Janice Miller, Wilmore, KY

2D - folk painting

Janice Miller grew up on a farm in Kentucky, where her family raised all their own food. She grew up amongst the animals that today are the subjects and inspiration for many of her paintings.

Whenever her creative family members would gather, they would talk and visit while doing handwork, sewing and quilting. As a young child, Janice learned how to make hooked rugs from her aunt, eventually learning how to sew and quilt –but painting remained her creative preference.

While Janice has had no formal art training, her family encouraged her as well as her elementary teachers who gave her crayons. Today, Janice paints on re-cycled materials and on Masonite, an affordable material that she can cut to fit any size frame.

Janice coats the Masonite with a clear coat to allow the earthy brown surface color to show through before she applies acrylic paint. She finishes her paintings with a top coat of varnish to seal the painting.

Janice looks around her for her subject matter and states, “Artists learn in clusters and create in solitude. Criticism is how we learn, and we must always listen to it. If there is truth in the criticism it will strike a chord which we can then learn from.”

Works by Janice Miller can be found at the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea, Berea, KY.