Today marks what would be my dad, Robert Emmett Mueller’s 99th birthday. He passed seven years ago and that is when my art painting story begins. Although it’s grounded in my childhood experiences and has taken years to develop, I have always enjoyed doing arts and crafts. As a little girl growing up in Roosevelt New Jersey, I was surrounded by brilliant and talented artists, including Dad.
In our first home on Homestead Lane my dad built an art studio on top of our flat-roofed house. The Bauhaus inspired homes in our town were built as a cooperative community founded under the New Deal’s Resettlement program. Originally called Jersey Homesteads, it was renamed Roosevelt after President Roosevelt died. When I was five years old, we moved across the street to the largest and oldest house in town that existed as a farm house before the town was developed. Dad made the attic into his art studio.
The door to the attic was on our second floor hallway. Once you opened the door, steep curving stairs met you to take you up to the attic. The light switch for the room was at the base of the staircase and Dad connected his radio to the light switch so that it would turn on the moment he went upstairs to work. His radio was always tuned to a classical station. I just asked my mom what station he listened to and she said WQXR, a public classical station out of New York City.
Dad worked with oils on large canvases and then later after I had already left home he switched to acrylics. He also made wood cuts and small pen and ink drawings. Much of his work was abstract though nude figures and faces were also his subjects. I loved going up to his studio to see what he was working on and oh, the wonderful smell of oils. I didn’t work with him up in the attic studio much, but I did do woodworking with him a few times down at the bottom of the house—in our basement where he had woodworking tools and a jig saw. Together we made a velvet lined jewelry box and a jewelry rack shaped as a hand with dowels as fingers to hold rings and various thickness dowels on the arm to hold bracelets and necklaces.
It wasn’t until my dad died that I felt comfortable painting, although I have dabbled with drawing and crafts throughout my life. During a summer while in graduate school I took a drawing class at the local community college, not where I was getting my PhD. And I have made pottery on and off for many years as well as jewelry and beading. I wanted to paint for many years but was too intimidated by my dad’s talent. I was writing before my dad died and he liked my writing, but painting was a different story.
Interestingly I asked Dad when he was in his 90s what he enjoyed creating the most, his writing or his artwork and he said his writing. He has quite a few published non-fiction books and articles on science and art and philosophy but his later success was with his artwork so I was quite surprised by his response.
I took up painting two years after my dad passed. Andy built me a beautiful easel for my birthday in 2019 when I finally felt like I could approach a canvas to paint. I began with oils of course and the smell took me back to Dad’s studio. Painting with oil on canvas was a slow process for me and I only painted a couple of oil paintings for the first few years.
I always had in the back of my mind that I would like mixed media but I needed to let the idea percolate. I had even bought a collection of small test bottles of different mediums for oil painting because I suspected that cold wax, one of the samples, might be perfect for my style that uses thick layers of oil paint. I did some research on how to use cold wax mixed with oils and suddenly my art exploded in 2023.
Cold wax and oil allows me to use stencils, add paper, fabric, you name it to the oil painting because the wax is thick and acts almost as glue. Cold wax makes the oil dry quickly so it also makes painting layers much easier to create depth. But it is still a slower process than water based acrylics. I was hesitant to try acrylics because some how it felt like cheating—a ridiculous thought considering the number of huge beautiful acrylic paintings of my dad’s we have hanging on our house.
Mixed media with acrylics lends itself to so many combinations of water based materials and collage so now I paint and draw and collage almost daily. I paint in old books that I alter or books of watercolor and mixed media paper so I have wonderful portable portfolios of my work that I can store on the bookshelf. And I still work with oils on canvas. Nude figures, faces and flowers mostly show up in my mixed media work now though I started with abstract oils.
I love working with both oils and acrylics but the smell of the oils will forever give me comfort. And I play classical music while I am painting. I listen to WMHT and sometimes even WQXR though I didn’t know until just now speaking to my mom that my dad listened to that same station. I listen to the radio streamed on my computer and it doesn’t automatically go on when I turn on the lights in my studio but it feels the same as Dad’s analog radio.
My studio isn’t in the attic—we don’t have one—but I can feel my dad’s presence there and also in our basement where my husband Andy has a woodworking workshop. We have many of my dad’s woodworking tools and also Andy’s dad’s woodworking table that has Andy’s mom’s and dad’s initials painted on it. Andy added our initials too.
At first I thought I would never have wanted to show my artwork to my dad. But now that I feel more comfortable in my artist skin, I wish he could see my art. My mom is my biggest fan and she tells me he would love it. I believe her and feel like he is part of me and my process. I am grateful to have such a loving connection with my dad though my art.
Love Beauty Peace 
Rachel my darling! I thought I had no more tears…Love, love, love
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Beautifully written, beautifully painted, beautifully sculpted…
L, J.
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