'Stay Brave' with Brittany Miller
‘Stay Brave’ is an interview series by woman-identifying creatives for woman-identifying creatives to inspire bravery in the creative life. [Created and curated by Leah Umansky]
How do you interpret the phrase, "Stay Brave?"
Staying Brave to me means an unwavering commitment to myself, as an artist. I will not allow myself to be moved out of place by life’s circumstances, the art market, or any other internal or external force. I have to trust in myself and the work enough that years of rejections couldn’t change my conviction. Someone I love said something that has stayed with me, which is, if you think something is beautiful, don’t wait for someone else to agree.
As a woman-identifying writer, what are the ways that you “stay brave” in your life?
I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I had a hard time writing something down. I don’t feel brave at all. Reading about Palestine, Lebanon, all civilians caught in war and genocide, the Congo—the ever-growing list of oppressed people around the world, I feel like I am just tucked away, doing exactly what I want to do. There is very little danger in my life, and most of what I feel is gratitude. But I will have to answer from my own corner, because that’s what might be useful. For me, being brave has been about taking up space and being vulnerable to the world. I was mute as a child when in public, and spent most of my life trying to be invisible. I also come from a fundamentalist Christian household, where I was raised to stay in the background, and submit to men and the world. Paintings are still emissaries that I can hide behind, but at the same time, it’s like putting my full self on display.
Who is someone in your life who models “staying brave” for you?
I think of both of my grandmothers. One who has only ever been her full self—vulnerable, laid bare, as honest as a person can be. She is the kindest, most loving person I’ve ever met, after a very difficult life. The other, who spends her days traveling the world with her friends, after being the sole breadwinner while raising four children. Every single woman who came before me had to live a life with many, many sacrifices. I believe I’m the first woman in my bloodline who has had the freedom to craft a life without limitations, and I reflect on that reality often. It’s another absurdity. One story that stands out for me, though I know very little, is about my grandmother’s grandmother, Cora. There is a single black and white photograph of her in a family photo album. On the back my grandma had written (in cursive, ballpoint pen) her name, and that she had died at age 28 from a drug overdose after being forced into prostitution. She looks to be in her early 20’s in the photograph. It’s because of all of these women that I am here, and I want to use my freedom as best as I can.
What writers, artists, and/or musicians do you look to to foster a sense of “bravery?”
The first person who truly changed something in me was Frida Kahlo. I learned about her in sixth grade, when I was shown slides of her paintings in art class. When I saw all of these self-portraits—in drag, nude, exposed, I knew I wanted to be that kind of person. The next was Alice Neel. I watched the documentary about her made by her grandson, and listened to these stories about how Alice Neel lived in poverty, and made very little money on her paintings for almost all of her life. Making paintings was a liability. She had little external success for such a long time, and yet continued on and on. And if nothing had happened, in the end, we simply wouldn’t know her name. We have to work with the possibility of any outcome, and sacrifice without the promise of a certain kind of return, besides the satisfaction of having made something. In the documentary, art historian Mary Garrard tells a story about Alice Neel sharing her work at a panel. “She grabbed the mic, and grabbed the podium, and pulled out about forty carousels of slides and started showing them. We started to say, okay it’s time for you to get off, we’ve got a program to finish. She wouldn’t stop, she kept going and going. The women’s room had a lot of business, and she got tired of waiting, so she simply pulled up her skirt and peed. That was a gesture not without its irony. She wasn’t just doing this to relieve herself. Jackson Pollock was famous for having peed in a fireplace. So, Alice was making a sort of performance statement about herself. Her outrageous gestures gave women permission to claim space—to claim psychic space, physical space, world space, to do things that were over the top in some way. It’s not that she directed anybody to do it, but she just gave an example of how you could operate.” There are many others who came after—Kara Walker, Hilma af Klint, Miyoko Ito, Louise Bourgeois, Kerry James Marshall. Marie Howe and Diane Seuss. More every day.
What’s a piece of advice you would pass on to your younger self about “staying brave?” What’s something you know now, that you didn’t know in the past?
I would tell my younger self to continue to be wildly delusional. I know now that I don’t need permission, that nobody truly holds the keys, and that all of the inhibitory structures I believed are fair, with deep meaning and important rules, are just that—structures that can be built and can be broken down.
Can you remember a time in your life where you realized your own bravery? How did you use it to propel you forward?
Since childhood I’ve believed that any reality is possible, and I’m noticing how that feeling has continued to grow stronger. After reading Matilda, I tried moving small objects in my bedroom with my eyes. I rode the school bus with the secret knowledge that I could read the minds of my classmates. I’ve been driven forward by the desire to make something so great, so beautiful that someone wants to smash it with a hammer like the Pietà.
What do you do when you aren’t feeling brave? What inspires you or motivates you?
When I’m not feeling brave, I remind myself that we are on a dying planet, I can do whatever I want, and not much matters beyond being kind and being generous (and not making too much of a mess). Being alive is already completely absurd, so why shouldn’t I just believe that anything can happen?
In what ways would you like to be more brave in your creative life?
I just need to keep digging my heels in.
What is your proudest moment of bravery?
A moment I’m proud of, that maybe I shouldn’t be, is when I left my job to paint full time (in June 2023). This moment involved a violent shift in a power dynamic established over many years, shedding many skins, and an empty bank account. But what it represents for me is, putting full confidence in myself (just myself) and my work. That my paintings will keep me alive. It felt similar to when I moved to New York City from my little hometown, eating rice and beans and figuring it all out.
What are you currently working on?
I recently got back from a residency in London with The Fores Project, and I'm going back into the body of work I started before I left. I'm making paintings about caves--as purgatories, wombs, spaces to transform and commune with gods. And as always, I'm painting poets. I recently worked on paintings with Jack Underwood (who I met while in London), and John Yau.
Thank you, Brittany.
Brittany Miller (born 1990), lives and works in New York City. She received an MS from Pratt Institute and an MA from Columbia University. She has had solo exhibitions with T293, Rome (2024); Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2023); and Scott Miller Projects, Birmingham (2022). Miller’s paintings borrow visual language from Christian art history, incorporating archetypes of the martyr, savior, and saint. In her work, figures are encountering the supernatural–levitations, messages from elsewhere, and visits from otherworldly beings–while the vibrational quality of her line-work encourages the viewer to have a transcendental experience of their own. You can find her on IG @brittanyjmiller
Leah Umansky is a poet, writer, curator, writing coach, artist and teacher. Her new collection of poems is OF TYRANT out now with Word Works Books. She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and has curated and hosted The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC since 2011. Her creative work can be found in such places as PBS’’ ‘Story in the Public Square,’ The New York Times, POETRY, Bennington Review, American Poetry Review, Minyan Magazine, The Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day and others. She is a writing coach who has taught workshops to all ages at such places as Poets House, Hudson Valley Writers Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering and elsewhere. She is working on a fourth collection of poems ORDINARY SPLENDOR, on wonder, joy and love and a hybrid-memoir, DELICATE MACHINE. She can be found at www.leahumansky.com or @leah.umansky on IG.
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Brittany, Thank you for sharing your deep thoughts and insights with everyone. Your creative conviction is powerful energy that you harness in your paintings at the tip of your brush. You have chapters and volumes of stories to share. Namaste. Daniel.