We recently connected with Christine Miller and have shared our conversation below.
Christine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I think I am one of the lucky few that discovered my passion as a child. I remember when I was in the third grade I learned how to knit. Knitting was such a passion then, I would stand against the school building during recess and just knit away. When I was in the fourth grade and was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my response was, “An artist”. Yarn and thread were always between my fingers and I had an insatiable desire to create things from fiber, cloth, and thread. In addition to knitting, I learned how to embroider and sew my own clothes by the time I was in the sixth grade. When my family traveled for summer vacations, one of the mandatory stops in any locale was the yarn shop if there was one! My mother and grandmother were my early teachers, and they kept me in a constant supply of materials, instruction books, and patterns. I remember that I would sit on the couch for hours on end, stitching and creating. This was a foreshadowing of my life to come – I still sit on the couch for hours on end, stitching and creating works of fiber art.
Christine, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My entire childhood was filled with creating artistic fiber expressions, and I kept adding to my toolkit by learning new processes and techniques. When I was 19, I took my first class in weaving at a continuing education course through the University of Texas at Austin. I had a simple small handmade two harness loom that I used to create wall hangings on. Though I still loved sewing, embroidering, and needle point, weaving became a passion that is at the heart of my creative expression.
My weaving career has stretched over decades. At one time or another, I have woven almost any type of product that can be woven: household textiles, baby blankets, throws, clothing, accessories, jewelry, art sculptures, and wall hangings. I have completed commissioned items for people and participated in many juried art fairs locally and across the United States. I have participated in cooperative retail galleries and started a custom textile studio that sold to design showrooms across the United States. And, I have exhibited my fiber artwork in local, regional, and national juried exhibitions for decades winning many awards.
About 30 years ago I took a weekend workshop through the Dallas Handweavers & Spinners Guild led by Donna Kaplan, and I learned how to weave with wire on my floor loom. This workshop instantly changed my weaving life, and for the next 20 years or so, I ONLY wove with a wire warp on my loom! I call the material I create a woven metal fabric. The wire in the warp and weft, along with a fiber weft, create a material that is strong and can be manipulated and sculpted into three dimensional objects such as jewelry, basketry, sculpture, and wall art. It is a very exciting material that seemingly has no boundaries of creative possibility.
With the permission of my teacher, I taught workshops around the country, usually other weaving guild groups that wanted to learn how to weave with wire. It has been so fulfilling and exciting, exploring this unique material and pushing the various ways that it can be manipulated!
With the limitations of not being able to gather in person during the Pandemic, I launched my Weaving with Wire course on the Teachable website in the fall of 2021 to an online platform. The course is available as a Self Paced course, or participants can sign up for a 3 day Zoom Workshop where I work with the students in real time and instruct them in this technique. I have held several Zoom workshops now, and they have been extremely successful. I created a private Facebook group page for my students and we continue to share our individual explorations in weaving with wire. And, I am under contract to publish a book about Weaving with Wire, scheduled to be released Spring 2023.
During this long career of being a professional fiber artist, I detoured for a bit as a visual arts educator and taught art in 9-12 high schools. Becoming a teacher wasn’t a specific career path I thought I would follow, but I learned so much about how to be an engaging and effective teacher.
My professional art life has been so exciting, rewarding and fulfilling! I have followed the winding path and now seamlessly blend my art and teaching into everything I do. I retired from the classroom about three years ago, and am back in my studio full time. My husband and I have mounted several exhibitions of his resin paintings along with my fiber sculptures in Coral Reef Installations. Being back in the studio has allowed me to focus on not only creating the course content for my Weaving with Wire classes, but has also provided the time and space to continue pushing my artistic ideas using the woven metal fabric I create.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The hand weaving community in this country is large and thriving, and new weavers are being introduced to the joys of hand weaving every day! There are not many people weaving with wire, though, and no one is really teaching the process like I learned it. It has been a driving desire to get this information out to the world in order to share what I have learned over 30 years. The Pandemic, though extremely challenging in so many ways, has opened the door to virtual learning in a significant way. I’m not sure I would have put my course online if not for the Pandemic, so it has been one of those silver linings of our circumstances. I am passionate about what I have learned, what I do, and why I want to spread my knowledge to others. It is truly a driving force in my life, and I am so grateful for my educational and artistic backgrounds to make this dream a reality.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Oh, my! This feature doesn’t have the scope for me to outline the MANY times I have had to pivot in life!!! If you are born with an artistic spirit, it is a calling that is extremely hard to deny. Society tells you in so many ways why it’s NOT a good idea to follow an artistic career. The financial reward may not be great and there could be sacrifices the artist has to make for their success. Every artist has their own unique life story to tell: some may find they are jettisoned to an easy success; others struggle without ever-knowing success or any kind of recognition.
I have been fortunate that my husband and daughter have provided me with a stable, loving family that has been incredibly supportive as I explored artistic pathways. I never lost any money on my professional art endeavors, but I also often fell short of the financial stability that would have benefitted my family. There have been several junctions in my artistic career that had me facing a brick wall, forcing me to change my path. These points in life were never easy, and in the moment were very discouraging. But the drive that lives inside me just would not give up, and I would make a choice that would seemingly further my art career in a new direction. To be successful in art, you have to be fearless, determined, and creative. So many of my artist friends have re-invented themselves time and again to keep their art momentum going.
It’s hard to face a perceived failure when it comes hard and fast. Let me end this section with an early life story. Remember, when I was in the fourth grade I declared I wanted to be an artist. When I was in the sixth grade, I got a C in art that was devastating because I have always been a straight A kind of student. To this day, I can’t tell you why I got a C in art, but what did happen is that I went away from art for the rest of my school days until I got to college. One person on my path did her best to derail me from my life’s work. It didn’t work, ultimately, because my entire life’s work has been centered around art either by creating it or teaching about it. When I became an art teacher, I took this experience to heart and I never shut any of my students down about their work. I would always find things in their work that showed promise or creativity and I would build my critiques around the positives of their work, not the negatives. It was an incredible life lesson, and though I am still annoyed with that teacher for giving me a C, she taught me about the kind of person I didn’t want to be, so I owe her my gratitude after all.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://christinekmiller.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christinekmillerfiberartist/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christinekmillerfiberartist
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-miller-36985014/
- Twitter: @explorefiber1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRZwaEAtn4KsA7HXlxXhjkg
- Other: Weaving with Wire Courses – https://christinekmiller-fiber-studio.teachable.com/
Image Credits
Photographs by Gaby Pruitt