I am happy to announce that my solo show, Handprints on the Sky opens Friday September 4th at 205 Ocean Ave Studios, with an opening reception from 5-8pm.

I have been busy in the studio preparing work for this show and I am so excited. As always, I am a bit nervous, too. But I have been so fortunate to have the friendship and support of Rosalba Breazeale, 205’s director, throughout the process. I’ll be sharing an almost entirely new body of work. A lot of upcoming events detailed below. I am so grateful for all the moments I get to make art and share art. I hope to see you at some of these events below.

In Handprints on the Sky, Raquel P Miller continues the cosmic exploration in the night sky as an altar for grief through paintings and clay, introducing a body of work that illustrates grief’s many forms and its transformative effects on life.  Handprints on the Sky holds grief with a released grasp, making space for new signs and visual language with the introduction of the Blue Morpho and four petaled flower, Forsythia, acting as guides and carriers from one plane of time to another along grief’s journey.

Handprints on the Sky asks how the sky can be both a vessel for grief, and altar to it; how it can be both a lens to our world, dreams, or planes of existence while also acting as a doorway to them;  and how some days we live in grief’s threshold, and the next day on either side of it. This journey is not linear. If we honor the expansiveness of grief, we transform it, and it transforms us, carrying us across the sky like the moon setting, making space for the sun to rise over fields of yellow flowers pointed to the sun. 

I am thrilled to share that in partnership with Indigo Arts Alliance, I will be hosting a Plein Air day at Surf Point on Thursday September 10th from 9am - 12pm in York, Maine.

I have attended two of Surf Point’s Plein Air days, and had such a wonderful time. It is so relaxing and artists can truly come as they are. You can reserve a spot here, and hope to see some familiar faces. Please reach out if you have any questions, and click here to register at Surf Point’s website.

Curated by Ashley Page, Our Dreams are a form of Divination, opens on Friday September 18th at Sidle House Gallery in Freeport, Maine.

I am so honored to be a part of this show curated by Ashley Page. I will have new ceramic works and paintings included in this show, and I can’t wait to see how the work comes to life in this barn gallery amongst the works of other artists.

Opening Reception is 9/18 from 4-8pm at 20 Bartol Island Rd, Freeport, ME.

I have four paintings, and my two zines available through Little Death—a project, collective, roving gallery space dedicated to supporting local artists, run by Katia Dermott and Micah Sanders, based in Rockland.

Katia reached out to me to collaborate and while I wasn’t available for an in-person event right now, she was gracious to offer me the chance to show work through the summer. We selected four small paintings and two zines to offer through their online shop. Send support their way and keep an eye out for their events. Thank you, Little Death!

I am honored to be an artist vendor at Tender Table’s annual BIPOC Night Market in Congress Square Park on Sunday September 13th!

Come find me and my sweet friend Caroline Hadilaksono, and many other incredible artists and food vendors, to celebrate a night of art, food, music in BIPOC Community. Thank you so much Tender Table. <3

Amongst everything else happening, I was so lucky to be able to attend a weeklong fiber arts retreat through the Medomak Fiber Arts Retreat Fellowship partnership with Indigo Arts Alliance. I am so grateful for the opportunities Indigo creates for me, and other black and brown artists. And so lucky to have spent a week making art, taking classes, swimming, looking at the stars with the warmest of welcomes from Katherine Ferrier, and the support of Rosalba Breazeale. More to come on this, but this was so special and so necessary for me this year, and I didn’t even know it.

A special shoutout to a special show that happens annually here in Maine—Artshow! At Walpole Ontological Lab and Farm (WOLF) run by Dyer Rhoads. I am happy to have shared a piece that floated in the threshold above your head as you walked in through the screen door. My butterflies and forsythia soaked up by the light, to catch one, requiring a small breeze, or shifting light. Thank you, Dyer for this monumental show and your constant support of us artists here in Maine.

A lot packed into this newsletter, thank you for reading. I so hope to see some of you at the openings coming up this month. Enjoy these final moments of summer while you can. My solo opens on September 4th, which is the anniversary of my mom’s death. I didn’t plan it this way, I realized it after the fact. And in some ways it feels serendipitous. All my work is always about her, in some way or another. Even the work that isn’t, I still think of how it felt to share my art with her, and how fiercely she supported my gift since I was a child. I think it’s why I am an artist. She saw my gifts, believed in them and nurtured them, so in her absence, I must care for myself and my art, with the same love she raised me with. And in that practice, it is one of the ways she still feels most alive with me, even though she is not.

Until next time friends. ✿ - Raquel