H. Ward Miles
The ART of IMPROV
I am so excited to welcome H. Ward Miles to The Art of Improv. Heather is an Indianapolis based artist who was raised and spent her early career in Indiana. She has worked as a graphic designer, print maker and educator. She is now devoted to her art practice full time. She makes beautiful, ethereal, works that are timeless and emotive. Her work maps her memories of experiences, spaces, emotions and sometimes the actual surface of the earth by building her canvases in paint layers, like limestone, and then scraping away paint. In her work, H. Ward Miles hopes to remind viewers of the interconnected elements of life—connecting her work to ideas of politics, environmentalism, gender, love, parenthood, travel—and to connect emotion and memory to images of the land that acts as our life’s backdrop, to our tiny regrets and greatest joys, to our experiences, to our people, to the universe. Choosing to focus on beauty instead of ugliness stands in opposition of so much of what bombards us daily and she only wants to make art that reinforces everything that is beautiful and kind. I can think of nothing we need more of in these unsettled times. Thank you Heather for reminding us of beauty and its importance in this present moment.
The Damage Is Done H. Ward Miles
What does working improvisationally mean to you? How would you define the ‘Art of Improv’?
To me, working improvisationally means working on the fly, in the moment, or like when all your plans have gone to trash. Many times, I have an initial idea when starting a painting, but similar to how life works, paintings just don't take the path that I’ve planned for them. And that’s kind of how it has to happen. Like a painting will go along pretty safely, and I’ll sort of fall in love with parts of it. But ultimately, I know that to get the painting where it needs to be, I’ll have to do something to it that almost ruins it. I’ll probably have to let go of the parts I really loved. It’s actually very cathartic and increases my faith in myself and my instincts, and even in the universe, every time I do it. Like letting go of what you think you love or want, to achieve what is meant to be for yourself or for a painting, it really shows you that you can trust your gut and that you’re really just doing the work. It’s almost not even about you. The work just comes through you. And that’s the improv part for me. When I’ve created a problem in the painting and have to find a way to creatively solve it; sorta wrangle the painting in and back to what I think is whole and complete, when you have absolutely no plan left! A sculpture professor of mine told me (in like year 2000) that I “fly by the seat of my pants” too much to be successful in sculpture. Ha ha. She was right! She just didn’t see my strength in the Art of Improv!
Have you always worked improvisationally?
I think I have! At least since college! Ha ha. Currently, improvisation is really essential to my process, but I think that improv in my past looked like a weakness. Like a lack of planning. Like, that woman is just winging it. And for 16 years, I was an art teacher at Indianapolis Public Schools, so being able to “wing it” is a great card to have up your sleeve. It’s interesting because some people I speak with feel like, “Why did you wait to be a painter for so long? Why did you wait to do this professionally/full-time?” But when I look at my personal history, I needed so many lessons for this profession and business, and I got so many of them from my life and time spent as a teacher. Improv is one of those lessons that life taught me well.
Do you work improvisationally, consciously, intentionally? If so, how do you begin? If not, how do you find yourself getting there?
I think I know improvisation is going to, at some point, take over the creative process in a painting, but I really don’t consciously start working in an improvisational way. I see three different stages to a painting: the beginning, which is all love and color and possibility; the middle, which is the hardest, when you start questioning yourself and all of your life choices; and the end, when you’ve gotten the solutions to your questions and feel like the painting has become itself. (Such a metaphor for life, right?) Improv is in all of those stages, but it is most crucial to the middle part. Without improvisation in the middle part, there would never be a painting I’m happy with.
The Little Commission H. Ward Miles
How often do you work with improvisation?
Everyday.
Please share a bit about your process. Do you have methods to getting started? Do you have tricks to getting unstuck? Do you have motivators to finishing up?
As I mentioned above, there are three stages to a painting for me. However, I make A LOT of work (at least I think I do), and to do that I work on multiple paintings at once. I’ll start a few in the honeymoon phase, then I’ll work through the middle stage, and then the end stage requires me to focus on each individual painting by itself. If I get stuck, I sorta move to another painting and work on it before returning to the stuck one. The greatest motivator to finishing a painting is completing the thought. I think abstract work can be seen as sorta “casually abstract.” Like maybe it touches on something that can be used as a metaphor to bigger issues in life, but it’s not very direct. I really am pretty specific in my work. At least from my end of things. The interpretation can probably be sorta vague, but I know what I am trying to relay to the audience. And that motivates me to finish my work if I’m stuck. I also want to finish work because of my framing! Haha. Seriously though, I love the way they look in a frame, and when I have a frame ready, I want to fill it.
Where do you find inspiration? How do you use it?
It’s cliche but inspiration, for me, is derived from everything. It’s my kids, my dogs, my relationships, it is sickness, it’s health, it’s mythology, it’s Netflix shows, it’s driving through cornfields, hay fields, soybean fields, it’s a single line from a song, it’s politics. A lot of politics actually. I think my work is often interpreted as pretty joyful, but the good has to come with the bad. And I see both in my work. I hope that is what makes people engage with it and what interests them, even if overall they see mostly happiness in it. I am mostly happy. Even when something crushing happens, it’s hard for me not to see the brightness in it. I like working on ideas that encompass all the good and some of the bad.
At Night H. Ward Miles
What advice would you give to someone interested in trying to work improvisationally. Can you share some good advice that you received that helped you become more comfortable this way?
The best advice I can give someone is to have a little faith in themselves! A lot of my improvisation is actually just creatively problem solving my way out of something of my own creation. That rings pretty true to life too. Painting is no different than your life--you’ve gone through things and triumphed, and you’ve gone through things and cut a canvas off the frame in a total rage. It’s whatever. Have faith though when you get caught up in something, that you have everything you need to beautifully solve the problem.
Good advice that I’ve received: Don’t put your drink down, don’t cut your own bangs, don’t work for free. I know ‘don’t work for free’ has made me a better painter. None of these really apply to improv though. The first two are actually anti-improv. Maybe I shouldn’t refer to them so often in my life. Ha ha.
How would you finish the sentence, ‘What if, . . .?’
What if we are limitless? I am, surprisingly to myself, pretty ambitious in my art career. And I think as humans we put limitations on ourselves that are unnecessary. I have a visual, but it might be weird, so bare with me: I used to think of my brain as like a model of a house and there were rooms where I stored my knowledge. When I would come to the edge of a room, where I thought I couldn't understand anymore, I’d touch the wall and realize it was just paper and that the room was bigger than I thought and there was way more to learn and that I had the capacity to understand more than I thought. Eventually, I’d get to the next wall and it would be paper too, and eventually, I realized that there wasn’t a room at all. And that things were pretty limitless. I like to think of my own goals that way too. Like 5 years ago, I had goals that I thought were too close to a wall in my head and felt impossible, but then I work everyday towards them and when I get to them, I realize the edge is just paper and my possibilities are much bigger than I thought. I like to believe that one foot in front of the other, day in and day out, will result in me feeling limitless. When you multiply that by all of us, it’s really kinda exciting.
What are reading, listening to, watching, or any other inspirational obsessions you would like to share?
Oh man. As much as I really love bingeing series on Netflix or Hulu or the like, my time management doesn’t usually allow for tons of that kind of obsession. I think I should try and get into podcasts (especially in the car), but I just haven’t yet. Music is definitely the medium I am constantly exposed to. I listen to it all the time. Driving, painting, cleaning, hanging out. All the time. My favorite artist is Jay-Z. (Tidal may have already flagged me as a little too invested in the man.) I just really love human development, and that man has longevity, relevance, and staying power in a constantly changing Rolodex of brand new artists. He has always had the vision and ability to see the whole plan, and to believe in his excellence. And I love listening to old Jay-Z and new Jay-Z and seeing how an artist can grow, get better, be better, and really self-evaluate to do better. It’s inspiring. But I also enjoyed Tiger King, and could make a case for feeding them all to their cats.
Thank you Heather for sharing with us all, I find your work and vision shared here so inspiring. I so agree with your advice, ‘that you have everything you need to beautifully solve the problem’, I feel like the more people could trust in this the better the world would be. We can all get ‘dumbed’ down with doubt, but your visual description of the house with the paper walls is an inspiring way to look at how if we just believe we can do ‘it’ we can do anything, and I love sharing the idea that the thing limiting us is really ourselves. Powerful! I’ve loved getting to know a little bit more about where your beautiful paintings come from and learning more about your process helps us all trust we can make it through those tough middle stages as well. Thank you.
To learn more about Heather and her work, check out her website here and find her on Instagram here.