Meet Sara Miller, a vibrant artist working in fabric and painting and my neighbor here in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her artwork features bright and vivid color combinations, like orange and purple, that evoke a sense of joy and endless possibilities. Sara is a self-taught artist who evolved the sewing skills she learned as a teenager into wearable art. Once she discovered art quilts, where she could mix textures and fabrics into flowing patterns and shapes, she stopped worrying about creating clothing that “fit” and focused on the visual expression of colors and textiles.
In her 20’s, she worked in technology sales, a job she found unsatisfying. When her sales department got laid off in the early 2000’s, she focused on her fiber art and was eventually offered a job as a creative consultant, teaching quilters how to use computerized sewing and embroidery machines. During her teaching, she developed a quilting template design system called Sew Inspired Design to help quilters create curved quilts easily and accurately.
She has been featured on the PBS show, America’s Quilts Creatively, several times and worked as a freelance textile designer. Her work has been featured in galleries throughout New Mexico and Texas and her quilting book offers quilters the tools to expand their techniques. Currently, she is combining paints, fiber, fabrics, and found objects into mixed media pieces.
I recently had an opportunity to talk with Sara about her work.
What Inspires Your Art?
My big inspiration is nature and architecture. I used to teach quilting; their biggest challenge was the colors they would pick. I used to get frustrated when they would pick the same colors as me, but I would tell them to look at photos in nature, those color combinations will work. Purple and green and orange and yellow.
What’s your favorite color?
I have two: purple and orange and anyone who walks into my gallery can see that I love that combination. I have always been inspired by nature and those colors are the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing at night. I have hundreds of pictures of sunsets on my phone and that inspires me.
Do you have a favorite artist?
Wassily Kandinsky’s use of bright colors and geometric shapes are inspiring. I have probably three or four books of his. A lot of his work reminds me of quilting because of the shapes and colors. I also like Georgia O’Keefe because of her love of nature.
What would you like to create next?
I started to do some work on three-dimensional canvases, but they are difficult to store, but I would like to do more three-dimensional free-standing fiber work. I go to Resourceful at Santa Fe (the US’s oldest and largest recycled material art market) and have recently purchased some metal cube frames that I intend to use to create some three-dimensional work using them as a base structure for my fiber art.
What’s the most memorable reaction To your artwork?
I love to see people’s eyes get big when they walk into my studio and see how much work I have on the walls and all the colors. They look like deer in headlights, not knowing where to look first. If they don’t like color, they don’t like my work. I have a sign that hangs in my studio that says “Art to brighten people’s world”.
A woman at an art show in Florida walked by a piece I made right after my divorce, called Controlled Chaos. This woman came back at the end of the day. I told her the story. Her eyes got big and had a smile on her face, and said, “I’ll take it”!” She said she was going through a divorce. Somehow my emotions at that time came through to her.
Another time, I displayed a piece called AFib because my partner was going through atrial fibrillation. A woman walking by was intrigued and when she saw the name she said “I’ll take it!” She was a cardiac nurse.
There’s always some emotion that you are feeling when you are creating, and that seems to come through in the art. There’s usually a story behind it and it’s amazing when people connect with it.
What’s A misconception that you’d like to debunk?
I love doing fiber art but it drives me nuts that people seemed to look at it as a craft and not really fine art.
What’s Your most unexpected source of inspiration?
Weaving thru Time is a series of pieces I did during the pandemic, while we were all waiting for the vaccinations to come out. The pieces have woven “tails” that represent how we were all weaving through time to get back to normal.
What emotion Would You like Your ARt to Evoke?
Happiness. I have always been one of the most optimistic people in the world, so I want my art to make people happy. My tagline is “Art to Brighten Your World”. I want people to have a smile when they see my work. Even though I may be making a statement, I still want to bring a smile.
Sara’s optimistic view clearly shows through in her colorful, playful pieces. Her style also translates seamlessly (quilting pun intended!) between her fiber works, paintings, and mixed media pieces. I am fortunate to live near her studio to see her pieces in real life!
To see more of Sara’s artwork, you can follow her on Instagram or on her website.
What do you think about Sara’s journey from quilting to mixed media to painting? Leave a comment below!
