On Nov. 15, Alexa Miller ’25, a BFA student from Long Island, brought me to her studio in Tjaden Hall to talk about her art. From the moment I stepped into her domain, the walls and floor littered with brightly colored, eye-catching pieces, I was in awe of Miller’s command of color and material. We sat down and she told me about her artistic background, her evolution since coming to Cornell, and how art connects her to her heritage.
Miller identified her kindergarten years as the catalyst for her creativity. “Kindergarten was when I first started taking private art classes outside of regular school … Once I started there, I never stopped going.” Of her first art teacher, Susan, Miller had only good things to say. “She has been the biggest motivator for me as an artist because … she basically watched me grow up while teaching me everything I know about painting and life drawing.” Having started making art so young, Miller has had plenty of time to grow and evolve as an artist, though much of that evolution did happen at Cornell. “Cornell has influenced so much of my art practice now. Once I took Papermaking and Intro to Printmaking at Cornell — I sound like an advertisement — those honestly completely changed my art practice.” Papermaking and printmaking were mediums Miller hadn’t experimented with before coming to Cornell, but with the access and experience her classes provided, Miller fell in love with the process and materiality of the mediums.
“I think there’s something so profound about hand making work and I think there’s such a rawness to craft,” she shared. She explores many mediums, but works often with wood-block printing and fabric quilts. Materiality is extremely important to her. In choosing her materials and mediums, Miller said, “I mostly do printmaking now, but also oil painting and acrylic painting sometimes. I have been experimenting recently with incorporating fabric into my paintings and sewing into the canvas. And I’ve also worked a lot with denim. I’ve made paper out of denim. I keep it as sort of a motif in my work … Part of my thesis is making quilts, and I’ve been working to push the limits of the quilt in a way that goes beyond just the normal fabric quilt.” But beyond fabric, print and paint, Miller has found her niche in handmade paper.
When Miller starts a new project, she immediately turns to working in handmade paper. “Before I start the process [of making art], I have to make my own paper. I almost never buy store-bought paper. I took Papermaking a year ago and I just fell in love with it. You can make paper out of almost anything,” she said, showing me some of the paper she’d made out of onion skins. As for what is printed on that paper, Miller finds much of her inspiration in her heritage. “A lot of my process is working with family photos and working from archives, specifically my family’s archives. Back at home we have a dark brown chest in the living room that has all of these family photos that have been collected … I normally start my process there by going into the chest and pulling photos and just thinking about what interests me.” In drawing from her personal experiences, Miller establishes the major themes of her work. She said, “One of the main things I would say is important to me in my work is Jewish heritage and the representation of the Jewish community, looking at the past and seeing how that culture has shifted over time, too.”
That profoundness and deep personal connection was evident when I looked at her pieces, but they also displayed the creativity and fun Miller has when experimenting. To me, the questions she asks when creating are what help to make them so visually striking: “How can I change this? Or how can I take my fabric quilts and push it to being a painting? Or how can I take these family photos and make them accessible to the world? How can I convey this idea through the process of printmaking? What does carving tell me about myself and the choices that I make? What gestures are used to create a screen print that interests me? Why does papermaking feel necessary to me?” Through her art, Miller conducts these investigations into herself, her culture and her past, and finds answers about her identity. That is what makes her art so visually striking — the combination of deep care for both the material and the subject matter.
Miller’s work will be on display in a group BFA Thesis exhibition opening in Olive Tjaden in early December. It can also be seen at alexairismiller.com or @alexairismillerart on Instagram.
Melissa Moon is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].