Newport Beach artist Britt Mikalian often thinks about her purpose in life.
A practitioner of holistic healing including Reiki, quantum healing and stone medicine, Ms. Mikalian said it took her a long time to finally arrive at her goal. A painter by trade, she initially pursued a traditional art exhibition route after graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996, exhibiting her work across the US in cities including Los Angeles and New York.
She then completed her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy at the University of Notre Dame de Namur in 2002 and completed her residency at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.
When his mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, Mikalian’s world came to a halt.
Artist Britt Mikalian walks us through her painting process from her Newport Beach home.
(James Carbone)
“We gathered our family together and moved to Southern California to support my mother. I decided to take time off to focus on my mother and her recovery. I was working a second job. [while taking care of her] “I did life coaching, I did social influencer work and stuff like that, and then I finally got to the point where I was like, ‘This is not what I was put on this earth to do,'” Michaelian said in a recent interview. “I knew I was meant to be an artist, and my mom was one of the biggest advocates for me to be an artist. She was an interior designer in Silicon Valley.
“My mother and I were really close, but when she passed away, [in 2012]”It made me reexamine everything,” she says. “A few years later, my sister was also diagnosed with cancer. At the time, I had completed my first two levels of Reiki and was thinking about doing a Masters and working on other types of healing because I wanted to help my sister. It became clear that she was very ill and after a four-year battle with cancer and all kinds of healing work, she passed away very peacefully.”
By that time, Michaelian said, she had essentially stopped creating and drawing in favor of caring for her family, but her sister bought her a coloring set to use while in care, and Michaelian eventually picked up the paints again.
Artist Britt Mikalian used tuning forks to create a painting at her Newport Beach home on Wednesday. She used a circle to represent wholeness, describing the shape as “the energy between us.”
(James Carbone)
But she wanted to do something different.
While meditating at a quantum healing retreat, she decided to change the way she approached art: shifting the focus of her creations from purely processing emotions to projecting positive intentions and feelings.
Michaelian said her work ties into alternative therapies, and as part of that, she will be hosting an event called “Healing House” at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills on May 19. This will be the second time she has hosted the event, the first being in Laguna Beach last year. The free event will focus on art and wellness.
There will be around 20 pieces on display, each named after a mantra or with a mantra written on the canvas. The pieces range in size from 2 feet by 2 feet to 5 feet wide and feature copper coils on the back. The pieces are made from non-toxic, plant-based acrylic and powdered crystals.
Artist Britt Mikalian is using acrylic paints and newspaper clippings about the COVID-19 pandemic for paintings that are part of a collection that will be exhibited in Beverly Hills from her Newport Beach home on Wednesday.
(James Carbone)
“Healing House” will include healing frequency sounds, sound baths, meditations and other group healing activities. Co-sponsored by the app WellSet.
Michaelian said he knows there will be a lot of skeptics, but he welcomes them to come into the space and enjoy it.
“We are at a transitional point in many ways. Quantum physics in particular is getting more and more attention because it can prove that certain things can and do happen. But the bottom line is we know that we are all made of energy. And healing, especially, is about the intention and thought process behind it,” Mikaelian said.
“We know that in some ways negative or unhealthy thinking can lead to a lack of rest in the body and cause illness, and vice versa. So simply building on that, if we’re talking about positive thinking that has a positive effect on the body, then appreciating art with good intentions can have a positive effect on the body both physically and mentally,” she said. “Even if this just sows the seeds of naysayers, maybe it’ll be, ‘This is something interesting that I should look at.'”
“Sometimes it takes years for that seed to blossom, but my goal right now is to create a space where even if you don’t believe, you can walk into a room and feel the presence and the unconditional love. Being surrounded by people who have the same intention is really powerful.”
Artist Britt Michaelian works with acrylic paints, and she’ll be exhibiting 20 paintings in Beverly Hills on May 19. Each painting is named after a mantra, and sometimes the mantra is even painted on the canvas.
(James Carbone)
