My work is based between the fields of clothing and sculpture to form dialogues between art, craft and design. I am interested in the production and consumption of embodied forms and surfaces. As a trained pattern maker and clothing designer I rework traditional relationships to the construction of sewn objects.
I often work sculpturally but equally important is my participation in the distinctly social and communal space that clothing provides outside of exhibition sites. Each garment I make is a catalyst for exchanges between maker and wearer. The garment begins as a place to interface with the body, but it inevitably leads to broader relationships that exist under the umbrella of studio space rather than retail. My work remains cyclical, the sculptures pick up where the clothing ends.
Uniting both practices is the tactile surface. Histories of labor and construction in the field of sewing are important aspects- revealing how shapes are produced, confounding expectations within this and exploring the physicality of working from 2d to 3d all are focuses. Within this conversation of labor is my ongoing and lifetime connection to the industrial stitch and the sewing machine as a paradoxical site of liberation and oppression. I want to bring attention to what is often overlooked and undervalued - the ubiquitous capacity and strength of the tiny stitch, the materiality of the masses, the process of labor, fleeting artifacts, hyperbolic use of thread in action accumulating to monumental scale.
BIO
Abbie Miller (b. 1981, Billings, Montana) received her BFA from the University of Wyoming in 2004 with a minor in apparel construction and holds a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from Maryland Institute College of Art, 2005 and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, 2007. She has had solo exhibitions at the Missoula Art Museum, Nicolaysen Art Museum and Teton Art Lab where she was an artist in residence for two years. Miller has been included in group shows throughout North America, including the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Reading Public Museum, Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, Portland Art Museum and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her sculptures are included in the permanent collections at the Portland Art Museum and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. She is a recipient of a Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship, a Contemporary Northwest Artist Award and a Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Abbie lives in the Pacific Northwest and works as a studio artist, educator and stylist.