w.e. McMillin was a professional ice skater before she switched to reverse glass painting. She was tired of the grueling hours on the ice and the travel; she wanted to set her own schedule, be home long enough to keep a plant alive.
Her work requires her to think in reverse; she has to begin with the last strokes on her piece. Besides paint, she uses whatever tape she has on hand, glue of every kind and woodstain to create her abstracts. Her inspiration comes from geometric shapes, especially lines.
Desiring to stand out from the usual canvas and paper paintings she chose glass for her surface. But the real reason she chose glass is that it offered her the look she loves of a clear coat of varnish. Perhaps it’s a nod to the ice she skated on for so many years.
I first saw her work when I was curating art for a winery. I loved everything about it, the colors, the sharp abstraction, the glass. At the end of that show, I snagged the price tag from one and took it home. We later met up in a parking lot to exchange the piece of art for money. McMillin told me the safest way to transport the piece was standing up, you know, the way the glass companies do it.
Months later the winery called me to say a piece of her art had not been picked up from the previous show so Andrew and I went to retrieve it. I fell in love with it too.
And I hung it on my newly finished wall of my newly finished house. Even though the reverse side clearly state, “NFS.” Not. For. Sale. I reluctantly called McMillin to tell her the piece had been retrieved and was in my house. She couldn’t have it back, but I would pay her for it. Deal.
So now to help out a fellow artist, I’m having a pop-up show for her in my home. Okay, I’m stealthily planning to plant a few teensy little pieces of my own around the room as well.
I love the periwinkle in this one. SOLD
I snagged the price tag for this one and bought it. SOLD
NFS (But I still managed to buy it- SOLD)
SOLD
SOLD
SOLD
SOLD
SOLD
