Miller art on display at Sisters Library

Through September and October Lynn Miller of Sisters Country - editor/publisher of Small Farmer's Journal, author, poet, one-time ballet dancer, trained singer, shoe-salesman, commercial fisherman and jack-of-all-trades - will have several of his American Indian cultural pieces and farm scenes hanging in the Sisters Library.

The exhibit is sponsored by Friends of the Sisters Library.

Miller was born in Kansas, grew up for a while in Puerto Rico and Southern California, and claims that English is his second language. He began painting when he was about 13 years old.

"Art was something I could do..." he claims. Looking at his art today leaves no question that he can, and does it quite well.

One of his works, "Ditch Parrot's Dream," was the OSU Purchase Award-winner in this year's Art in Agriculture show. The piece was purchased for $3,000.

He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from San Francisco Art Institute in 1970. Two years later he received a master's in fine arts from the University of Oregon.

Miller has been working in traditional media including oils, watercolor, gouache, egg tempera, inks, oil pastels, and charcoal for over 40 years. He has exhibited in San Francisco, Eugene, Bend and elsewhere. His artwork is in private collections across the U.S. and Europe, and currently he has a show in the Balch Hotel in Dufur.

Miller and his family own and operate a cattle and horse ranch, surrounded by Forest Service and other public lands. In addition to being the publishing editor of an international agrarian quarterly, he has also found time to author 11 technical books, two novels, and a book of poetry.

As with many artists, Lynn also has dreams, thoughts and questions about why he paints and what it all means to him, perhaps summed up by these thoughts expressed on his website...

In an unpublished work entitled "The Elastic Signature - Notes on Painting," a compendium of works he put together about his life and thoughts in the '60s and '70s, Lynn says: "I paint. It is one of my chosen pursuits. I have, and have had, several. I'm serious about painting. Been doing it since 1960, when at 13 I completed my first oil painting..."