By Miles Hilton
Sarah Brown-Millspaw is a celebrated local watercolor artist whose joyful, simplified style is easily recognizable. In fact, I’ve interviewed her for The Villager before, last fall, when she and three other artists participated in the joint exhibit Natural Selection at Pearl City Clay House in Jamestown. At that show, Brown-Millspaw’s series ‘Hazel’ celebrated “all the brown and green things we see in nature”, from ducks to treetops to salamanders.
Now, with the support of an Art Services Inc (ASI) grant, Brown-Millspaw has self-published ‘Blue!’, an illustrated book for all ages about a girl’s blue-filled day. The Hazel series, says Brown-Millspaw, was “kind of a test run for the way I thought this book wanted to be […] but this book ended up being totally different.”
As part of the ASI grant, Brown-Millspaw will be conducting author’s talks at libraries around Chautauqua county this summer. Follow her on Instagram at @sarageebee.art for updates. The book itself is available for purchase on Amazon, by searching the name of the author.
‘Blue!’ is a short book, about thirty-five pages, with minimal text. Full-page, full-color illustrations pull the reader into a whimsical, blue-filled world, seen through the eyes of a girl aptly named Blue. The text itself uses light meter and rhyme to carry the reader along a lilting story, but never adheres strongly to any particular form. The artist originally envisioned that Blue would focus on all the blue in nature, but says that “it never felt quite right. Then one day the story of this girl just popped into my head.” Some paintings from the book’s first iteration remain – a full-page bluejay flies across a blue sky, and a wonderfully detailed blue snake dances on the next page – but, as Brown-Millspaw says, “the book is actually about [the girl]”.
Brown-Millspaw has been painting in watercolors since she was twelve, and has wanted to write a children’s book since she began working in the public library system in Erie, Pennsylvania over a decade ago, before moving to Chautauqua county. “I read every children’s book and I always dreamed of making my own”, she says. Asked about her inspirations and drive, Brown-Millspaw shares a fascination with “the purity of uncorrupted childhood”, and with evoking that joy in adults.
Blue is Brown-Millspaw’s first foray into publishing, and it presented challenges to the seasoned watercolor artist. “The paintings weren’t the struggle, it was the story,” she says, “I didn’t want to write something that was corny […] I wanted it to be a peaceful, joyful story that people would want to read again. And that was the real struggle.”
Although Brown-Millspaw is no stranger to sharing her art, writing posed a unique challenge. “I felt way more vulnerable with the writing, even though there’s not a lot of it,” she says. For her, visual and written art differ in that “people can look at visual art and see whatever they want to see”, whereas “when you’re writing it’s wide open,” and more difficult to hide as an artist.
The logistical process of writing also posed challenges. “Building this character” was the primary one, as was “editing it down.” In the editing process, Brown-Millspaw left many paintings and pages on the cutting room floor, conserving only what was essential to the story. She reflects that “the process of making a whole complete thing like that”, with narrative and supporting images, was far different from sharing a standalone painting.
Brown-Millspaw, who says she’s “definitely hooked” on publishing, plans to write more books. She also has work in upcoming group exhibitions, including the North Shore Arts Alliance group show at the Patterson library, the Jamestown ArtScapes project, and a spot on the NSAA’s annual Memorial Day weekend Art Trail.
Brown-Millspaw’s visual and written art is a stand-out for it’s quality and vision, but also for that set of intangibles we call ‘style’. This style is inseparable from the personality and vision of the artist herself. Brown-Millspaw grew up in a family of self-employed artists, where “no one ever told me I couldn’t do whatever I wanted.” Well into adulthood, she says she’ll “still roll down that hill, I’ll still play in the mud. I don’t care what society thinks about the way I live.” That confidence and self-possession is a cornerstone not just of good art, but of a fulfilling, agentive life. And it’s the latter that has allowed Brown-Millspaw to excel at the former; that drive, as she says, to “do as much as I can in this life that I’m interested in.”