Art by Angela Müller is featured in The New Territory Magazine’s Pageturner Fundraiser on October 21, 2023.
Buy tickets here to participate in the live and silent auctions.
Featured artwork in our live art auction:
“Moon with Clouds”
For Moon with Clouds, I wanted to offer a strong moon emblematic of the rugged American prairie below, a symbol of tenacity and grit, and a nod to the Kansas motto, Ad Astra per Aspera, to the stars through difficulties. To represent the plains farming heritage, I chose the cotton canvas of a vintage grain sack found in a rural antique store. The painting is raw and sculptural, comprised of paint, stone, indentation of wheat, rust and the black ash of freshly burnt prairie sage hand-gathered in north central Kansas. I use organic materials to connect people to the spirit of the wild things of the prairie. Rust symbolizes that time is fleeting. Grain reminds us that small things, well tended, can grow into greatness. Prairie sage encapsulates the pure energy of a hundred suns and moons absorbed through the plant’s leaves and roots. It is custom framed with reclaimed wood. (canvas 24×20 inch, 27×23 inch framed)
Starting bid at The Pageturner Fundraiser: $400
About Angela Müller and her Connection to the Midwest
Angela Müller is a visual artist and writer based in Russell, Kansas, a fifth-generation Kansan with a family farming heritage. She grew up on the prairie knowing the land and sky, but moved away as an adult and immediately felt a visceral disconnect. It wasn’t until she returned to the prairie years later so her children might enjoy a similar upbringing, that she saw this place with a new set of eyes and began to paint, incorporating hand-gathered earthen materials to connect people to the spirit of the wild things. She has shown work in group and solo shows across the county with an aim toward lifting up the ruggedness of the American prairie, creating with grain, stone, wild plant ash, cedar berries, rust, rainwater and other elements. Her studio is located on the mixed grass prairie at Fossil Lake.
See Angela’s work in print throughout our literature section in The New Territory Issue 12.
Personal hopes for art in the Midwest:
“It is a place austere and wrapped in wind, where you can keenly feel your connection to something greater.”
My personal hope for art in the Midwest is that creatives continue to explore all the peculiar places, crevices and things that make this place distinctive. I think people who live on the land are connected to it in unique ways. We notice the geese migrating, sense thunderstorms forming on the horizon and pay attention to when the Cottonwoods change. That is because we depend upon the land. It is a place austere and wrapped in wind, where you can keenly feel your connection to something greater. When art opens your world to the innate beauty of a kernel of grain or causes you to think about the past life of a small fossil shell encased in limestone, you gain wisdom and an awareness of both eternity and impermanence. And that’s a special thing.
Buy tickets to The Pageturner here to participate in the live and silent auctions.