Miranda Aisling (ash-lean)’s mission is to reconnect art to daily life, a purpose you can see through her work as an interdisciplinary artist, community organizer, and creative entrepreneur.
Across her disciplines, Aisling exudes an unfettered joy in creating and a deep desire to ignite this joy in others. Her paintings are pure explorations of color and shape, created through a layered and reactionary process that combines adding and obscuring in equal measures. The detailed patterning draws reference from decorative arts and fabric arts, pushing the boundaries between art and craft.
Her pottery series, Chubby Clay Bodies, is a light-hearted, celebratory exploration of the natural shapes and forms found both in people and in pottery. The voluptuous, tactile pots encourage you to hold them gently and invite you to hold yourself with the same care. The Chubby Clay Bodies are wheel-thrown and hand-altered in Aisling’s pottery studio in the Gloucester community of Lanesville.
Aisling’s original folk songs, performed on both piano and guitar, combine a frank vulnerability with social commentary. A classically trained pianist who threw aside Bach for the Indigo Girls, Aisling brings the feeling of a folk festival to any space with her approachable performances and stories both spoken and sung.
Art became life with Aisling’s intentionally crafted tiny house, Aubergine. Built by Aisling and her mother, Amy, in 2015-2016 as a public art project in Concord, Massachusetts, the purple tiny house has been toured by over 10,000 people through artist residencies and the annual Massachusetts Tiny House Festival, which Aisling developed coordinated from 2014 to 2019.
Through her creative businesses, including Miranda’s Hearth and the Art Loan Program, Aisling works to make art accessible, approachable, and affordable. In 2013, she launched her book Don’t Make Art, Just Make Something which became the subject of a TEDx talk in March 2014. This message, that everyone makes something, is at the nexus of creative endeavors.
Aisling holds a Masters of Education in Community Art from Lesley University and a Bachelors of Art in Studio Art with a dual emphasis in Painting and Ceramics from Mary Baldwin University. She is the Head of Education & Engagement at the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts.