l o c a l a r t i s t
Bailey Miller b y L i e s e l S c h m i d t
“From Bones”
“Frieda”
“Freckles”
W ith its requirement for a keen eye for colors, lines, and textures, there’s an artistic aspect to landscape design, so it stands to reason that photographer and painter Bailey Miller has the natural gift she does as a freelance landscape artist. It’s a gig that keeps her bills paid, now that she’s left the grind of working for a large-scale landscape corporation; but by all accounts, that’s not the work that truly speaks to her soul. The daughter of a horticulturist father who, along with her mother, owns a nursery, Miller has always had a natural predisposition for plants; and while she had no formal training in botany, having pursued a degree in painting and photography, her talent for landscaping was enough that she landed a great position with a very reputable firm. But the natural artistry she possesses never really found satisfaction with the work, so when fate stepped in and forced her to evaluate what she really wanted from her life, she took the plunge and decided to go for it “hard core.” Born and raised in North Georgia, Miller’s family had always vacationed at the beach; and after living a few years on the “dreary and miserable” West Coast, she decided to take a breather at the beach to recharge. That breather turned into a permanent situation, as she’d essentially found her people — a community of like- minded artists who all seemed to support one another’s aspirations and thrive on creativity. She took a job as a gardener at WaterColor, and thirteen years later, she was still digging in the dirt, having gone down a path that she had never really planned. It’s clear that her success in landscape design stems from her creativity and her artistic nature; but her true
outlet for that is found not in plants, but in photography and painting, two pursuits that she only recently made a go of professionally. After separating from her corporate job in November 2018, she took the severance she was given and dove in with everything she had, researching her medium and seeking out all she needed to get started in her new venture. Having learned on a film camera, Miller never had any interest in digital photography. In fact, she’s never even owned a digital camera. Rather, she does something that only a limited number of photographers have the patience or the passion for: wet-collodion process. Requiring the aforementioned patience, this archaic method also requires the use of toxic chemicals and an expensive old mammoth of a camera — in Miller’s case, a 120-year-old Eastman Empire State that she lovingly calls a “mahogany beast”— as well as an understanding of photography and how to line up a shot. Not to mention how to use the ancient and cumbersome equipment. “This is not just a hobby that’s easy to learn, and it took me like five months before I could even get an image to turn out,” she admits. “It was my lesson in patience! Each picture takes about 45 minutes, start to finish; and you can never replicate that image again—it’s a one-shot deal, and if you mess it up, you can’t get that hour back.” Not one to stay inside the box, a look at her online gallery also offers a peek into her paintings. So far, in the handful of months that she’s actually been producing (spoiler alert: since going full bore into pursuing her art in February 2019, she’s created 80-odd pieces), she’s done mostly black and white renderings of iconic images — politicians, famous architecture and landmarks, and
Bailey Miller and her 120-year-old Eastman camera
celebrities — that she creates using sourced photos that she converts and then transfers by hand onto canvas using a Sharpie marker and a projector before layering them with paint. Regardless of what she puts her hand to—be it painting, photography, landscaping, or music (Miller is also a talented lyricist and musician), she feels a need to be connected in some way to art. “If I don’t paint or play music or take pictures, I feel like something is missing — like an appendage,” she says. Fortunately, she comes from a supportive family, and she’s also found patronage from someone she now considers not only her representative, but also a very dear friend. “Anne Hunter gave me my first opportunity to display my art on 30-A more than a decade ago, and she’s always been someone who inspired me to keep creating and not give up, and anytime she could give me a spot, she could. She’s a great gallerist, and she helps me keep going.”
For more information on Bailey Miller and her work, visit www.baileymillerart.com or call (850) 685-1852.
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