pengwen
08-27-2007, 06:51 PM
Leon Miler featured artist at the 20th Festival of the Cranes, Nov. 13-18, at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and in Socorro, N M
at the Sept. 1 Art in the Courtyard.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/Festivalcover.jpg align=right hspace=3 border=1 alt="Festival of the Cranes official artwork"> Socorro, New Mexico – Artist Leon Miler calls himself “just a design guy” but his designs in watercolors, oils, and pen and ink are gaining recognition and awards. His pen and ink design has been chosen as the official Festival of Cranes artwork for November. He’s also the featured artist at the monthly Art in the Courtyard afternoon, Saturday, Sept. 1 at the Socorro County Art Gallery.
A quiet, soft-spoken man whose humor is evident in his cartoons and much of his pen & ink work (as well as his writings), Leon says he began his artistic career with watercolors “after a very short career in spray paint that cost me more to clean up than it was worth to proceed.”
For awhile, he says, “I became enamored with dry brush and still love the effect, although I paint mostly transparent watercolors now. Even in transparent watercolors, I am not averse to sneaking in an element of dry brush now and a gain.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/Milercrane.jpg align=left hspace=3 border=1 alt="June 2007 crane by Leon Miiler"> “I learned oil painting from a master restorationist named Bill Yeland in Tustin, CA. After the gallery was empty, and the lights were mostly off, he would show me the work he was doing, and tell me how the artist had put together the painting. He did work for, among others, the Vatican, the Hermitage, in what was then Leningrad, but now St Petersburg, and various other museums across the country and Europe. I got to examine up close paintings by several old masters including one very big Rubens painting of some naked fat lady….
“Any way, my oil painting style is derived from what I learned from Bill Yelland. I paint everything monochrome, and build up layers of color over that. In all my painting, I use a limited palette, consisting usually of just primary colors and white. All secondary colors are mixed, and not from the tube.
“My third media, pen and ink, I have a special love for. The starkness of the black on white, and the never ending variety of texture fascinates me. The pen and ink got started because of its ability to be transferred to, and used for silk screening, which I have done a great deal of.
“I do occasional pastels, pencil, calligraphy, and colored pencils as well. Most of the colored pencil work I do is for cartoons, another thing I love…
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/Milerglyphs.jpg align=right hspace=3 border=1 alt="Glyphs, colored pencil loosely inspired by Maya heiroglyphs">“I study art a lot. Ancient art, cave art, modern art, impressionism, whatever. Being a design guy, I appreciate art deco and art noveau, craftsman school, mission style, etc, as well as artist like Piet Mondrian, and even the chaos of Jack the Dripper Pollack.”
Philosophically
“Art at best is a pale reflection of things greater and beyond me,” says Leon Miler. “Art and the artist are both better when they are forced to live up to something greater than both the art and the artist, or to put it succinctly; every artist needs a boss (who will be resented.)”
And, as an artist, Leon sees the “universal truths to be found in the amazing complexities of the smallest creatures. A pale wind scorpion is the master of its world, and yet will die with the 1st frost in the fall.
"When I was a small child, I found tall trees in fields of grass.
"You may never be able to fully appreciate the ocean without 1st seeing and experiencing its casual power, but a person with a map and compass who has never seen the ocean is better equipped to cross it than the one who has only experienced it. There are limits to experience, and it is wrong to presume that only those who have experienced something are competent to speak about it.
I have been to the ocean and been swept off my feet. I have been to the top of a mountain where the air is cold and thin, looked across the top of the world and realized how small and inconsequential I am.
"I have seen tall trees blown down like fields of grass.
There are diamonds in snowflakes, rarer than the fruits of the mines of Africa. They only last a brief moment and disappear before our breath.
There are harmonic patterns in wind rippled water, in wind driven sand, in cirrus clouds driven before a winter storm, and the patterns in a rattlesnake’s scales are much the same as in the center of a sunflower.
The crickets, lizards, and tarantula hawks are all maturing much smaller already. They think that summer must be coming to an end faster than I do.
“Finally, Chocolate’s the stuff for them that hurts to think too much. I think I need some…”
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/roadrunnerMiler.jpg align=center vspace=3 border=1 alt="Roadrunner by Leon Miler">
A resident of Socorro, New Mexico since 1998. Leon received a second place award at the New Mexico State Fair Art Show in 2005 and is an active member of the Socorro County Art Group which hosts the monthly Art in the Courtyard.
He and wife, Joy, came to Socorro after “buying 17 acres of prime creosote from her mother. Her grandmother grew up here, and she still has cousins here. We have 2 daughters, one with a fine arts degree in dance, and one with a degree in creative writing. We also have a number of granddaughters, and a single grandson.”
You can see more artwork by Leon Miler at his <a href=http://www.steppinoutnewmexico.com/pp-514/showgallery.php/cat/571>gallery</a>
A route map to the Socorro County Art Gallery is below. The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/SCAgalrymap.jpg align=center hspace=3 border=1 alt="Map to Socorro County Arts Gallery by Leon Miler">
(http://www.steppinoutnewmexico.com/pp-514/showgallery.php/cat/571)
at the Sept. 1 Art in the Courtyard.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/Festivalcover.jpg align=right hspace=3 border=1 alt="Festival of the Cranes official artwork"> Socorro, New Mexico – Artist Leon Miler calls himself “just a design guy” but his designs in watercolors, oils, and pen and ink are gaining recognition and awards. His pen and ink design has been chosen as the official Festival of Cranes artwork for November. He’s also the featured artist at the monthly Art in the Courtyard afternoon, Saturday, Sept. 1 at the Socorro County Art Gallery.
A quiet, soft-spoken man whose humor is evident in his cartoons and much of his pen & ink work (as well as his writings), Leon says he began his artistic career with watercolors “after a very short career in spray paint that cost me more to clean up than it was worth to proceed.”
For awhile, he says, “I became enamored with dry brush and still love the effect, although I paint mostly transparent watercolors now. Even in transparent watercolors, I am not averse to sneaking in an element of dry brush now and a gain.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/Milercrane.jpg align=left hspace=3 border=1 alt="June 2007 crane by Leon Miiler"> “I learned oil painting from a master restorationist named Bill Yeland in Tustin, CA. After the gallery was empty, and the lights were mostly off, he would show me the work he was doing, and tell me how the artist had put together the painting. He did work for, among others, the Vatican, the Hermitage, in what was then Leningrad, but now St Petersburg, and various other museums across the country and Europe. I got to examine up close paintings by several old masters including one very big Rubens painting of some naked fat lady….
“Any way, my oil painting style is derived from what I learned from Bill Yelland. I paint everything monochrome, and build up layers of color over that. In all my painting, I use a limited palette, consisting usually of just primary colors and white. All secondary colors are mixed, and not from the tube.
“My third media, pen and ink, I have a special love for. The starkness of the black on white, and the never ending variety of texture fascinates me. The pen and ink got started because of its ability to be transferred to, and used for silk screening, which I have done a great deal of.
“I do occasional pastels, pencil, calligraphy, and colored pencils as well. Most of the colored pencil work I do is for cartoons, another thing I love…
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/Milerglyphs.jpg align=right hspace=3 border=1 alt="Glyphs, colored pencil loosely inspired by Maya heiroglyphs">“I study art a lot. Ancient art, cave art, modern art, impressionism, whatever. Being a design guy, I appreciate art deco and art noveau, craftsman school, mission style, etc, as well as artist like Piet Mondrian, and even the chaos of Jack the Dripper Pollack.”
Philosophically
“Art at best is a pale reflection of things greater and beyond me,” says Leon Miler. “Art and the artist are both better when they are forced to live up to something greater than both the art and the artist, or to put it succinctly; every artist needs a boss (who will be resented.)”
And, as an artist, Leon sees the “universal truths to be found in the amazing complexities of the smallest creatures. A pale wind scorpion is the master of its world, and yet will die with the 1st frost in the fall.
"When I was a small child, I found tall trees in fields of grass.
"You may never be able to fully appreciate the ocean without 1st seeing and experiencing its casual power, but a person with a map and compass who has never seen the ocean is better equipped to cross it than the one who has only experienced it. There are limits to experience, and it is wrong to presume that only those who have experienced something are competent to speak about it.
I have been to the ocean and been swept off my feet. I have been to the top of a mountain where the air is cold and thin, looked across the top of the world and realized how small and inconsequential I am.
"I have seen tall trees blown down like fields of grass.
There are diamonds in snowflakes, rarer than the fruits of the mines of Africa. They only last a brief moment and disappear before our breath.
There are harmonic patterns in wind rippled water, in wind driven sand, in cirrus clouds driven before a winter storm, and the patterns in a rattlesnake’s scales are much the same as in the center of a sunflower.
The crickets, lizards, and tarantula hawks are all maturing much smaller already. They think that summer must be coming to an end faster than I do.
“Finally, Chocolate’s the stuff for them that hurts to think too much. I think I need some…”
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/roadrunnerMiler.jpg align=center vspace=3 border=1 alt="Roadrunner by Leon Miler">
A resident of Socorro, New Mexico since 1998. Leon received a second place award at the New Mexico State Fair Art Show in 2005 and is an active member of the Socorro County Art Group which hosts the monthly Art in the Courtyard.
He and wife, Joy, came to Socorro after “buying 17 acres of prime creosote from her mother. Her grandmother grew up here, and she still has cousins here. We have 2 daughters, one with a fine arts degree in dance, and one with a degree in creative writing. We also have a number of granddaughters, and a single grandson.”
You can see more artwork by Leon Miler at his <a href=http://www.steppinoutnewmexico.com/pp-514/showgallery.php/cat/571>gallery</a>
A route map to the Socorro County Art Gallery is below. The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/SCAgalrymap.jpg align=center hspace=3 border=1 alt="Map to Socorro County Arts Gallery by Leon Miler">
(http://www.steppinoutnewmexico.com/pp-514/showgallery.php/cat/571)