Cuesta College opened an installation, which focuses on both the artwork and how it is displayed, by Cal Poly Art & Design professor Michael Barton Miller entitled “Super 8mm” on March 10.
It will be open until March 31.
Miller said this installation is a combination of watercolor paintings and black and white work. His main influence for it was his love of filmmaking, he said.
“There’s a lot going on in this installation,” Miller said. “But really, it’s a lot about me going back to my amateur roots.”
Miller was first exposed to art at a young age. His aunt, a teacher at the California Arts Institute in Valencia, Calif., encouraged him to become involved in art. He fell in love with filmmaking during high school and later moved to the Bay Area, where he joined a film collective, he said. There, he worked with documentaries and commercials.
“When I was trying to make money for my films, I would do mural projects,” he said. “I guess that’s where painting really came into the picture.”
Once his mural painting took off, Miller began to hire others to paint so he could focus on the project design. It was then Miller realized he wanted to continue doing public art.
“I wanted to increase the creative part of my life,” Miller said. “But part of me felt like I didn’t know enough.”
Miller returned to San Francisco State University to concentrate in drawing and painting. After a year, he transferred to the University of California, Irvine and explored different avenues of art and graduated with honors.
“I was a half credit short of Summa Cum Laude,” he said. “I was a great student. I was studying something I love.”
With stellar grades and a newfound appreciation for art, Miller attended the University of Southern California (USC) to receive a Master of Fine Arts.
“The funny thing about USC is that I applied at the last possible moment,” he said. “I literally slid the application under the door. I drove all the way down there, because I knew it wouldn’t get there by mail.”
Before his arrival at Cal Poly in 1997, Miller taught at USC, California State University, Long Beach and Pomona College. He said he prefers liberal arts schools because of the multiplicity offered.
Now that Miller is settled in San Luis Obispo, he primarily teaches drawing classes, his favorite being life drawing.
“I also really enjoy teaching idea development classes,” he said. “I really love the conceptual aspects of art.”
Miller’s exhibit at Cuesta College is an installation he described as a participatory art environment, rather than a museum where attendees sit and look at art. All of the work is brand new and consist of watercolors on vellum, which Miller said he chose because “it is the most difficult material to work with, and I like a challenge.”
The work displayed in the exhibit is in both black and white and color. The black and white pieces are conceptual and inspired by more concrete ideas, he said. The color pieces are inspired by his travels in Southeast Asia and incorporate a lot of Buddhist and Thai influences.
Miller also said he was heavily influenced by “Naked Lunch” author William S. Burroughs.
“He’s a zen master,” he said. “But he’s also brutally honest.”
With installations, the art is not only in the pieces, but in the way they are displayed, he said. Miller plays with the way paintings hang and the way the audience experiences his show for every different show.
“That aspect of installation is very experimental,” he said. “It puts me in a position to fail, which is kind of terrifying.”
This flexibility adds to his idea that the show doesn’t have one specific meaning to him.
“I took a lot of risks here, and there are several themes mixed in my work,” he said. “There’s not one stable meaning throughout.”
Miller said he was especially excited about this show because it’s his hometown exhibit. He even turned down a show in Los Angeles to hold this exhibit.
Showing at Cuesta has broadened his influence because students on the Cal Poly campus are familiar with and admire his work, Miller said.
Art and design freshman Lydia Baik plans to visit the installation after seeing photographs of the pieces included in it.
“It’s so inspiring to see (that) the person teaching you is also out there in the art world,” she said. “It’s really exciting to see that.”
Not only do students appreciate Miller’s work, but they appreciate his talent for teaching as well.
Art and design junior Kelsey Rieger said it’s not too common to find someone like that.
“I love Michael as a teacher, and I also really love his work,” she said. “I can’t say that about everyone.”
Miller’s installation is open from 11 a.m to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.