eco-artist community blueprints, specifically suited for artists of all trades to work, be inspired, and collaborate. If you yourself are an artist and have yet to stumble upon this organization, check ’em out… they have locations in over 30 communities nationwide: www.artspace.org.

Natasha Miller – Featured Artist
The Edge of the World on the Other Side of the Stream
Stripped naked in the brief expanse of
nature’s undoing, we ran our bodies around the calm lip
of the stream like toy boat engines
preparing to set anchor. we were hiding
away from the world, making love, kissing
with our wet lips and rubber bodies,
slightly feverish and craving the
warmth of one another.
and the lonely canoe that sat
at the very center of the tongue,
waited for us like a domesticated dog at a window
panting for its friend to come and play.
the trees and the canoe were
discussing beautiful and wonderful things
amongst one another like
a child imitating its parents with cans and wire.
they discussed their fastidious nature and wondered
if they themselves would ever find love as it
danced before them on that late autumn day. they considered
the idea of loving one another, at the very
moment of their exchange…
will nature choose rightly and justly,
or will it do what it always does… pulling things
from a hat and making a mess.
as these moments float through time, and
from them, things are created, time will bring
them before one another, and we, ourselves,
will understand our place on the grid,
unthreading the depths of the Faberge.
the greater idea that unifies us with
a fabric of reality such as this, and its
harsh context of nature and its pleasantries,
is in the very moment we recognize
love, and all that it must belabor…
that there is no separation
behind the sad, tragic
hurdling of universal iniquity and its
ninth requiem.
will nature choose rightly and justly,
or will it do what it always does… pulling things
into creation and making them eternal.
by LORIN DREXLER
About the Artist
Natasha Miller (via www.nrmiller.com)
Natasha Tanner-Miller is a self-taught artist who was born and raised on Vancouver Island and traveled by boat to the east coast where she currently lives and paints on Deer Island in the Bay of Fundy. Natasha has pioneered a unique painting technique where she creates haunting yet calming seascapes and landscapes using homemade maple charcoal from her wood-fired pizza oven, ashes and acrylic paint used for the bold silhouettes and pops of colours. Most paintings consist of 40-60 layers of medium and sealers and usually take over a month to complete. She has always drawn inspiration from the dusk and dawn created silhouettes all around; especially trees and rugged coastlines, the sea and its boats, birds, and beaches, and her current work reflects this.
Natasha’s work is quickly gaining momentum and collectability through her participation in international art fairs in Toronto, her representation in ten different galleries in North America and through an ongoing touring 40-piece exhibition through a Paris based gallery.
What is Gen Society?
Gen Society is an art space blog for visual art and creative writing collaborations, and other randomizations. Hosted by writer and musician, Lorin Drexler, this online venue is an expressive experience for those interested in the world of the arts. It is a literary journey through the hearts and minds of contemporary artists in practice and a reflection of those that have long passed.
If you’re an artist and would like to submit your work in consideration to collaborate with Gen Society, please click below:
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