I was once told by someone that they did not know if they liked my work because I wasn't doing what everybody else was doing. I have never before been so complimented— Jeffrey Miller
Jeffrey Miller’s work traces a handful of related themes, ideas, and images through a variety of mediums. He is an artist always exploring and keeping options open—and he is Jasper’s featured Tiny Gallery artist for the month of September.
Miller grew up in small-town Campbellsville, Kentucky, a “typical child except for an oversized imagination and an unrelenting curiosity.” While he did not grow up around art, he often drew in the margins of his mom’s old textbooks—deterred from marking up the walls of his home instead. Of all things, though, it was an encyclopedia that began the blossoming of Miller’s identity as an artist.
“One day my father drew a polar bear sketch that he copied from those encyclopedias; excited, I asked him to do it again but instead he gave me the pencil and told me to do it myself,” Miller recalls. “That was all the encouragement I needed. I was about 5 years old then, and I got my first real commission at the age of 12—I earned $100 for painting a logo for a truck driver on both doors of his truck.”
From this moment, Miller went on to commit himself to art, receiving an art scholarship from Campbellsville University and finishing his art degree at Murray State University
“At University I was introduced to and gained more knowledge about materials and art history; as far as process, though, it seems more I just learned the name to call what I was already doing,” Miller says. “The biggest and most influencing thing was the atmosphere and the presence of so many other people involved in the creative process…that I really miss!”
BLACK CAT BLUES
Since getting his degree, Miller has continued to grow and expand his horizons. One of his greatest fears is being trapped in a box. As he says, there are “too many possibilities to explore.” In his mind, work predicts medium, so the more mediums one is familiar with, the more the subject matter can spread its wings.
“Being a good painter or good in whatever chosen medium is a technical evaluation—creativity is something more,” he says. “Besides which, good is a relative term so it literally tells you nothing about an art piece.”
And art is something Miller is always doing. When asked what he does when not creating, he says that he sees everything he partakes in within his everyday life as some form of artmaking. In that vein, Miller does not have a specific theme he chases—in fact, he sees this as one of the limitations people place around artists and their work.
In his mind, work predicts medium, so the more mediums one is familiar with, the more the subject matter can spread its wings.
“People ask what I was thinking when I did this piece or that piece. The only answer is my thinking was absorbed in the piece I'm working on at the time. Anything else is an afterthought,” he says. “The work is complete when I've done my job as an artist and I'm on to the next canvas. The important thing is what [the viewer] brings to the piece, what do [they] think. A piece of art is not complete without the viewer, and each viewer will bring thoughts of their own.”
If he could find a throughline in his piece, he would say it is all, in some way or another, a celebration of life in all its forms, regardless of the themes and emotions within. If art is in his every day, his art also shows the everyday.
VENUS OF THE BAYOU
“There is an ebb and flow, a push and pull, a transitoriness about life that must be reflected in one's art if that art is about life. The imagery, ideas, and concepts are a reflection of day-to-day life which I personally tend to express through humor, audacity, absurdity, and juxtaposition,” Miller says. “I was once told by someone that they did not know if they liked my work because I wasn't doing what everybody else was doing. I have never before been so complimented.”
In this Tiny Gallery show, Miller shows off these juxtapositions of life in his newest medium: printmaking, of which he has had an introductory class and, so far, is “finding nothing about it that [he doesn’t] like.” Adjacently, he has started exploring digital art, and he has found himself particularly connected to a new digital image he made—the cover photo of this article.
“[The piece] totally reflects the art that is me—the art just described to you in the above paragraphs. I usually work from a fleeting mental image in response to something I've seen, heard, or read,” he says. “The mental image may or may not come immediately but it always comes in the same way, like a light brush across the cheek or a fast, flashing image like from the old slide projectors. I turn to get a better look and it is gone. There are times when I only see it when the piece is done—I like it that way.”
THE FALCONER
Perhaps it is this mindset that has led to Miller winning a handful of art contests, including an advertising award from Doe Anderson Advertising Co., as well as serving as an educator for the Lexington Library Adult Education Program for four years.
Today, he displays at various festivals and community sponsored events, and you can see—and purchase—his work 24/7 until the end of September at Jasper’s online gallery space. After the show, interested patrons can follow his journey on Facebook and Instagram @ Jeffrey Miller Artworks.