Mia Pratt's Studio Blog

In between New Year’s Day and Valentine’s Day of this almost-post-pandemic year of 2023, I went vegan and eliminated wine from my diet at the same time. No one ever warned me that mixing veganism while quitting wine can cause a kind of Tourrette’s syndrome where women are suddenly emboldened to blurt out words like “patriarchy” and “feminism” during a mixed-gender Sunday brunch. I’ve named this condition “Tourreganoholic Syndrome” and added it to my list of other syndromes. So be warned…this rambling story, which does indeed include the words “patriarchy” and “feminism,” may expose you to disclosures about my past and outspoken opinions that some may find disturbing. I’m sure that on my end, I’ll regret sharing them within 30 seconds of hitting “send.” Anyhoo, I never liked New Year’s Day with its pointless resolutions because all it meant to me was no cupcakes or wine for two weeks. With each year’s resolution, those essential life pleasures were replaced with Costco-sized bags of kal

  Christmas was always a favorite holiday because I got cool stuff. And Halloween is right up there because it’s my birthday and I always got lots of candy along with cool stuff. And then there’s Valentines day, which tops both Christmas and Halloween with the grand trifecta - candy, cool stuff, and that little something extra. Well, hopefully not a little something. But something, anyway. Unfortunately, Valentine’s day is only fun if you have a fella. Which at this moment in time, I don’t. So with no something and not even a little something, that pushes Christmas right back up there. So anyhoo, last weekend a woman walked into my gallery and asked if she could commission a painting. I told her it depends on what she wants. At this stage of my life it’s all about me. In most cases I want to paint what I want to paint, when I want to paint it. But that sounds blunt and selfish, and I wanted my guest to feel welcome so I listened to this nice lady tell me what she wanted. And just maybe

  Many decades ago, when I was far more enlightened than I am now, I planned to write a blog I called “The Art of Happiness.” I guess I felt happy enough to think I was special. My friends back then were artists, musicians, writers, dancers, and actors living in Northern California. Some suffered from various fringe-of-society ailments like anxiety and grandiosity, and a few were borderline schizophrenics (mostly the actors). Yet somehow it didn’t occur to me that my opinion of myself as being super happy was in relation to the company I kept. In reality, I was the happiest girl in a fringe-of-society Asylum of the Arts. Many moons and decades later, I have reasonably happy friends. Here in the Mexican village where I live, those who were depressed have forgotten what they were depressed about, those with anxiety just don’t care any more, and the schizophrenics are now in starring roles at the local theater. Which makes them very happy. And yet in spite of the happiness around me, I oc

  If I see one more holiday post about how thankful and grateful everyone is, I’ll have to dump stale Thanksgiving wine into the toilet instead of mixing it with my coffee and pretending it’s a mocha mimosa. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about thankfulness and gratitude on a person-to-person basis. I’m grateful every day for everything and everyone in my life. But gratitude is the new buzz word or fly catcher or roach trap or whatever insect-related analogy applies, for marketing and sales. Advertisers overuse of the whole Thanksgiving thank-you salesfest has almost wrung the joy out of it. As consumers, in commercials we’re depicted as practically exploding with thanks over the latest Big-Brother-in-the-Sky wrist watch, or when we’re shown what we would look like wearing fake eyelashes which actually look like someone pasted raccoon tails over a starving Romanian woman’s eyeballs. Like we’re the ones who should be grateful to them for selling us stuff they want us to think we can’t live

Women don’t fart...but we’re frequently near dogs that do. Which brings me to the subject of this post. If you are a dainty lady, you might just skip this post and find one about how to wrap holiday presents with burlap and birds nests, or make champagne jello shots. If you’re not a dainty lady, read on but I warn you sometimes I swear. Maybe not in this post, but it'll happen sooner or later. There’s a painting in this post, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m an artist and this particular painting was inspired by a street encounter with a random guy and his dog. It all started when I stopped to tell Random Guy that his giant, wooly dog was cute; to which he replied, “Yeah, dogs are man’s best friend - better than all the annoying people you meet.” As I watched him walk away, I sensed there was something negative implied about women in that remark. The sarcasm in his voice might have indicated that he was more pissed at his ex or his Mommy than me, but of course I had to make his imag

  Halloween week is a happy time for me, and I want to share that happiness by gifting you with 40% off of all art prints and gifts in my online art gallery. Hooray! What inspired me to offer this deep discount right now, you ask? Quick sales to fund a spot on Naked and Afraid? Butt lift? Trip to Costco? No. Something way better than that. Halloween is my birthday! I’m not about to share my age, but I’ve officially aged out of E-Harmony and Match.com. And OKCupid. EliteSingles. BlackPeopleMeet. JewsMeetShiksas. FarmerSingles. DogRescueMates. LonersUnite. The “select your age” options on these sites don’t go up that high. Apparently if you’re a woman over 50 you’re supposed to lose interest in everything except grandchildren and growing tomatoes while wearing a bat-winged mumu and oversized straw hat. I’m so not there yet! My idea of a Halloween birthday is to don my ’70’s bellydance costume and party with friends, where I’ll eat two pieces of birthday cake, drink two glasses of wine (