Today we’d like to introduce you to Deborah Sherron Miller.
Hi Deborah Sherron, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up in Pennsylvania. My grandmother was an artist, and she always encouraged my artistic talents.
Enrolling me art classes at a local institute and exposing art at local museums, as well as the ballet and theater. But soon after losing my mother at age 14 and grandmother a few years later, my art education ended. I always continued to create moving to Maine and eventually New York City where I was furthering my career in the music industry. Living in Chelsea my passion for painting was once again ignited. I’d often walked to SOHO and especially loved the street art and during that time I took a ten-day solo trip to Paris which only flamed my artistic passion. Until recent years I’ve never sold my art. I’ve never really saw myself as an “artist,” more like someone collected art, painted, made jewelry and was creative.
I painted for the next couple of decades, drawing from inspirations from the places she lived with her husband while he served in the US Air Force – Alexandria, VA, Washington DC, Belgium, Upstate New York, North Carolina and finally landing in Savannah, GA, one of the most beautiful cities in the United States. In more recent years I added designing jewelry and which I’ve sold locally and online.
My artistic focus started to change dramatically in 2017 when I saw a hand stitched rug at Ikea with blocks of different patterns. I’ve always been someone who looks at something and says I can make that and then set out to attempt to do just that. I love a challenge and especially an artistic challenge. So as soon as I got home I found a large piece of canvas that was hiding in the closet, some scrap yarn I had laying around and went to work.
After a couple of weeks, the idea of a rug was gone, and a new vision came to light. I could turn it into a work of art, and it turned into one of my first pieces after the addition of paint and a couple reclaimed items I had lay around. At the time I had no collection of reclaimed materials on what we had from our own trash or recycling. From there my art has evolved to using 95% reclaimed materials. With my intense passion for protecting the earth and wildlife, it was a natural progression to use reclaimed materials in my art.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Just putting my work out there has presented one of my biggest struggles I had to overcome. They came mostly from my own lack of artistic confidence never having any formal art training or selling my work before. I’ve had to navigate the ins and outs of the artwork on my own and don’t know what I would have done without Google. Honestly, what did we do before it?!? There was so much I had to learn and I had to get past being intimidated by the unknown.
And then letting the public view my work… WOW, that was like putting a personal piece of my inner self on display. And in a way I am, my art is me. It’s my fantasies, my thoughts, my passions, and my beliefs for all to see. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not shy. I will and do speak with anyone and will be the first to say hi and start the conversation, but then to show them my work and my inner self with no filter… That is altogether different.
Without the support of my husband Don, my daughter Portia, and my dear friend Sandra Levin, I don’t know if I would be where I am today in my artistic career. They have all offered so much encouragement (especially my husband over the decades) and advice that has been invaluable.
And while the road to get where I am today wasn’t always smooth, Covid-19 presented struggles of epic proportions. From 2018 to March 2020 things were progressing nicely, I had some of my work at Roots Up Gallery, I did two Savannah Local Artist Markets (SLAM), had a few pieces at the Cork House Gallery show and FX Film Productions purchased 3 pieces for the “Mrs. America” Hulu series, one of which made it in a scene in the final editing. I was really excited with Sulfur Studios opening my very first solo exhibition on March 10th, 2020 at Starland Café…. And then it all went so wrong…
On March 19th, 2020 Savannah went into total pandemic lock-down, along with most of the country. The show was cancelled, and it took me a couple months to retrieve my work. Everything I was working so hard to build came to a standstill. Not all was a total loss since I did take advantage of the “Mrs. America” series and gained a lot of local press in print, radio & TV, however, sales were nonexistent. So I set my focus on just sharing my art on social media, set up a couple “Art on the Fence” shows at my home for friends and neighbors and poured myself into creating. I’m so looking forward to what 2022 has in store for me!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My art uses 95% reclaimed materials, which wasn’t exactly a conscious decision, more like motivation to reduce my impact and reuse materials and since we already do that in our household why wouldn’t I naturally do it in my art. And there is a social and environmental conscious meaning behind my art. Sharing my art and highlighting those issues is my passion and my art is more than just creative expression.
Working with reclaimed materials allows me an enormous amount of flexibility in my work. Sometimes the materials dictate the subject matter, while other times the subject comes first and pieces are drawn to it. I can work on reclaimed wood, canvas and even has did a cityscape on a worn our pair of Vans and currently working on a cityscape on a damaged handbag and reclaimed mailbox. It’s broken or just old, I love bringing ordinarily things back to life. You never know what you will find in my work: pull tabs from an almond milk container, bike chains, broken auto glass, bits of metal, broken jewelry, broken earbuds, computer parts like circuit boards and plugs.
My subject matters speak on a lot of different social and environmental issues. For example, my Femme Series is all about honoring and showcasing the strengths of women and their deep bonds through diversity. I wanted to highlight all our differences, including sexual preference, body size, race, or gender at birth. These traits make us stronger when we come together and appreciate each other, rather than letting those differences tear us apart.
Along with my love for the environment and wildlife, I also highlight some of the most at risk and endangered animals such as the North Atlantic right whale, birds of paradise, and reef fish. Other animals have a little more of a whimsical take. My Dark Oak piece was created with an entirely different vision. We have a live oak in our back yard, probably 200 years old and I always wonder what secrets and stories she holds.
I’ve lived in both the countryside and large cities, like New York City and Washington DC. I’ve also been fortunate enough to travel a lot throughout the U.S. and Europe. I’ve always been intrigued with the skyline of a city from a distance, wondering what secrets it held and how life flowed there. Skylines are like bright beacons that draw you into a large city, making you want to be a part of it. Cityscapes came from that natural admiration of a city’s mystery, and the treasures found within them. This is the inspiration for my Cityscape Series. Check them out and see what treasures you can find within them!
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I have always had a can-do attitude towards everything and that includes my art. Without it I wouldn’t be at this point in my career. That attitude has helped me overcome the lack of confidence I had about my knowledge of the art world or putting my art out there. It has allowed me to expose myself and my art to things I never would have thought about and opened more doors than it has closed. It’s all falls back to the rug at Ikea and “I can make that” attitude. Without it my art would not have progressed to the point it’s at now.
And I’m so excited for where I’m going from here. As much as my art is an exploration of the materials and what they will become, it is also an exploration of myself and what I will create.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://versairdesigns.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/versairdesigns/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/versairdesigns
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/versairdesigns
Image Credits
Deborah Sherron Miller
