1951–

“There is an immediacy to my sculpture which incites a positive spontaneous response of surprise and delight in viewers of all kinds. Always emitting energy, my works evoke a joyful, upbeat mood. It is my desire that they convey my healthy love for living. My sculptures can be free-flowing, abstract, representational, playful or a combination of these factors. Although my styles are varied, my work is always unmistakably mine.”

This excerpt from Miller’s artist statement in the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ A Personal Statement catalog is true not only about her work exhibited at the national museum in 1992 but also about her installations across Arkansas over the past three decades.

“Being self-taught has freed me from restrictive thinking, and my creative process has unfolded naturally,” said Miller. “Through determination, discipline and motivation, I became a self-supporting sculptor working full-time at my art. My work is strong, fresh and original. I have definite direction and an energy level which has kept my creative output at a maximum.”

Her work exhibited at NMWA was MAMBO, an inverted cedar tree with an oak collar and cedar head. She says being included in this show provided validation for her work and served as a propellant for her career, which she describes as an organic evolution.

She was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., and has lived in Arkansas since 1974, drawn to the state by inexpensive land. She lived at Mimosa Manor in Scott County in western Arkansas for 23 years before moving to Monticello. She began making a living as an artist in 1984 by working with the Arkansas Arts Council’s Arts in Education program and received a Special Recognition Award for Arts in Education from the Council in 2004.

Her public art includes pARTy for PEG, an installation at the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock that features an aluminum fiddle player and eight aluminum dancers on top of brick bases with concrete panels embedded with objects from all 75 counties in Arkansas. She completed this project in 2009, and it was dedicated in May 2010.

One of the biggest influences on her art was her mother, a long-term docent at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. “She said I can do anything I want — just do it,” said Miller.

“Throughout my career, my works have been transformations” she said. “Trees, tires, teeth, bones, discards, drift and scraps are transformed by utilizing the unique qualities of material. Making minimal preliminary sketches and taking advantage of configurations, grain patterns and imperfections, I allow each piece to evolve.”

Hallmarks of her work are community engagement and the use of upcycled materials such as discarded metal, plastic and soda bottles and cans to create large involvement sculptures that emphasize environmental awareness and community creativity. Her 13-foot-tall Speed Steed racehorse, constructed from steel barrels, farm machinery parts, pipes, chairs and green glass water bottles, was unveiled in the lobby of the Mountain Valley Water Visitor Center in Hot Springs in 2007.

Miller’s community and school collaborations have resulted in festive fountains, mobiles, murals, playground sculptures, costumes, theater sets and parades in communities across Arkansas including Cabot, Fayetteville, Little Rock, Monticello, Pottsville, Searcy, Waldron and Wrightsville.

Miller still lives in Monticello and is working to transform her 35-acre sanctuary known as Rising Oaks into “The WonderWood.” She has been making and installing sculptures at this site for nearly 30 years and says her current work is primarily “for me.”

Without a cell phone, computer or TV to distract her, she says, “Art consumes me as I happily live inside my imagination.”