A Life Fulfilled , by Judy Miller

 

What happens when a four-year-old little girl falls in love with a beautifully rendered still life oil painting and her father, a devotee of modern jazz and modern art, will not buy it for her? She throws a crying fit, of course! That is how my love of art began and it has been my lifelong passion. This is one of my earliest memories and certainly my earliest recollection about art. The family had gone to an all-city art exhibit in Los Angeles, where I grew up. I wasn’t in the habit of demanding my parents buy me things but I was so transfixed by this painting. I was only four years old but there was something about it that really spoke to me.

A year or so later I was in kindergarten and we made Easter baskets out of clay to take home to our mothers. This was my first time working with clay and I made a nice tidy little basket that I was proud of. We were told to put our initials on the bottom. When our baskets were finished and it was time to take them home, Jeff Mann, who had the same initials as me, took my basket and left me with his ugly, lumpy boy-like one. The teacher, Mrs. Hess, who was always as mean as she could be, wouldn’t come to my rescue and I had to take home this horrible thing. Another crying fit but this time with reason. Perhaps that planted the seeds of my 46-year career as a ceramic artist. I’ll show you, Jeff Mann, who is better with clay! 

In the fifth grade, my painting of the Spring Fling was put up on the bulletin board. That was my first indication that art was my special talent and that it would become the focus of my life. There were other incidents that were supportive of my talent but somehow got twisted up and caused me to not experience the joy of creativity but to feel that how much I was loved was measured by how good my art was. It was a heavy burden to carry and it still resonates with me to some extent today.

I graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1967, where my talent as an artist was recognized.  I went on to study art at UCLA. I did very well in my classes but the need to move further from home caused me to transfer to UC Berkeley. My sister, Carla, braved the way first and I followed in January 1969. It was such an important, exciting, and meaningful time to be in Berkeley. The whole country was exploding with anti-Viet Nam war demonstrations and the relevance of the Women’s Movement was positively affecting us all. In Berkeley, there was also the issue of People’s Park, a conflict between the University and the community over the use of an empty lot. One man was killed and hundreds more jailed and apparently it is still there, unused, just growing weeds. Through all of this academics took a back seat to social issues. Many classes were held off-campus in protest and instructors thought of more creative ways of holding them. Berkeley is a science-based school and received very little money for the art department. To have furthered my art education and to bolster my being as a very shy person, I should have gone to a small art school or State College. During those years everyone in the art department was just doing their own thing. The instructors were not teaching the fundamentals of art. It was a time when acrylic stripe paintings were popular and one instructor declared I can say anything with a stripe. There was nothing I wanted to say with a stripe. My natural talent and love was figurative work. I never did a landscape until my 50’s and have no knowledge of color theory, I just do what I do.

But there is always a silver lining! UC Berkeley had a wonderful studio funded by student body funds. It was a time and materials studio that was not part of the curriculum. It had a ceramic studio, photography darkroom, and printing presses. I have no idea what I would have done with a formal art education but the ASUC studio gave me people to know and admire and the start of what turned out to be a challenging, enjoyable and enormously gratifying 46-year career as a nationally recognized ceramic artist. 

Carla first ventured into the studio and when I arrived she introduced me to it. In 1970 my roommates and I got our first apartment and need dishes. I knew nothing about ceramics but I knew how to draw. In addition to throwing wheels, the studio had rolling pins, china plates to lay clay on and needle tools to draw with. I rolled out the clay, formed the plates, and drew scenes into the wet clay. I loved drawing in the clay, how the resistance of the clay against the needle tool made the line flow and suggested its form. The imagery was always pictorial, the first scenes from my life, and then they evolved to a life far more engaged than my own. 

I graduated in 1971 and discovered I was pretty much useless on the job market. I had some awful temp jobs but my heart was at the studio. I learned to throw on the wheel and do all that I thought ceramics was, but my friends made me realize that my plates were far more distinctive than my mugs and teapots. I set to work going every day to the studio as if it was a job. Thankfully in those days, living expenses were cheap and my parents supported me through this adventure. I then created my own studio and in 1976 Carla, who started a 27-year career working with me, and I moved to Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz mountains. In 1984 I moved down to Santa Cruz where I lived until moving to Ajijic in November 2017. 

My plates were immediately successful as no one was doing anything like them in clay. The ’70s were a time of high fire functional ware and my work had color and an emotional narrative. Once I was on the national stage I influenced color in people’s work but no one ever had the personal content that my work had. In 1979 the American Craft Council started producing national craft shows that were open to buyers on the first days and then to the general public on the weekends. This was monumental as we would be set up with our work and buyers from all over the country, if not the world, would come to us to place orders. It would have been impossible for me to have the wide distribution of my work otherwise. It was a glorious time of a renaissance of American Craft. At each show when set up was complete, it was awe-inspiring to be in the presence of such beauty, creativity, and hard work. We all felt so privileged to be a part of something so meaningful and amazing. 

My first plates were made in 1970 and I made them consistently until I sold my equipment in 2016. In those 46 years, I probably made and sold more than 30,000 plates, teapots, and other items. I had employees that helped with the production but I designed and hand drew each and every one of them. I wholesaled to shops and galleries across the US and Canada and did about 10 Art and Craft shows a year, mostly on the East Coast. It was an all-consuming career with no time or inclination for husband and family. Perhaps I created it that way, I don’t think I could have had both. Apparently, my life relationship was with thousands of people I didn’t know, rather than an intimate family of my own. Life is about choices...

As I have previously mentioned my work was very distinctive because of its subject matter. They are intimate vignettes of people mostly in kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, and living rooms. They are about relationships, with others, with pets, or with ourselves. Because of their specific detail, they are universal. Some more risqué than others, they were once dubbed “The only dirty plates you don’t have to wash”, and someone else said they were like graphic poems. From the day I first put them out in the world until now, five years after I have stopped creating them, I have received the most overwhelming and touching verbal and written comments from people wanting me to know how much my work has meant to their lives. 

In the beginning years the plates were pretty rough looking but as time passed and work, in general, was getting more sophisticated, my work took on a more polished look. It was an amazingly difficult process to have the glazes painted on perfectly in order to send them out to galleries, Carla was a pro at that.  In the last years when I had to do the whole process myself, I was painfully aware of what a ridiculously difficult process it was. It was also not easy coming up with new designs every year, running the business, traveling to shows and selling the work, managing employees etc, etc. From the beginning, though, I knew I was living my gift, doing what I was put on this Earth to do. 

All good things must come to an end and I, for many reasons, was experiencing a decline in sales towards the end of the ’90s. Although I kept doing the work for another 4 years, in 2002 I ended the full-time career. That was a huge confrontation for me as my whole identity was wrapped up in my being “Judy Miller”. I got my first real job working at a high-end contemporary jewelry and glass gallery in Santa Cruz. It was a shock to my system suddenly being an employee after being the boss for all those years. Once again, though, there was a silver lining. This time it was meeting a man through customers, who was my first real relationship, at the age of 55. It lasted 10 years and together we traveled the world.  

My job at the jewelry store ended in 2006 and a few years after that I became a pastelist, my current life’s passion. Pastel is definitely my medium, similar to clay as they are both from the Earth and are very tactile. At first, it was very humbling re-inventing myself in a new medium. My plates were about interiors and now I was going outside painting landscapes, which I had never done before. At first, the learning curve was completely daunting going from craft production to a fine art medium, which I knew nothing about. I am very proud of how relatively quickly I was being accepted into shows and winning awards. My two most meaningful and prestigious awards are achieving Master’s Circle status with the International Association of Pastel Societies and becoming a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of the West Coast. My primary inspiration had been the Central CA Coast from Santa Cruz down to Big Sur. Now living in Ajijic, Mexico, I am inspired by the beauty of the people and the lovely vistas of my new homeland. 

My mother passed away in 1978 when I was 28, I regret not having had an adult relationship with her. In 1980 my father bought a van and traveled with a friend across the US and in 1982 they took a trip to Mexico. On that trip, my father very surprisingly and spontaneously bought a house outside of Chapala. He was on his own and wanted to create a new life for himself. He loved living Lakeside and enjoyed his life here until he died in 1998. In 1988 a new house had just been built in Villa Nova, Ajijic. When he saw it he immediately fell in love with it, and that is the house I am living in today. Thankfully, Carla and I kept the house as a rental for 19 years. 

In 2016 I realized I couldn’t financially stay in Santa Cruz, CA for the rest of my life. I had a house to sell there and a beautiful house in Ajijic to move to. November 2017 was my target date for moving. I had no idea what life would be like for me and my pup, Ollie, but I couldn’t have made a better decision for myself. I only knew one person here but I was coming to my home, the home Daddy loved so much. I remodeled it to update it and it is even lovelier. 

Living in Ajijic has expanded my life in a whole new way. Living in another culture is such an adventure and the warmth, graciousness, and patience of the Mexican people make it a fabulous one. I have made so many great friends in the Expat community, far more than in the States. It has been so interesting meeting people from many different places and life experiences. All of us are here, disconnected from our past, and open to the many joys and challenges of living in Mexico. 

I am so grateful to my father for taking the risk of moving to a new country that paved the way for me to come here. I’m extremely grateful to be living in his house and to get to spend the rest of my life in such a warm and diverse community. I am very appreciative of the wonderful response I have received for my pastel paintings and I am pleased to now have a permanent place to sell them at Studio 18 Gallery, Colon 18 in the Ajijic Village. 

Looking back, my life has been filled with good times, creative times, excruciatingly difficult times, joyful times, and every emotion and activity that makes up a life. It has been a grand adventure and I am grateful for it all...

judy@judymillerart.com
www.judymillerart.com