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Mills Brown

@mills_brown_

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artist 🌸 making paintings and animations ☀️sharing my work with children & families 🌱creative at home with 👶🏻
Fort Collins, CO

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Can’t believe my residency with @artfieldssc wraps up tomorrow!

One of my favorite things about this residency was having studio visits almost every day. Thank you so much to everyone who came by and added more ideas, color, and life to the studio installation. I will be taking back a lot of good energy with me and into my painting practice this summer! 🌈🌞❣️

Hope to see you at my community workshop tomorrow from 10am-1pm. Drop in anytime and stay as long as you like - all are welcome taken in Lake City, South Carolina by @mills_brown_

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5 months ago

It’s been fun to look back on my Montessori days! Thanks for the love on my recent 💖amazing preschooler paintings💖 reel. Here’s a closer look at our classroom and how it was structured.

#childledlearning #playbasedlearning #openendedplay #processart #montessoriart by @mills_brown_

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7 months ago

This is a paper mache TV with my iPad inside! 📺 And we are watching Little Bear like it’s 1999

#handmadeforkids #papermache taken in Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK by @mills_brown_

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6 months ago

The border was my favorite part to paint - it references 8 of my toddler’s (and my!) favorite books - many of which were gifted by his Gran @michelelowy 💙

Cat Family Four Seasons
Where the Wild Things Are
The Three Bears
Pierrot’s ABC Garden
How to Catch a Star
Owl Babies
Each Peach Pear Plum
The Mitten by @mills_brown_

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2 days ago

Painting with my oldest muse again❣️(the southern landscape!)

These are some of the reference photos I’m using in my current series 🌝 taken in South Carolina by @mills_brown_

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2 days ago

Mood is everything 🕯️🐍🌷 by @mills_brown_

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7 days ago

Blue Wolf, 2025, colored pencil on paper

This piece will soon be displayed at @woffordcollege in the president’s home. Many thanks to @wocopresident and @woffordcollege_aah! Both this drawing and the painting in my previous post are for sale at Wofford ❣️ by @mills_brown_

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9 days ago

Your Place in the Family of Things 🐚🪶🌝🍎🐋🕸️🦋2025, acrylic and oil on canvas

This painting is en route to @woffordcollege where it will live in the president’s home! Thank you @woffordcollege_aah and to @wocopresident for selecting my work to be displayed in your new home.

This piece references the poem, Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver. On one of our earliest dates, Linus recited it by memory, and it’s been a favorite since. I made this when I was pregnant and thinking that most of all, I wanted our baby to grow up knowing this kind of self-acceptance and belonging, with us and within the wider world, “the family of things.” My wish for him and for every child.

Other references in this painting:
🫂 the figures are taken from Schiele
🕸️ the spiderwebs with moths are inspired by Kiki Smith
🦢 i made the border while looking at old American story quilts
✨and the sky is for Virgos

Wild Geese:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things. by @mills_brown_

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13 days ago

Happy October 🕯️🍁☕️🕓🎃 this is our favorite fall craft so far!

#creativekids #openendedplay #cozyseason by @mills_brown_

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16 days ago

American Campfire Stories 🕯️

I’m working on a new painting series, reflecting on returning to the US after 5 years living abroad.

This painting is Vermont in July, my friend’s handmade quilt on the grass, and telling toddlers stories about fairies that we make up as we go 🌼 by @mills_brown_

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a month ago

Bc I love bright patterns and he loves Little Bear!

Rug is @ruggable 😍

#thrifted #painting #handmadeforkids by @mills_brown_

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2 months ago

New painting station 🌈 by @mills_brown_

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2 months ago