Let Love Lead You to Rebellion Coloring Book

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Book cover says: Let Love Lead You To Rebellion a coloring book by Mari MIller. It's in black and white so it can be colored in and features stamps of a raccoon, pigeon, flowers, worms, and insects

I’m so excited to have released my first coloring book! And I released it with my new online shop on the first day of the SAD Fair!

Decolonizing

Though I started the physical work for this book this year, I feel like it’s been a long time coming. To create it, I first had to start decolonizing my mind. Not just in terms of having a better relationship with the more-than-human world, but I had to see the value in things that are often looked down on.

Not too many years ago, I thought that things like coloring books were a waste of time, that they weren’t “serious” art. I am so grateful that I no longer think that way. For one, it’s a much more peaceful and humanity-affirming way to live. Everyone deserves to enjoy their life. The simple pleasures aren’t a waste of time, and things do not need to be “serious” in order to have value. Also, importantly, why have we been taught to look down on some of the very things that make life worth living, like play? This is a colonial mindset that serves capitalism and is a byproduct of the gendered and racialized hierarchy that white supremacy has imposed on everyone.

black and grey outlines of two mushrooms growing with their caps fused together with a sprout and pill bug around them. The mushroom's roots are visible, and a light skinned hand is coloring in the mushrooms with a light purple colored pencil. A dark blue crayon has already colored in part of the mushrooms
coloring mushrooms with. crayons and colored pencils

From Tea to Stamps

For my exhibition, Mari Miller: The Land Loves Us, I used writing to help develop my thoughts. I started working with soil chromatography and tea and knew how the two connected in terms of diasporic food ways, but it was writing that helped me truly develop my “thesis” for the show and better understand how Chinese tea philosophy informed my work.

The qi of the earth is imbued into all living things. Tea trees are especially adept at absorbing the qi of the human and more-than-human beings around them. When we eat, we eat the qi and micronutrients that the plants absorbed from the soil. We are the earth, and if we eat mindfully, we can better feel our connection to the earth with every breath we take and sip of tea we drink. Is there truly a difference between humans and the earth? Between humans and all living things when we all live and love on this same planet?

tea in two small, blue and white tea cuprs, poured from a gaiwan with the same colors, a gaiwan is a traditional chinese brewing vessel of a cup with a small lid on a saucer
tea poured from a gaiwan, a traditional Chinese brewing vessel

I find this line of thinking helpful not as a replacement for Western science, but as a lens through which to view the world, much like Western science is another lens. Both have something to teach us. They each can “get it wrong” like they can “get it right.” And viewing the world through a more compassionate and non-human-centered lens is important in the fight against the corporations and governments committing climate atrocities.

So when I finished all that writing and thinking about my exhibition, I was left with a beautiful message about the world. But without direct community engagement, it felt a little hollow. No single person will save us. No message without praxis will save us. How could I engage in meaningful conversation with others about these things? I have a number of ideas, and this coloring book is just one tiny way to begin those conversations.

Hope

I think of my younger self and how I had so many thoughts and feelings but lacked the language to truly talk about them. And how I had no visible role models within the Asian American community to reassure me that yes, you can and should speak out about these things. You can and should be politically radical and fight injustice outside of the two-party system. Representation alone cannot save us, and yet in certain situations it can help spark the courage or confidence to be visible in a society dominated by white supremacy.

My hope for this book is that it helps others see the world through a different lens. That when they come home from an exhausting day, the physical act of coloring in this book will be soothing while helping them affirm their humanity and power. So that they can take the rest they need while gearing up to fight for a just and loving world. This idea of the relationship between rest and fighting is very much informed by work by people like Mariame Kaba and her famous quote, “Let this radicalize you rather than lead to despair,” and primarily the radical work of the Nap Ministry by Tricia Hersey.

black and white cover of a coloring book that's been partially colored in, showing a marigold and two worms. Other partial figured fade into the background, along with text that says, "a coloringbook by Mari Miller"
a marigold colored with highlighters, crayons, and sparkly gelli rolls

My other hope is that this book helps people tap into their innate creativity. We’re all creative but the American school system beats the creativity out of so many of us. Artists are no more special that your average non-artist. We’ve just exercised our creativity more. A low-stakes way to be creative can help people reconnect with the parts of themselves they’ve been forced to neglect. And even for people like me, who have made making things a core part of their life, sometimes we just need to stop thinking and make without worrying what anyone else will say.

No wonder coloring books have exploded in popularity. They’re a seemingly frivolous tool that actually has the potential powerfully help people connect with their humanity.

Making

To make this book, I carved dozens of blocks, a technique known as linocut or block printing. A more common name for blocks is “stamps.” I did a tiny bit of lino in high school, and then a few decades later suddenly had the urge to try it again. Probably after falling in love with so many Chinese and Indian block prints.

Because I seem to be developing arthritis, I couldn’t carve into the harder, plastic-free materials I wanted to use, like wood. Though I plan to use a laser cutter to get around that issue. Since my blocks are made from softer plastics, I decided to take advantage of that material’s properties. So I cut them in “bad” ways that allow them to flex, which can make it harder to create stable images. But, it allows me to bend stamps like my little worm and sprouts so that I can create different compositions/images using the same block.

partial view of a coloring book page in black and white showing sprouts and plants growing with roots. Worms and rollie polie bigs are among the roots, there is no demarcation between soil and air
Notice how the worms and the sprouts with cotyledons are benting in different directions

I didn’t start carving with the idea of making a book though. I started by bringing my stamps to art fairs, where I let people use them to make their own coloring and painting sheets on hot press watercolor paper. While I’ve only vended a few times, letting people unfamiliar with how to take care of blocks use them means that some have gotten a bit banged up.

When making an “serious art print,” your block will wear down over time, no matter how well you take care of it. Once the lines start to become less precise, it’s time to either retire that block or re-carve it. But I’m not selling limited edition prints that cost over $50. My goal is to create a system of blocks that make creating accessible.

So for this book, I used my new and banged up blocks, scanned my prints, and then touched them up in Photoshop using my laptop’s trackpad. I also slightly alter some of the repeating blocks so that the book wouldn’t feel repetitive. This was another way to cut down on the amount of plastic I was carving. Here are some of my favorite areas of the book where I went through and digitally edited my blocks. On the corn, I edited each individual kernel!

Printing

Once I finally got all my stamps carved, printed, and laid out in InDesign, it was time to send my book off to the printer’s! many coloring books are made on cheap, thin paper. You can only use crayons and colored pencils, and even then, you can get some bleed through to the other side of the paper. I chose to use thick, 100gsm paper for the pages and 120gsm for the cover. It’s not sized as much as watercolor paper is, so you can’t paint in this book like you can my standalone coloring sheets, but you can color without bleed through using highlighters. Unfortunately, alcohol markers like Copics bleed through fairly significantly. But I’m still so happy to have produced a book that is plastic free (the cover is uncoated, just like the pages so that you can color it in too) and high quality while selling for a reasonable price.

To buy the book, click the button above to go to my online shop. And if you have any questions or even just want to chat about these topics, drop a comment below!

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