Pattie
Miles
Theatre Artist, Writer,
Steepwitch, Creative Mentor
PATTIE IN CONVERSATION
Interview by Tony Borroz, Journalist & Pattie's Boyfriend
Q: When someone arrives on your website, what do you hope they understand about you within the first minute?
A: That I take art seriously but never solemnly. That I believe in refinement and risk, magic and discipline, beauty and irreverence. And that I’m here, truly here, to help people make the work they were born to make.
The intention is simple: to use prompts, exercises, ritual, and spells to soothe the nervous system, creating the conditions for new artistic motivation and with it, the return of genuine creative surprise.
I also know, from long experience, that most gatekeepers make lazy decisions and have a limited imagination. Genuine artistic liberation begins the moment you stop waiting for permission and start crafting the conditions for your own artistic visibility.
Q: You’ve described yourself as a theatre artist who drinks tea. It’s such a tidy introduction. What sits inside that identity for you?
A: Theatre has been my first language for as long as I can remember. Acting, directing, writing, they’re all different dialects of the same impulse: to witness people, to understand them, and to translate that understanding into story. The tea is simply my chosen medium of attention. It slows me down enough to see what’s actually happening.
Q: You’ve been an actor all your life, a director most of it, and a writer and producer for half of it. Does the order of those roles matter?
A: A little. Acting taught me to listen. Directing taught me to hold space. Writing taught me to trust the strange ideas that arrive unannounced. Producing taught me that someone has to keep the paperwork from catching fire. They’re different tools from the same drawer, and I rotate through them depending on the project.
Q: Your artistic manifesto is “the right to fail.” Where did that come from?
A: From necessity. From watching how many promising artists contract under the pressure to be brilliant. Failure is the compost of creativity. It’s where the good soil comes from. I first heard that phrase from The Royal Court Theatre in London, and it struck me as both radical and humane. Giving myself and everyone around me the right to fail means the work can breathe. It makes room for surprise, which is the point.
Q: As the founder of Artistic Clarity and creator of The Artistic Clarity Method, how would you describe your work as a creative mentor?
A: I help artists locate the quiet internal signal that’s already guiding them, and then build a life that can hear it. I’m not interested in performance or perfection. I’m interested in truth, craft, self-respect, and the daily rituals that sustain art. My job is to open doors. What people choose to walk through is entirely theirs.
Q: A former student once said your genius is that you “open a corridor of doors… but allow the choice and risk to be the student’s.” How do you teach like that?
A: Autonomy is everything. People only integrate what they choose. Teaching is an elegant combination of guidance, spaciousness, and deep respect. I hand my students the keys, remind them they’re capable, and let their courage do the rest.
Q: You’ve lived across continents—from Luzon Island in the Philippines to London to Seattle. How has that shaped the way you make and think about art?
A: It made me porous and curious. Moving between cultures taught me to pay attention to nuance like gesture, timing, silence. It also gave me a lifelong appetite for the unfamiliar. That appetite shows up everywhere in my work.
Q: You hold an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, and there you studied with teachers of Carnegie Mellon’s acting lineage. What connects all your training?
A: A fascination with embodiment. Every method I’ve studied, text work, clown, Rasaboxes, longform improv, explores how narrative, emotion, and the body braid together. Theatre is a laboratory for presence. And presence is transferable. It helps with art, teaching, witchcraft, and surviving a difficult email.
Q: As a writer, you focus on plays. What draws you to this form?
A: Atmosphere. Morality. Noir glamour with teeth. I’m drawn to theatre because it allows for non-linear structures, impossible oaths, and women who know far more than they reveal. Onstage, shadow and consequence live in the body, not just the plot, and emotional truth has nowhere to hide. Plays let me build worlds that sit just slightly askew from realism while remaining anchored in lived experience. It’s the form I return to again and again because it lets me chase the questions that haunt and delight me most.
Q: Your identity as a Steepwitch, a tea-based witch with a Celtic and literary sensibility, in particular. What does your practice look like?
A: It’s intuitive, disciplined, and quietly theatrical. I'm not a crystals and astrology person. I ground with stones and astronomy, Celtic practices, mythology as metaphor, meditation, journaling, self-written affirmations, tarot, and the daily arc of the sun and moon. Tea anchors the rituals. It gives the magic a temperature, a vessel, a way in. It’s less about spectacle and more about meaning-making.
Q: Is magic real?
A: It has been for me. At the very least, it creates a deliberate, ritualized experience that helps make life’s challenges more bearable, particularly for those who have been taught they lack power.
Q: Do I need to believe in magic for this to work?
A: Willingness is sufficient. Attention and repetition do the rest.
Q: You spent 15 years leading a performing arts nonprofit inside a historic country chapel in Chimacum, Washington. What was that period like?
A: Magic in an old country chapel. We built something out of almost nothing: artist retreats, original productions, and community classes. It was a masterclass in resourcefulness, hospitality, and imagination. It taught me that art flourishes in unlikely places.
Q: You’ve taught public speaking, drama, English, film history, and ESL. Does teaching feel separate from your theatre work?
A: Not at all. Teaching is another form of dramaturgy, another way of shaping attention. The stakes are different, though. In teaching, the triumph is seeing someone else claim their power.
Q: In addition to everything you do, you also have a practice of teaching First Aid and CPR. At first glance, that seems far from theatre, writing, or witchcraft. How is it connected to your Artistic Clarity work?
A: More closely than it appears. Teaching CPR is an exercise in presence, timing, and calm under pressure. These qualities artists rely on more often than they realize. It’s practical, unglamorous work, rooted in bodies, breath, and decision-making when the stakes are real.
That sensibility carries directly into Artistic Clarity. Artists encounter their own forms of urgency with hesitation, overwhelm, and the sense of having drifted from their work. CPR keeps me attentive to what actually helps in those moments: steadiness, clear guidance, and respect for a person’s capacity to respond.
It’s also grounding. The artistic world can become abstract; CPR does not allow that. It reinforces my belief that small, well-timed actions matter, and that teaching works best when it preserves both vulnerability and dignity. In that sense, it isn’t separate from my creative work. It’s one of the places where I practice presence as a discipline, not a concept.
Q: Humor, iteration, and service are your stated values. Why those three?
A: Humor keeps the ego in check. Iteration keeps the work alive. Service keeps me human. Together, they create a practice that feels like art as divination, life as ritual.
Q: What's your favorite perfume?
A: Maison Martin Margiela's "Tea Escape, Tokyo 2008." I get samples on Ebay.