MILLER-HAVENS ART
Archives of Sold Alive & Traditional Still Lifes
Artist's Statement "Alive" Still Lifes
Nature morte, natura morta, Stilleben, stilleven, still life have been names used for paintings in which inanimate objects are set up by the artist and observed in his studio.
However many 17th century still lifes included live birds, monkeys, cats, and dogs. But why not both alive and dead?
I named this series Alive Still Lifes.
At the St. Louis Cardinals spring training one year a baseball mitt and fielder's glove was thrown on the ground in front of me. It was still warm and wet with sweat. This was not a "found inanimate object" really nor was it something set up
in the studio. It was alive with the player's body heat. Thus began the series.
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"Sport as subject matter in contemporary painting is hardly an unknown, but it commonly encourages images of the utmost banality and vulgarity. From this venue Miller-Havens is many worlds apart. Her new work is trenchant, pointed, haunting. She takes a simple form such as a catcher's mask or a baseball glove and paints it with knowledge and with love so that it is at the same time a potent icon and a humble object -- as both it is beautiful, and that is her gift. Her work is beyond genre because she is a superb editor and inventor."
James Wilson Rayen
Elizabeth Christy Kopf Professor of Art
Wellesley College
Collection United Residents in Academy Homes II Boston
Traditional Still Lifes
Gloves/Mitts Loaned by the New England Sport Museum and Mike Matheny, St. Louis Cardinals
"Sport as subject matter in contemporary painting is hardly an unknown, but it commonly encourages images of the utmost banality and vulgarity. From this venue Miller-Havens is many worlds apart. Her new work is trenchant, pointed, haunting. She takes a simple form such as a catcher's mask or a baseball glove and paints it with knowledge and with love so that it is at the same time a potent icon and a humble object -- as both it is beautiful, and that is her gift.
Her work is beyond genre because she is a superb editor and inventor."
James Wilson Rayen
Elizabeth Christy Kopf Professor of Art
Wellesley College
