By: Shannon Kelly
She has been called the “new Picasso”… and she is legally blind.
Artist Lauren Mills was born with Nystagmus, an eye disease in which the eyes are constantly wiggling. While she can see minute specks up close, she does not see well beyond what is immediately in front of her. Still, these physical struggles never impeded Lauren’s affinity for art. By ten months old, she was drawing incessantly. At age six, Lauren accompanied her mother, Leah Chapman, to a college art class she was attending. The professor noted young Lauren’s excellent ability to see perspective. Chapman was blown away. “How is it possible that she’s able to do this, this thing called art that takes – in my mind’s eye – visual capacity to do well?” she wondered. She realized that her daughter’s talent was “beyond human ability”; it had to be a gift from God.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a moment where my vision has really stopped my art,” the 17-year-old says. “I never really felt like it played a negative part in how I created things.” In fact, she uses this would-be setback to her advantage. To “quiet” her eyes, Lauren must look at things extremely closely, giving her extraordinary attention to detail. “People think that I’m lying to them when I say that I’m legally blind, because my detail work in my paintings I’ve heard is pretty good,” she laughs. “She doesn’t see her visual condition as a disability,” Chapman adds. “She calls it her perfect sight.”
At age eleven, Lauren started her own art company, called “Artologi.” After creating the website and posting some samples of her work, Lauren began getting occasional commissions. Her art really took off, however, when she began attending fairs as a vendor at her grandmother’s encouragement.
Lauren had no formal art training growing up, but over the past few years, she has had the opportunity to attend classes at the prestigious institutions of Interlochen Art Institute, University of Michigan, and School of Art Institute in Chicago. These programs were costly, but just when attendance seemed impossible, God always provided. Thanks to scholarships and donations from others, Lauren was able to participate in these programs.
Amidst her success, Lauren remains humble, never forgetting who blesses her. “I don’t see myself as anything really huge, or like I’m a star or something,” she says. “I know definitely it was God and not me... I feel like God’s been a crutch for me, because I don’t really stand alone in my life.” She cites Jeremiah 1:5. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…” “It was about how God knew him before he was born, and he ordained him, and basically set his future up for him. That’s how I saw my art career… God just kind of set my life up,” she explains. Lauren loves using her gift to glorify God. She designed a banner for an evangelistic series held at her school; she sometimes gifts paintings to Pastors at various churches; most recently, she designed the Lake Region Conference pins for the last Pathfinders Oshkosh. As the co-AY leader at her home church, Lauren hopes to establish an art program for the young people there, teaching them to express themselves in a “nondestructive” way. Having participated in a few art shows with others, she is hoping to develop her first solo show in the future.
Since graduating from Peterson-Warren Academy in June, Lauren enrolled at Oakwood this fall where she is studying commercial art and history. “My schedule is crazy,” she said one evening after finishing up a worship service on campus. Between choir, work, and classes, she is determined to fit art in, somehow. “My only free time is Saturday nights, and that’s when I plan to paint.”
She opened an online store over the summer and plans to devote time to that, too. The store features products such as t-shirts, bags, and pillows emblazoned with the “colored girl rainbow,” a patch of striped hues in various shades of brown.
“I try to be myself in my art, so that other people will know that it’s okay to be yourself,” Lauren said simply. “I’m definitely not one that has fit into a mold, or that really wants to, so that’s kind of what I try to say in my art at the core.”
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