(Pic #1) Going viral: Soldier passes by Colette MIller’s Angel Wings installation in Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. March, 2015. With this one dramatic photo, the Los Angeles street artist “gets ink” in scores of mainstream publications. She says, “It changed everything.”

The extraordinary impact of one woman’s mission to shed some light.

At first, when I saw photos of random angel wings on social media, I had no idea what kind of global footprint this trailblazing artist was leaving. But Colette Miller’s interactive street art initiative called the  “Global Angel Wings Project” has taken flight beyond the decaying urban walls of Los Angeles (where she started), and taken her to countries (many in conflict) all over the world. She’s painted in Cuba, Kenya, Australia, Turkey, England and Japan. (Map of wings locations.)

I caught up with her in Yokohama this week, as she installs sets of wings in that densely-populated Japanese city on Tokyo Bay. She told me in the beginning there were no grants, no agents, and no sense of what was to come. She was broke, and only relied on the messages that came to her during meditation: “get it out there.” She was fed up with the bombardment of commercial messages in cities like Los Angeles, and vowed to fight manipulative marketing campaigns with something that would lift and inspire. “Wings kept coming to mind,” she told me, “and I had to act on it.”

She says her “dream installation” would be on the walls between Israel and Palestine, underscoring “the similarities between the two, rather than their differences.” 

Colette describes her background as fairly “global.” Her mother grew up in Indonesia and Holland “and after World War II basically became a war refugee. She met my father in Hawaii where he was studying Buddhism, Philosophy and Art at the University of Hawaii.” Colette says her exposure to art started early, when her Mom took her to museums and bought her an easel when she was a toddler. She says she knew very early on “the difference between a Van Gogh and a Gauguin.” The artist is also known as a performer in the heavy metal band “Gwar” during its formative years between 1986-1987.

Since 2012, from pets to politicans, the range of fans and “selfie subjects” is astounding. If you check out Colette’s website, you’ll find pugs and policemen all taking a moment to record their angelic experience. Check out some of the favorites below.

I follow her now on Instagram, where she posts her latest installations from all over the world…. and she is not slowing down. Miller says she has completed about 150 outdoor angel works, but she is not trying to collect followers or earn a spot as the hottest social media sensation. She just wants to be authentic with her mission, and remind us that “we are all angels of this earth.”

Link to Colette Miller’s web site

Link to Los Angeles wings locations

Link to Colette Miller limited edition prints

(Pic #3) My first pose in front of an original Miller. Arts District, downtown Los Angeles.