Category: ALL POSTS
My portfolio of works 2006-2016
You can look at my whole portfolio as an artist HERE.
Lisa Nilsson – “När kärleken tar slut” (cover of “The Sign” by Ace of Base)
My days as a cubist (mid 90’s)
“The Perfect Rock”
NEW DIGITAL WORK! “The Perfect Rock” by Mia Makila, 2016
I can hear the demons whispering
Something is happening inside me. I can feel new life running through my veins. Fresh blood. An intoxicating rush of red rivers underneath the surface. The essence of my life. Red. Glowing. Beating. Like it should be.
The sensuality of spring is inspiring. The newness of time, the texture of growth, the birth of a season – of life itself. A thin veil of protection, then exposed and raw in its delicacy. True vulnerability is the source of any greatness. I close my eyes but my world stays intact – there’s no darkness behind the light. Not even a shadow.
I can sense new artworks being born inside my mind like soft dreams but with such clarity that I immediately surrender to it’s pull. I hear my demons whispering inside. I am about to give birth to new life – just like momma spring. I can feel it. They want out of me. And they will take little pieces of pain with them – pain that will never return to my inner world.
Redefining my “creativity blockage”
Some of the artworks I’ve done during my so called “creativity blockage” (I couldn’t make them all fit). This makes me confused – this is what creativity blockages looks like?…
One of the best things about the human mind is that we have the power to change the way we look at things – and the new perspective will present us to a whole new world. We can go from being in a bad place to a good place. We can be sad and then something will make us laugh. We can be wrapped in negativity – but if we untangle ourselves from the gloomy and judgmental mindset, we are able to see things from a more positive viewpoint. This what I’ve been doing lately, and it’s definitely becoming my new hobby.
I got this new easel as a birthday gift when I turned 30. That’s when I just stopped having fun when I was painting, and the creativity process turned into a struggle – and 6 months later, I stopped working all together. I felt blocked, and it would last for almost 7 years.
I have been thinking a lot about my creativity blockage lately. I don’t feel blocked anymore – I am simply waiting for the right time to start working in my studio again. I want to feel ready. I am almost there now. The creativity blockage lasted almost 7 years, but was it really a blockage, perhaps it was something else?
It felt like I was in a war with myself. Forcing ideas, self-loathing, wanting to change my style because I thought it wasn’t good enough, feeling disgusted by every single brush stroke that seemed wrong, the stress, the identity crises – who was I when I wasn’t making art? I also saw my career slip away – and I let it happen. Since I consider my art to be an extension of myself – a big part of me was missing. I felt cut in half. I felt amputated. I felt desperate and confused. And very sad. It was almost like a friend had died. I felt nauseous just walking into my studio. I felt scared. Scared of the constant failures. I worked. I cried. I screamed. I hated whatever I was working on. It always ended with me painting over the thing with black paint and then throwing it in the garbage. And then I cried and screamed some more. It was the worst kind of torture an artist can imagine.
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Stockholm, 2011 – one of the most painful years of my life. My creativity had abandoned me – or was it me who had abandoned my creativity and perhaps even myself?
I wrote this in my diary in 2010:
“It is more natural for me to not create now than to be creative. My paint and brushes are stored away in transparent boxes and waiting for this paralysis to disappear so I can use them again.
It’s like all of me is in this invisible, transparent storage box that separates me from my true identity, and from my desire to create. A coffin if you like. For I feel dead in so many ways. It is not an exaggeration or emotional debauchery – but an honest feeling that is rooted deep inside in my core. ”
The making of “My Neighborhood”, 2012 about the three buildings where I lived together with the abuser.
2012 was a real turning point for me. I was diagnosed with PTSD and that’s when I began my inner journey in trauma therapy treatment. I slowly began to come undone – and layer after layer of pain and fear started to melt away. Things started to make sense and I could see that everything in my life was all wrong. My relationship, the environment, my behavior, feelings and thoughts. Everything. I could see that I had abandoned myself completely. I knew I had to change everything in my life. I knew I had to be brave enough to say goodbye to everything I had ever known to be real and true.
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Now I am here. Living a new life. With a new way of looking at things. And I have decided to look at my creativity blockage as something that was painful but so very helpful. When I stopped painting in 2010 – I didn’t really stop making art all together – instead I was exploring digital art. I didn’t really consider it art at that time. I was just playing around in PhotoShop. But with time, I got really good at it. During my creativity blockage, 2009-2016 I’ve made over 70 digital artworks. I am considered to be one of the finest digital artist in my genre. In 2013 my digital artwork “The Crash” was included in an all-digital group show at Strychnin Gallery in Berlin.
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When I put my career to sleep I suddenly had all this time to spend on myself. If I hadn’t been blocked I would never had the time to work so hard to overcome the PTSD and the traumas. I would still have all that cluttered chaos inside my mind. I feel very grateful to myself that I had the courage to change everything I needed to change in order for me to be happy again. It’s been such a long journey. I’ve also had the time to ask myself what I want to do with my life, who I want to be and what really matters to me and what I can live without. And now I have found a more honest place for my creativity. My art will be more personal from now on. It’s been an incredible time of awakening and self-empowerment. I feel very lucky to have reconnected with my core again. Through the process of growth and enlightenment I have also found my true love.
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With Johnny, 2015
When I look back the creativity blockage I can see it wasn’t so much an artistic blockage as it was a self-abandonment. Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing in myself. I was punished by haters and started to project their hate onto myself. I shrunk into myself. I started to believe I wasn’t even worthy of my own success. No wonder I just stopped working as an artist.
I am slowly reclaiming my creativity, my talents, my strength and my success. I have learned so much from this involuntary hiatus and I will use it as experience to add to my future career. And I will never abandon myself again. Ever.
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And when I look at all the artworks I’ve done during this blockage (around 150) I can’t help but smiling. THAT was a blockage – really?
What three years of practice in PhotoShop looks like
Brené Brown: Why Your Critics Aren’t The Ones Who Count
Not only a role-model, but also a hero.
The destructive doubt
Step by step, I am deconstructing myself in order to find understanding and acceptance. In each step, I am healing a little bit more. During a period of only a year or so, I’ve dismantled old survival strategies, destructive behavioral patterns, I’ve demolished false self-images, fantasies, old belief systems, I’ve explored and confronted concepts such as fear, guilt, shame, control, power, anxiety, worry, vulnerability, dependency, suffering, trauma, sexuality, trust, home, integrity, thinking styles, health, strength, awareness, destructive relationships, freedom, victimization, law of attraction, peace of mind, meditation, letting go, starting over, change, psychological projections, the core, self sabotage, happiness, creativity, failure, success, pride, connection, mental paralysis and passivity – and love.
It’s been hard work. A LOT of hard work. And after I’ve filled nearly 15 notebooks with therapy notes and self-therapy notes, in only two years – I’ve cleaned my inside from the chaos and pain of two traumas. The pain will always be there of course, but it’s not an active pain. I think I have to write a book about all this – I want to share my knowledge, especially with younger women who could identify with what I’ve been going through.
My latest challenge and concept to break down – so I can get to the core of it and apply that knowledge to my consciousness and awareness – is ‘doubt’ – or self-doubt. And I think it’s the essential ingredient in most self destructive thoughts, behavior and perception. Whenever there is a doubt – there is a sense of loss. A loss of belief, trust, acceptance or faith. And if we’re talking about the belief, trust and faith in oneself, the doubt will lead to insecurities and suffering. It’s the moment where you start to doubt yourself that can lead to damaging decisions – or the consequences of not making one at all.
Imagine the doubt as a meteorite coming right at you. Now imagine its impact – and how it will change your thoughts, behavior and feelings just like a crater changes the surface of the Earth. The doubt-meteorite is an interruption of a flow of thoughts and behavior – and a disruption in our confidence and self-esteem. This is very destructive.
The impact of the doubt-meteorie will create thoughts like “am I good enough?”, “perhaps their abuse is my fault after all?”, “am I really worthy of love and happiness?”, “could somebody really love me?”, “can I really do this?”, “what will other people think of me?”
Every doubt comes with a little fear. To overcome self-doubt – we need to examine that fear in order to rebuild whatever it destroyed inside us. Doubt can be good and can carry a lot of important information – like if we have doubts about a relationship, situation, a job or in things we know we need to change in order to be happy. But self-doubt is nothing but destructive. Believing in yourself and the things you do, will protect you from the any approaching meteorite inside your mind.
Mozart – Violin Concerto No.3
THE MOJO
A friend made this for me a few years ago, after I’d posted something about ‘looking for my mojo’ on Facebook, it made me laugh
One of the most elusive and mysterious elements of creativity has to be the mojo. I have been searching for a good definition of the word but I can’t really find one that fully explains this invisible source of good vibes and magic. Perhaps it’s individual, or at least expressed in very different ways – on a stage, in the spotlight, at the dance floor, in an act of seduction, persuasion or as the driving force in a creative expression. For me, it’s a combination of sexual energy, confidence and being true to my nature – when I feel connected to my core and let it speak. Loudly.
Portrait of my mojo at work
I always feel the mojo pumping in my veins while I am painting and when the expression feels just right
When I feel my mojo working, it’s like there’s a warm, electric stardust rushing through my veins while I am creating art or writing – and that’s when I feel like I am becoming one with whatever I am working on. When it gets a life of its own. That’s when I feel like I am giving birth to something incredible that never existed in the world before I put it there. Something magical and more real than reality. My mojo isn’t always there and it’s hard to predict when it will be present and when it will leave. You can’t take it for granted.
Trying to find my mojo, during the creativity blockage, 2010
When it’s not there, the creative flow isn’t there either. The work becomes a struggle or at least a little less fun. The magic isn’t there. The results lack energy and potency. When I finish a painting without my mojo, I don’t feel that sense of release or fulfillment. I can see that it’s finished, I feel done with it, but it’s like I gave birth to something stillborn and lifeless.
Examples of works where I felt my mojo working and where it was missing:
“Dirty” by Mia Makila, 2008
“Dirty Heaven” by Mia Makila, 2009
Mojo (left) vs no mojo (right)
“Daddy’s Secret” by Mia Makila
Unifinished work, 2009
Mojo (left) vs no mojo (right)
Maybe I’m being a bit over-dramatic, but I don’t think I’ve understood just how important mojo is for my creativity process. And it’s so connected to my sexuality. The mojo feeds off my sexual energy and my sexual energy feeds off my mojo. Like a cycle made of silver sparks and pink flames going round and round inside my heart, mind, soul or wherever it is located inside me.
I often feel sexually aroused when the mojo is working. It’s like the mojo is absorbing the passion I feel for creating art, the inspiration I’ve collected in my mind, the lust I feel to express what’s inside me and the intense focus of the creative process – and then squeezing out the most delicious juice that turns into some kind of magic energy. That’s when I feel closest to life. And to myself.
Red
Photo of me from March 2006, when I began dyeing my hair red
Today marks an important anniversary for me; I have been a fiery redhead for 10 years now! It might sound a bit superficial to you – but there is a story behind the transformation.
I was born a blonde. When I was a little girl, my dad used to tell me that my hair was made of gold and if I would brush it a hundred times – I’d turn into a real life princess. Of course it never happened and I thought my hair looked more like hay, or something less exciting.
When I was only 18 years old, I met my abuser He was a schoolmate and my first real love – and I stayed with him for five years. Those years would change my life forever. I lived in a secret Hell, and I didn’t tell anyone about the abuse, not even the cops that came to our apartment because the neighbors heard me scream for help. I kept it all within myself and it grew, and grew like a black tumor inside. I started to loath myself – I projected his evil onto myself. His dark visions of me turned into my own twisted self-images. I thought was fat, ugly and gross, the same words he used to describe me with.
Before I met him, I was a very strong and expressive young person and I tried to keep the memory of that girl alive in my soul – and when I finally found the courage to end the marriage, I looked for her to find strength. But the trauma had blurred the memories of myself and it was harder than I thought to find the way back to myself. I felt lost.
I didn’t know who I was anymore. I felt like I was this blonde shadow of someone I used to be before I turned into nothing but a victim.
11 years old and deeply focused on a writing project
12 years old and bored at a restaurant in Belgium
16 years old
In Italy 1997, 17 years old
18 years old (1998)
During the divorce, 2003
Painting, 2004
Stockholm, 2005
With blonde extensions, 2006
Lolita, 2006
The last month as a blonde, 2006
Three years after the divorce, in 2006, I felt like I was in a place where I could start looking for a new me, instead of trying to go back in time and try to rescue myself before the trauma happened. I hated the position of being a victim and I made a promise to myself that I would do anything to overcome my horrible past. Unfortunately, at this point, I was struggling with a new trauma and it became the final straw – so I slipped into a deep depression. Even though this was one of the hardest times of my life, I kept myself alive by working with my art – non-stop. I created art (the first collection horror art) to distract myself from the pain I felt inside – and it’s safe to say that my creativity saved my life. It’s not the first time – and it won’t be the last.
“It’s All In My Head” by Mia Makila, 2006 [mixed media on canvas]
“My Hell” by Mia Makila, 2006 [mixed media on canvas]
I kept pushing through the pain with my will to survive and to thrive through my art. To make something beautiful out of the grotesque and ugly that was happening to me at the time. I felt like I was going through a metamorphosis in my art – it changed so much, both technically and in expression. That’s when I really started to change as a person too. And I decided to become everything I wanted to be – and to not only overcome my traumas, but also to become who I was meant to be in this world. I knew it was a real challenge, but I also knew I could do it. I would recreate a new version of myself, piece by piece and by facing all my demons (that’s why I make so many demon portraits). I would become my own work of art.
I began this metamorphosis by dyeing my hair red – to make a real visible change. Then I put myself in therapy. I wanted to use every expression I could find, every possible way to disassociate myself from who I used to be. “His wife”, “the victim”, “the submissive”. I now looked so different from her. It was liberating.
That is the story behind my red hair. I highly doubt that I’ll ever go back to being blonde again. I love my fiery hair, it illustrates so well what’s in my heart. I am still a work in progress. I’ve failed a million times and I’ve fallen down the dark rabbit hole, over and over again. It has taken me 10 years of hard work to overcome my traumas and I’m still not quite over them yet – but at least I am on my way to achieve something extraordinary. I can feel it.
The fiery red will guide me on my path. It’s so much more than just a color. So much more.
The space in between
For four days I’ve been trying to write something here, but it’s like the words just won’t come out. I can sense them, flowing like a river inside me, but something is blocking them from floating out on the screen.
At times I am going through very abstract phases of healing and soul searching and it’s hard to form any tangible sentences to describe what I am experiencing. It’s nothing religious or anything like that – it is simply the space in between two different versions of me or my own perception of things. A space where it’s too late to feel like my old convictions are still believable, because I am growing out of my old beliefs but it’s too early to totally grasp a different and deeper understanding. It makes me a bit withdrawn and contemplative. But it’s exciting – to let go of whatever I thought I knew about myself and to open my mind and expand it in order to welcome new and different ideas. My warped self images are burning away and being replaced by a sense of inner freedom. But it’s in the gaps in between these different viewpoints where I’m feeling a bit lost.
On the inside, something is always dying and being reborn. There is a sense of innocence being lost and found while other things are already rotten and something new stars to grow out of the decay. It’s a wonderful process of growth and strength. But it can be overwhelming – some days I just cry and cry. Not because I am sad, but because I feel so damn alive and so full of gratitude and love.
Walk The Moon- Aquaman
I love this song.
Garry Winogrand, El Morocco, 1955
One of my favorite photographs, by Garry Winogrand
House of Cards
I have been watching House of Cards all weekend. I haven’t felt well lately and I’ve been focused on getting better, so I decided to rest for a few days and to just indulge in Frank Underwood’s world of entertaining arrogance and theatre-like sophistication. – and I finished the fourth season in only two days. Now I’m back on the first season again. I love it and I’m especially in love with the theme song, composed by Jeff Beals.
Work in progress [digital]
Today
I am spending so much time trying to erase my past that I feel blindsided when I discover that the past never cared to erase me in the same way. Suddenly there’s a clash of realities. A confusion in perception. Memories and question marks blending inside my bloodstream. I had a dream last night where I died and I was bleeding red syrup. It kept leaking out of me in slow motion. Perhaps that’s what happens when your heart is contaminated by a trauma.
Days like this is a reminder that the world I am slowly creating for myself is much more beautiful than the world we are born into. Reality is just raw material for creating magic.
Maryland – Vonda Shepard
I love this song.
Killing distractions
Last night with my friend Jasmina, talking about self-empowerment and changes.
I am still mentally preparing myself to really focus on my art again. I feel like an athlete, warming up before a big performance. Part of this preparation is to be aware of distractions, and kill them, one by one, in order to create a clean space, both mentally and physically, where it’s just me and my creativity. It’s harder than I thought it would be. It’s like most of every day life is about distractions. Random thoughts and worry about things that are out of my control – I call this behavior‘mindlessness’ (the opposite of mindfulness). But it’s also the constant checking my email, Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. I call this ‘dumb-dumb-time’ because it’s just a random, mindless routine without any purpose at all. It’s such a waste of time – but yet so easy to get sucked into and suddenly you’ve been scrolling and scrolling away precious time you could have used on something more important.
I don’t watch TV, but I do spend a lot of time binge watching TV-series which is OK but not during the best hours of the day. I will need to change my routines. I stopped watching regular TV 10 years ago, and it’s such a big relief – I used to be a slave to the weekly TV schedule and had to interrupt whatever I was doing to watch a show. Now, I am also free of disgusting TV commercials. It’s like a detox when it comes to manipulations.
Killing distractions is like vacuum the every day life. To clean out all those things without any good in them, or at least minimizing it. I need to stop being lazy and sacrifice the false sense of ‘freedom’ I feel when I’m not doing anything. That kind of ‘freedom’ just makes me a slave to my meaningless and passive routines and stupid habits. And a guilty conscious about what I should be doing instead. I am also cleaning out self-doubt, bad self-esteem, negative energy and negative thoughts. I’m learning how to stop caring about other people’s judgments and idiocy – it just creates a victim mentality anyway. Totally toxic and destructive.
I will keep working on this new mindset. I’m on a killing spree – and I’ll get each and every of those distractions which are standing between me and the focus I need to be one with my creativity again.
Food for thought
Reclaiming my intelligence
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do
– Marianne Williamson
An awakening is not only a pleasant experience. It can be brutal at times. I can see things so clearly now and it’s all painfully real. Suddenly I get these realizations – or like a spiritual ‘epiphany’ – and I start to look different to myself. It feels both liberating and scary at the same time – and can be very confusing at times. This week I made a strange realization.
Throughout my whole life, I’ve heard that I’m different, special or an ‘odd bird’ – but I’ve never really defined what that means to me and what consequences those labels have had on me and my life.
I haven’t followed conventions and rules – so I am considered as ‘difficult’. I never understood superficial social interactions – so I was labeled ‘weird’. I have never wanted to belong to any group, any religion, political party or ideology – so I am a ‘misfit’. I have always expressed myself and who I am – so I have been considered to be ‘too much’ – and deserve to be punished. I have my own Universe inside me, I have a vivid imagination and a heightened emotionality – so I’ve been called ‘crazy’ (mostly in a positive sense, whatever that means). I’m overcoming PTSD – so I must be ‘sick’. The right hemisphere of my brain is more dominant than the left therefore I use my imagination, empathy and creativity more than I use logic – so I must be ‘stupid’.
But that’s just it – I am none of those things. I just have a lot of integrity and won’t give up who I am in order to ‘fit the system’. I am not mentally ill because I have PTSD, I am simply fighting the traumas, caused by other people’s madness and manipulation. I am not crazy, just open-minded.
But, what I’ve discovered lately is how much and often I’ve belittled myself in order to make other people feel smarter and less insecure around me. So much so that I forgot about my own intelligence. I acted stupid, felt stupid and then believed in my own lie – I started to believe that I actually was stupid. It might be hard for you to understand why I would do this to myself – but it has an explanation, rooted in the PTSD (in psychology called “regression”). It’s a common survival strategy during a trauma; to endure unbearable long-term situations the victim takes on more childish mannerisms in order to escape the responsibility and emotions of an adult. There is often a bond between the abuser and the victim in which the victim is both terrified of the unreliable nature of the abuser and at the same time is seeking comfort and security in the same person (I call this destructive bond ” the dance of death “, this routine is why people stay in abusive or toxic relationships). To act oblivious, or more ” innocent ” can make the victim feel safer because the abuser (especially in domestic violence) is also the “caregiver” and authority figure as some sort of a parental substitute. It’s a complex phenomenon.
So I felt comforted in the way I acted stupid – and that allowed the abuser to seem smarter and more in control, so I wouldn’t question the situation. Sometimes abuse seem to make more sense than the thought of breaking free and having to deal with the aftermath – that’s what abuse does to your mind. After the trauma, this was just part of my twisted behavior and part of my PTSD. I didn’t even notice how I was belittling myself and acting stupid. It became part of my self image.
At one point I even thought about making a boyfriend my legal guardian. That’s how fucked up this self image was. I thought I was incompetent, talentless, worthless and such a victim of my own bad decisions that I couldn’t be trusted.
I can’t believe how I could ever think like that. It’s shocking. Gross. Bizarre. And embarrassing.
After my last break-up in 2014 I started to change, drastically. I had overcome most of the PTSD symptoms through therapy and nothing made sense anymore – I was finally shedding skin and finding closure in all the destructive behavioral patterns.
Now I am finally able to acknowledge my own intelligence, not only how smart I am but also HOW I am smart – in what way I am smart, what my resources are, my strength and my competencies. Basically it’s all about the qualities that I’ve been bullied for – the qualities that made people say I am difficult, weird, too much, a misfit and crazy. All that is what make me intelligent and amazing. I never want to act stupid again just to make other people feel better about themselves.
I know my intelligence is rare and beautiful – and when I combine it with my creativity and imagination I can be very powerful. I know it can make people uncomfortable but it’s just not my problem.
I’ve only just begun exploring my intelligence and where it can take me. I wish all people could experience this kind of enlightenment – even if it uncovers embarrassing and painful truths about who we have been forced to be while hiding our true selves. We all deserve to shine from within.
Emotional
The monthly invasion of excruciatingly intense hormones and anxiety has once again interrupted my process of self therapy. I feel all messed up – over emotional and numb at the same time. But in this break I am able to reflect on what I’m going through and to acknowledge the hard work I’m doing, which I’m usually taking for granted.
Spring is somehow leaking through the chilly winds outside my window. It’s still cold out but I can feel a change coming on. I feel just as restless as spring to unfold and blossom with everything I am.
Soon.
I am thinking about how I found love while looking for it in other places. I’m still so used to destructive relationships that I am having a hard time trusting all the wonderfulness of this love story. I’m learning how to accept love and to trust another person. It is almost as difficult as the process of my self-empowerment. Or perhaps it’s part of it. I feel extremely emotional as soon as I am thinking about him. We are quite different but we share many qualities, especially how we always filter life through our thoughts and hearts and allow details to be as significant as the whole. There is a sense of sensuality in that. We both experienced an interruption of innocence somewhere early in life, and we are slowly repairing it together in each other and in ourselves. We are like a scaffolding to each other’s heart, creating a support system so we can heal and grow. Like the crutches holding the characters together in Dali’s paintings.
It is a beautiful love. Not harsh or indifferent like the ones in my past. It’s like we are growing up together, although we are already adults. I wonder what that will do to the passive Lolitas in my art.
Today, I will simply let the anxious hormones pass through me as if am a train station. All the emotions are warped and colored with high sensitivity and conflicting meanings. Tomorrow I hope I’ll wake up to be more in control of my inner activities.
Time to finish this thing
MIA MAKILA 