Art professor Miller returns from leave with several new works

Michael Miller, A&M-Commerce Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, recently returned from a faculty development leave of absence for the spring 2010 semester. Miller spent the leave compiling a large collection of pop culture artwork, which encompasses graphics with text of daily affirmations and gang jargon.

Miller completed six 72" x 72" paintings on canvas, in an addition to fifty-one 26" x 24" paintings on paper that he had already started early in the year.

These pieces are part of an exhibition entitled "Michael Miller: Today I am Thankful for all I Have." The exhibition first was shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston this summer and is now on display to start of the season at Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas.

This opening exhibit of the season is more significant than meets the eye. Miller said he met Dallas art gallery owner Barry Whistler as a junior in college. Whistler was a juror at a student exhibition where Miller won first place. Whistler even bought Miller's prize-winning drawing. When Whistler opened his own gallery in 1985, Miller was among the first artists he signed.

"It sort of made perfect sense as I've been with the gallery those 25 years and have shown with Mr. Whistler even before he started his own gallery," Miller said.

Miller has shown work in many collections around the U.S., and said he has received a positive response from viewers.

"I've found myself standing near the door during events at the gallery and folks will walk in and gasp or say, ‘Oh, wow,'" he said. "That's when I introduce myself and say, ‘Thank you.' Mission accomplished."

Miller said he plans to create a compilation of the artwork, which will show how the paintings relate to one another and "cross-pollinate" differently in the three different exhibits they have been in.

Scott Wilson, junior studio art student, attended the exhibit's opening night at Barry Whistler in Dallas and said it was an interesting presentation of pop art.

"It's taking pop art to another level," Wilson said. "I thought it was cool how he used a lot of common things that are found in society, and incorporated it together with things from his childhood."

Although Wilson is a ceramics major, he said positive comments from art professors and fellow students prompted him to experience Miller's work himself.

"People were saying really good things about his work," Wilson said. "So, I thought I had to see it for myself."

Miller said he wants his students to learn a specific lesson by attending the opening.

"You understand that hanging one's work on the wall of a gallery is not just a privilege," he said, "but, rather, it is the final stage in the art making process – presenting one's art to peer review just as any other academic field of study. It is part of the job being an artist, as is being the artist at the opening."

According to an essay on his website, Miller combined daily affirmations and gang slang found in a police report to produce his exhibit. Miller compared being an artist to being a gang member – like a gang member, an artist does not know what he is getting into until he passes the point of no return.

"The challenge is in creating beauty from extraordinary ugliness," Miller said, "and I never know where any piece will go until it gets there."

Miller said the faculty development leave was extraordinarily rejuvenating for him.

"One teaches from what one knows and being constantly thrown back into the ring, allows me to bring that new knowledge into the classroom," he said.

The next exhibition of Miller's artwork will take place at A&M-Commerce beginning Jan. 25, 2010.