Engage with new and returning artists before visiting the Cathedral Square venue to see their amazing array of work. Learn about the artists’ personal stories and creative ambitions through five enticing art-related questions.
This week: Margaret Miller
Margaret Miller, Abstract Landscape, monotype print
Margaret is new to ArtPrize at Cathedral Square. She has been studying art at Aquinas College and plans to achieve a dual major in Art and Sociology. She has worked extensively with oil paint and ceramics. After studying a year of printmaking, she finds the immediacy of monotypes very rewarding. Her 2014 entry, “Horizon Rhythm”, is part of an internal conversation she is having about atmosphere and the ubiquity of landscapes. She went to Italy in 2013 to study landscape oil painting and found that every composition she was implementing tailored to a rhythm of landscapes. This discovery has transferred into monotypes, where Miller has developed compositional structure in treating each new layer as a canvas. She regularly asks herself: “'What needs to be added?” and “How can I use texture to communicate different spaces?”
What got you interested in art?
I have always been 'interested' in art, but what got me interested in doing it as something more than for a class or as a hobby was the need to be happy.
I also study Sociology, but that can be kind of depressing, so art is the part of my life that I do to relax, to spend time totally focused on something, to make things, images, objects, and be happy about them. Its like the motions of making and thinking about art are what brings me back to being me- the activity generates the headspace I want to live in.
What is your most favorite or most inspirational place?
Driving in the country. I love driving, and currently my fiance is living a three hour drive away and I find that the drive to and from his house is one of the most inspirational places for me. Seeing the hills and farmlands of Michigan in all kinds of weather inspires me to new shades of gray, green and brown. Some of these drives have been inspiration for my monotype series. I am constantly amazed by their variety. Also, the time to think I really enjoy and always seems to get my creative thoughts flowing. The drive up the Lake Michigan shoreline is also very inspirational, my family is from Onekama and Frankfort and the drive between Grand Rapids and there is both beautiful and familiar.
What is your preferred medium and why?
For two dimensional art, my preferred medium is monotype, because it has the freedom of painting with the quickness of printing. I love the overlapping tones that I am able to achieve with it. I also love the immediate reward of rolling ink on a plate, sending it through the press, and bam! there is an image. For three dimensional art, my preferred medium is ceramics. I could go on and on about how much I love everything about it, but mainly, it taught me not to be precious about what I create and to take everything I make as part of my journey and my conversation. That has carried over into all of my art.
What themes do you pursue?
I enjoy exploring themes having to do with atmosphere and natural light. How do you depict rain falling? Warm sunshine? How does light affect the color of an object? When doing objective work, this can be simple, but what I enjoy most is expressing the feelings of these things in semi-abstracted ways and in my monotype landscapes I find it very satisfying to create misty spaces combined with places of bright contrast. I also am interested in dream spaces and consider things such as multiple horizons, strange skies, etc. to create feelings of unfamiliarity within the comfort of a landscape.
What is integral to the work of an artist?
The desire to create more--either as in a series or by varying themes. The artists that I think have the most professional success are those who can create a feeling or space in their work that both draws in the viewer while at the same time leaves something unanswered. An artist, in my mind, should have feelings whether it is frustration, satisfaction or curiosity about their work and where it is going. I also cannot stress more the benefit of looking at ones work. I often will have a piece up in my living room that isn't quite finished, or that i am unhappy with so that I can look at it while drinking my tea in the morning, or while listening to the radio. It really makes me notice things in my monotypes that were happy, or unhappy accidents.
Connect with Margaret Miller: http://www.artprize.org/margaret-miller
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