When Mila Solo was 4, she created her first piece of art: a drawing of a horse. She liked drawing horses because they reminded her of fairy tales.
Her paintings today reflect that same innocent view of the world, she says.
Her real name is Mila Solodovnikova, but she goes by Mila Solo to make it easier for Americans to pronounce. She is Ukrainian. She is also a very happy Fort Collins resident after fleeing her homeland. Many fairy tales are not happy from start to finish. They are complicated.
“War is horrible, and no one wants it,” Solo says. “But it gave me an opportunity to do what I love to do in a place I love.”
Solo, 49, is an artist whose abstract acrylic paintings are prominently displayed at Blue Moose Art Gallery, where she also teaches. America is much different from where she once lived: Her youngest daughter is amazed that she can say whatever she wants and be whomever she wants to be. In those ways, Fort Collins is a fairy tale, Solo says, especially in the way residents helped her recover.
“Everyone is so welcoming here,” she says. “I came without money or a home or anything. Everyone has really helped.”
Her tale, though, remains complicated. Her oldest daughter is still stuck overseas, and Solo worries about her. It was a scary time before she escaped with her youngest daughter. She thought about fleeing to Great Britian, but it would have taken up to a month longer than the U.S. to get a visa, and that was too long.
“When there’s war,” Solo says, “every day is important.”
The war continues to shock her, though her smiles don’t show it. She says the war over there would be like the U.S. and Canada fighting each other here. She had dear friends in Russia. The two countries, she says, “were like family together.”
“Breathing,” an acrylic painting with gold and resin, by Mila Solo.
A different perspective
Solo came to the U.S. empty-handed, but she had a career—she attended art school after winning a contest with those horse drawings at age 4—and her skills helped her get established here. She sought out Blue Moose as soon as she arrived in the U.S. a couple years ago, and the gallery’s 20 owners were blown away by her talent and refined skills.
“They’re just gorgeous,” says Vicki McCargar, one of the owners and artists, of Solo’s paintings. “There’s a meaning behind them for her. She’s usually trying to portray the beauty of the world. That’s how they hit me.”
Indeed, Solo thinks of her paintings as portals to cherished memories for those who view them. Her work, she says, is more than just a collection of pretty pictures: It helps clients connect to moments of love, their childhoods or perhaps future goals.
When she teaches at Blue Moose, she encourages her students to use painting to help them release what’s bothering them. Take the darkness out of their souls, she tells them, and put it on the canvas.
“When you have stress, you’re encouraged not to show it,” Solo says. “Our stress goes inside our body, and it becomes a sickness. Painting is a way to get rid of your stress.”
Mila Solo
Solo began studying the psychology of art nearly a decade ago. She now believes that the truly great ones did more than just paint: They created an energy that speaks to people. They put their life onto the canvas. She teaches her students how to draw that energy out of their subconscious and use it as a creative tool.
Both Solo and McCargar agree that this approach is similar to art therapy in many ways, but Solo doesn’t officially label it as such, as she isn’t a licensed counselor. She just hopes to help people work through their self-doubts and anxiety with the art they create together.
“She loves to teach,” McCargar says. “Not every artist does. People who have taken her classes have really loved them.”
True happiness doesn’t come from external circumstances, Solo says. It comes from inside.
This belief has helped heal her heart and calm her fears about her daughter. She continues to create art to match her own view of how the world has treated her. She doesn’t draw horses any longer, but despite circumstances that would try anyone, her life still reminds her of a fairy tale.
