Milessa Murphy
Yes, her name is spelled M-I-L-E-S-S-A
Milessa Murphy has a lifetime filled with artistic expression that began as she learned to read. As a young child, she loved to draw characters from Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip. She would fill pages with drawings of cartoons such as Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Although her mature artwork is much different, Milessa’s desire for happiness and joy in her work remains.
Along with positive energy in her art, Milessa loves surrealism, abstraction, and color. The urge to add color in each of her pieces may stem from her sepia-toned memories of her youth in West Texas. There wasn’t a lot of color in the dry, rugged landscape she drew up in. It also stems from her desire to keep her paintings energetic and inspiring.
As an only child, Milessa grew up to be highly independent. This is reflected in her first formal attempt at becoming an artist when she was 12 years old. After seeing a television commercial advertising an art university, Milessa decided to apply. She submitted her drawings and was accepted. When she divulged her plans to her mother, she learned she was not old enough to attend. Despite her loss, the experience and hope of art school cemented Milessa’s identity as an artist.
Although she never stopped being an artist, Milessa had to pause her dreams due to the pressure to have “real work” and earn a steady income. During her mother’s passing in 2008, everything changed. She remembers lovingly her mother’s last words, “I want you to promise me you will sell your businesses and get back to your painting. I am sorry I did not take your art seriously.” Those words helped make it easier to let the businesses go and return to the easel.
Whether you see one of her studio or outdoor paintings, her artwork will stimulate your imagination. It will allow you to put yourself into a storyline of your own making. The reality of life is only as real as the people who are there to witness it. Her artwork, on the other hand, allows for a reality that is drawn from the imagination and includes the emotional aspects of experience that make events larger than life. This is true whether they are meant to be factual or fictional. Milessa states “The best paintings create a story. My stories have happy endings.”