A little bit of Everything all Blossom into One

Oh I have so much fun with obtaining inner peace and happy to share the ways.

I love to paint!! Are many great outlets for creating inner peace. I am a big advocate for this. I am able to share my ways as they have all worked and, well, turned out to be quite the special story.

Stories telling is fun, and healing and often leads to a moral and a beautiful message that somehow life just happens to know how to tell so naturally in our own very unique way. I am sure we all have one.

No matter which way you look at it, there is a positive and something wonderful to find in a story, in a painting, in a song, on a walk, or simply by sitting and listening, feeling your feelings, and living your life.

For right now,

Let’s Paint…

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I paint what I feel and I feel what I paint. My recent paint phase has become what I call “the Vase Series”. I have even looked up how to say “vase” in multiple languages. Learning something new is so good for the brain!

I love flowers and when I was pregnant I would receive flowers all of the time. I made sure to keep my vase full of flowers, full of joy, colorful brightness, inspiration, faith and the reminder of just how amazing life is.

I began painting flowers when I was a young girl. I mostly started with drawing and would draw big petals with dark colors and loved having a surprise middle center of the flower. An unlikely center. For example a pink center that looks different than in real life nature. Flowers are so beautiful in real life and the fun of art is to make something that you wouldn’t be able to find somewhere else. The theory though is that whatever the center looks like, a flower is a flower. Life is life and essentially who we are at our center does matter. This is our core, and at the core, we produce our flower, the petals of our character our life and our existence. Flowers are in many forms, all beautiful and all wonderfully made.

Each painting frees me up from anything on my mind and deepens my appreciation for what I have. The Vase, I kept full in all of my photos. I made paintings with different backgrounds, different decorative vases and various flower colors.

I have a baby and the idea is of what a family looks like. The three of us with bright happy days, some days are different than others, just as people. The theme caught on and now no matter what home (vase) no matter what background, no matter what the petal…or the center, a family is a family. Each family, in all of their brightness, darkness and colorfulness are beautiful, full of life, and I love having all of those in one Vase. Each painting is different though the pattern is similar and the series I began when I first started being up and about from having a baby. I paint with a simple approach and a simple technique.

The deeper therapeutic way of it was that my son’s name is Payton and I love his name so much. Both myself and his biological father loved painting as individuals in our single days. It was a common art, a commonality, and one thing that we agreed on and enjoyed as people. I also named him because of some other super fun ideas that brought to light his name. I began coming up with fun phrases like “painting for Payton” or “Get your “Pay’ton on” for my social media when I was painting my apartment and getting the place nice and homely ready for him to come home. My dog was really fun with me and got paint on his fur, so we took photos of him painting with me. This has started a fun theme for me. His father and I have not been together for a few months and though we both love our son, we are not living together. The main reason is that we believe in peace and making sure that most importantly our child is safe, happy , secure and enjoying life. That as individuals we show this through our own endeavors and live by example. He is a happy baby.

As I began painting I remember the fond memories of being in love and what lead to his life. Flowers and being outdoors, and the sweetness of a man giving a woman flowers ( I gave him flowers too). We had a lot of fun looking at flowers and guessing what baby we would have a boy or a girl! Pink flowers or blue flowers!; from Ribbons on the vase. Flowers are the seed of life and are always such a perfect example of what caring for life is all about: how to do that. By planting a seed , and watering it to grown, giving it proper space and the environment to bloom and blossom into what that seed was meant to be, is our ability to nurture and allow nature to grow, thrive and be kept beautiful. I have read a saying that says when you like a flower you pick it, when you love a flower, you let it grow.

The Vase series is a matter of how many homes I have had, as my partner was in the military. We stayed in many fun locations for his work and lived in different apartments for his job as well and I enjoyed the adventure. Finding the strength to move on my own when it was time to part, I began painting. I became an individual again. We met many people and the idea of family is so special and important to me. In, healing I began to paint what I felt. Over and over again no matter what brush, or how the idea started, I kept painting a vase with 3 flowers. Perhaps, How I thought life should be or would be. Accepting what is and that perhaps at the moment my vase has two flowers and the third might come again someday. Two flowers in a Vase are just fine and at one time in life, I was a single rose. The even more beautiful part of my paintings are how after all this time I am realizing how significant the details are, how life can bring it all together, such a simple way to make a beautiful picture.

My nickname was blossom and the road I would drive past often, yet never drove down was called Bloomington Road. I found many great outlets along that drive. That became a place I walked my dog, traveled on to go do my “do you” ventures and that road took me to wherever I need to go nearby where I lived: the store, the coffee shop for music and inspiration, writing and people watching, refection. I could drive to the park where I could sit by a decorative railroad station and enjoy being in the grass, at Christmas the park is filled with lights. Or go across the street to any kind of small shop restaurant, the work out place, the local shoe store, the bird sanctuary, the bank. I dreamt there. The flowering of Love that started brought my son, that created my now baby Payton. I paint pictures of flowers. My baby, my son, is meant to be and I knew from the moment I found out that he was made for a great and good purpose, for a loving kind and sweet soul, he has a wonderful purpose and is the best part of my life. I love these paintings and had so much fun painting them. I was able to keep love in my heart, and flowers often represent inspiration of peace, love, hope, life, and growth. TO make my picture perfect I have 3 flowers in that Vase and being able to look at my paintings, I am fulfilled that I was still able to make my picture perfect and enjoy looking at what I created, in reality, a priceless piece. The series of events that lead to my life where it is now is a story of its own. I still have the very first vase his dad ever sent me flowers in. The box said, “Your day is about to Bloom.”

I am not a teenage mom and I spent my twenties backpacking and living in different countries as a teacher and working in the service industry, as well as volunteering. Before having a family, I decided to go seek adventure and the greatest adventure of my life now is being a mom! I have visited gardens in every country and love flowers. I remember a fun series of events that happened in my life at a time when I began looking for someone to date and start my life with. I served a lady her lunch who said to me, that I was a late bloomer in life and that was okay. I meditated on that for a while, at least a month reflecting on my goals in life and everything I had set out to accomplish. I was surprisingly reminded that I had many more dreams to achieve and I had landed in an area where I was bubbled in and ready to break free again, to keep moving in my goals in life. Somehow she knew I was looking for a change. I , went to the nearest dollar store and bought my set of paints, canvas and a t-shirt to paint in . I began painting and no more going out and spending money and doing the same thing. I made a change. I stayed in, saved money, got up early, started working out and going to the beach to do yoga, read, write and be at peace with mindfulness practice of sitting on the beach and just looking around and enjoying not have to be doing something all of the time. I started a new interest of learning about significant women in history and that started an empowerment kick in me to focus on school and career again. I got involved with social media again and searching for friends and inspiration of people who were doing things with their life. A friend of mine who is a wood crafter had just started a new craft project and posted his photos of wood work on line. I commented on it and said how I liked his work, as we had all spoken of our ideas on a camping trip man months before. The response I got was “its better late than never.”

As with most projects, I enjoyed getting my supplies a little therapy shopping and how to make a project happen. The wonder of what I would paint. I have so many ideas in my mind and that day I found everything on sale which in turn makes shopping even more fun. I was able to get 3 times as much as what I would have with one. That gave me the ability to make it all. I was able to make a series of painting though I had one picture in mind. I quite like what the picture looks like now, my mind is paint on canvas. Life is incredibly amazing, So pick up a brush and make the picture work for you, make that picture yours, and do what’s in your heart and mind. I have a masterpiece in the making, and Life is good again.

While I’m at it, let’s be honest, writing helps too.

With Love and Gratitude,

Kerri Mom Miller

To each their own and may your bath be a beautiful way.

To having my good man in my life who has inspired me to keep being me and loves me the way I am.