Preferring the title "painter" over that of "artist", Wm. Coleman Mills' work is an exploration of mnemonics. In his own words, Mills is far more interested in "the memory of a place, with its inherent inaccuracies and overlays of emotions, than a photographic recollection." An avid outdoorsman, Mills draws inspiration from hours spent in the broomsedge fields, pin oak forests, salt marshes and grass flats of the American South. He combines the saturated colors and organic forms of this natural world with the regulating lines of his architectural education to create richly textured compositions deeply imbedded with memory and place. A native of Fairhope, Alabama, Wm. Coleman Mills is educated as an architect. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Auburn, Cornell and Harvard and has studied and trained under AIA Gold Medalists Samuel Mockbee and Michael Graves. Mills' formal training in oil painting came at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, where he earned his Master of Design Studies in Architectural History and Theory. He is now the Senior Designer for Harrison Design's Commercial Studio in Buckhead. Mills' paintings have been exhibited at the State Museum of Alabama, in solo and group shows around the country and is held in private and corporate collections throughout the United States and abroad, including the private collections of Preston H. Haskell and Hayden Groendyke. Mills’ architecture and interior design work has been featured in international, national and regional publications and he is an adjunct professor in Auburn University’s Architecture and Interior Design Programs.