For Linda Miller, being a full-time self-proclaimed contemporary botanical artist is a mystery, a joy and a gift.
Six years ago, Miller discovered her passion for botanical art. She had visited The Queen’s Gallery at the Palace of Holyrood House in Scotland and purchased a book on the gallery’s exhibit, which at the time included works by botanical artists Maria Sibylla Merian, Alexander Marshall and Mark Catesby. She found herself looking at the book several times daily while on her vacation, and drew her first piece of botanical artwork on the flight home.
While it may have been a book and an art exhibit that pushed Miller into the artistic world, her appreciation of nature started at a young age during family summer vacations spent in tents at national and state parks.
“I grew up becoming very fond of nature and I loved being in nature,” Miller said, also explaining she loved to color as a child.
Miller grew up in Michigan and attended Wayne State University to seek a degree in business administration and marketing. After graduating in 1984, she was hired by AT&T to work in New Jersey, where she lived for 16 years. Her family settled in James City County in 2001 after her husband retired, inspired to move to the area after a spontaneous trip to Williamsburg in search of a home on the East Coast.
In 2007, Miller left her job with Carolina Furniture Company to fully launch herself into a career as a professional contemporary botanical artist.
Miller said she is fascinated with the mystery of surrounding plants.
“The more I paint them, the more I’m in awe of nature, and how it works. I just truly believe that we still don’t understand the true intelligence,” she said.
Miller said she is interested in sunflowers because they “can look incredibly happy to where they’re incredibly dramatic” at various stages throughout their growth.
She refers to herself as a contemporary botanical artist because of the contemporary style she applies in her botanical artworks. She offered the example of a sunflower series she painted in oil that she says viewers could see plants included in the paintings, but couldn’t necessarily tell the plants were sunflowers.
Miller pays close attention to the positive and negative space of her paintings, paying as much attention to the shapes created in the white-paper background as the shapes created by layers of watercolor or oil paint.
Miller said she has four or five works in progress in her studio at one time. Her process is slow and methodical: She begins with a drawing and then adds on layers of paint. A stem or a leaf can have anywhere from six to 15 layers of paint. With watercolors, additional time is needed to build up the layers than is needed with oil because overloading a paper can cause it to tear.
The months of work that go into a single painting have not gone unnoticed by the public or the art world.
In 2010, Miller began entering juried exhibitions; she entered the This Century Art Gallery member show in June 2010 with her first large botanical painting of the lenten rose. She won first prize then sold the painting on the first day.
“I felt like that was a sign, let’s say, to keep going,” Miller said.
Since 2007, Miller has exhibited at the Gallery at York Hall, where she will be giving an art demonstration and signing prints as part of Arts Month on Saturday and Sunday. On Sept. 28, Miller will be signing prints at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden at Freedom Park for Art in the Garden, which includes a plant sale.
In addition to exhibiting at the Gallery at York Hall, Miller has been exhibiting at New Town Art Gallery since 2011 and entering exhibitions at various locations across Hampton Roads. She is also the resident botanical artist at The Elizabethan Gardens in North Carolina; she teaches and exhibits her work there. Miller said her life consists of painting, teaching and creating decorative works in people’s homes.
Miller will begin selling prints online in October. She has original artwork and prints available for sale with her gallery exhibitions at all three locations this month. To find out more about Miller and her work, visit her website.
