From the food we eat to the tables we sit at each day, essential labor goes unnoticed by the public, something Master’s of Fine Arts student Maleah Miller hopes to showcase with her new art exhibit “home/office.”
“All the pieces in the gallery relate to the theme of invisible labor, which is a sociological concept coined by Arlene Kaplan Daniels,” Miller said. “The idea is that invisible labor is any kind of work that is unpaid, unappreciated or typically occurs in the private sphere versus the public sphere. The crown jewel in my body of work is a big old 3-minute, 45-second stop-motion animation.”
After graduating from Kenyon College in 2020 with a B.A. in Studio Art and English, Miller was accepted into the College of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts at Texas A&M University and is anticipating graduating in December. During her time in College Station, she’s worked on many exhibits in the Brazos Valley, including “Dog Tales: The Human Canine Connection” at the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History. Miller’s exhibit will be available to view for free in the J. Wayne Stark Galleries located at the Memorial Student Center on-campus through Oct. 20.
The College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts at A&M has been recently revitalized through the university hiring new faculty — including the hiring of Tim McLaughlin, who is known for his work on Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks — and adding additional classes and programs. This includes the recent addition of a theater degree and eight new minors within the college.
Miller said, as a Visualization student herself, these changes have been overall encouraging.
“I’m currently in a class that’s being taught by one of our Visualization alumni and we’re doing an experimental animation course. It’s been exciting to do more and more stuff and I think A&M is starting to realize just how cool our program is,” she said. “A lot of my classmates who graduated before me are at really cool companies, like Dreamworks. It’s really exciting.”
Miller will be the only current A&M student to have their artwork displayed during the fall semester, something she said she is grateful to be able to do.
“In Visualization, we have a strong pre-existing relationship with the Stark Gallery. A lovely woman named Catherine Hastedt is in charge of the space and helped get everything signed up. … I got some professional gallery experience, signing the contract, everything,” she said. “The lovely Stark staff helped me set up the lights, get all the signage and source chairs. I really appreciate all of it.”
It took Miller three years to refine and complete the artwork for her gallery as a part of her Master’s of Fine Arts program.
“We don’t do a single project, but we basically fill a gallery with whatever moves you, a cohesive body of work,” she said. “The theme of the project is invisible labor, so I would really love for people to leave my gallery with an understanding of the labor that they do and maybe the people around them.”
Dolls are often featured heavily in Miller’s work due to her being passionate about character design and stop-motion animation, and her recent gallery is no exception.
“I grew up playing with dolls of all kinds,” she said. “Becoming an artist, I make my own dolls and puppets now for stop motion. I love the way that making things small can also make them larger than life. All the puppets in my show are built from aluminum wire, upholstery foam and handmade little pieces of clothing. The faces I sculpted, 3D printed and then hand painted.”
One of the biggest inspirations for the exhibit was Miller’s own mother, Debra Miller, and Miller said she hopes to make her mom and others feel appreciated for the daily work they do.
“Ideally, my audience is my mom. I just wanted her to feel appreciated and feel seen and loved, and everybody else who sees it is a wonderful bonus,” she said. “I hope that people, like my mom who do the brunt of the household labor in their family, both emotional and physical, come in and feel appreciated. That’s what I do it for.”
With graduation imminent, Miller said her dream career is to continue work in stop-motion animation.
“I think it’s such a beautiful art form, and I’ve been happy to see it having its moment recently,” she said. “Some really awesome stop-motion animated features have come out recently. I would love to find any kind of career path that combines my love for all things handmade with a little bit of digital fun.”
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