By Christina Littlefield
A & E Editor
Senior Jennifer Anne Miller’s ultimate goal is to work out of her garage.
The art and math double major wants to be able to paint and sell her artwork out of her home, preferably keeping her own Internet studio where she could ship her paintings and sculptures all over the world.
“We are going to need a rather large garage with that,” said Miller, one of the head Residential Advisors for the Residential Life Office. “I want to have welding tools and a torch and all that.”
The “we” is Miller and her fiance, computer science and math major Chris Richards. The pair, recently engaged, hope to marry in September and move to Washington state, where Richards can pursue a teaching degree and Miller can work on her artwork.
With dreams of an Internet studio dancing in her head, the Elk Grove, Calif., native is working on finishing several pieces for her senior exhibit in the Frederick R. Weisman Museum. Her work will be showcased in the “roy g. bif” exhibit along with six other graduating art students.
One oil painting features several black, red and white crosses on a canvas. Her sculptures — welded medal and plaster creations — are human figures in different poses. The two different mediums capture the variances of her personality — the paintings are done by free association, while the sculptures are more mathematical.
“(My paintings) just kind of evolve as I do them,” Miller said. “Most artists sketch everything out, but I just do what I feel like doing and that is how I like to paint. With sculpture I like to plan everything out, like the skeleton I am doing, I measured everything out.”
Sculpture allows her to make use of her mathematical knowledge. She added math to her art major freshman year after taking calculus and originally wanted to pursue that venue. Now, she says she has become “disillusioned” with math.
“The math I do now has no numbers in it,” Miller said. “There is little Greek letters and you put them together and there are forms and fields and it’s hard. And I just took my midterm and I didn’t do so well and I’m tired. I’m tired of math and I just want to do art all the time.”
Art allows her to explore and vent her emotions.
“I do my best work when I am upset or really feeling something really strongly,” Miller said. “If I am just like ‘oh, what’s going on.’ It’s not as good. Because that is what art is about, expressing emotions.”
Miller rarely titles her work, believing that the viewer should be allowed to experience his or her own emotions.
“The main thing for me is to just have people come in there, and see my artwork, and for it to have some kind of impression or impact on them,” Miller said. “That is one of the reasons I don’t like naming my artwork because then to me it imposes a definition on the audience. And I think it is nice to go in and see something like this, and see what it says to you.
“I feel like if someone sees (a title) and it doesn’t mean that to them it will lose all meaning,” she continued. “Everybody sees something different in artwork. So the important thing to me is just to be interesting and make an impact.”
Miller hopes to make an impact on another level too, by working for the nonprofit sector until her Internet studio takes off. She also plans to look into computer graphic design classes and possibly a master’s in art after she graduates in August. (She has Humanities 113 left to take after she walks with her class in April.)
She said she wanted to find something meaningful to her so that she would have energy and excitement at the end of the day to still paint.
“Then I could come home and be like ‘yeah, life is great and I am going to do art,’” Miller said.
Personal:
Jennifer Anne Miller is a math and art major from Elk Grove, Calif., near Sacramento.
Check out her art:
April 11-27 in the Frederick R. Weisman Museum.
Why she works for RLO:
“It is my favorite thing I’ve ever done my whole life,” Miller said. “You just get to meet all these great people who have passion for great things.”
Her favorite Convo:
Senior Chris Richards
proposed to Miller in front of the student body at the March 20 Fieldhouse Convocation. SGA president Andrea Krug helped set it up as Miller was Wave of the Week. She, of course, said yes.
“There was no question,” Miller said. “Even if he hadn’t done it in front of so many people there was still no question.”
What she likes about her fiance:
“Too many things,” Miller said. “I think you’d need another tape. But that he cares more for other people then he does himself … and I really love his smile, and that he thinks I’m funny.
What he likes about her:
“He thinks it’s totally cool that his girlfriend does welding,” Miller said.
Parlez-vous Francais?
She dropped French to take art back in high school. Luckily, Richards has a French minor. “It is very romantic,” Miller said. “Everyone should have a boyfriend who can speak French.”
On wearing a dress:
Only for her wedding day. Her fiance has never seen her in a dress. “On your wedding day you want your fiance to be just knocked over by how beautiful you are,” Miller said. “So if he has never seen you in a dress he has nothing to
compare it to, so you’ll just look amazing. Isn’t that clever? Everyone should do this.”
April 04, 2002