Bradley Miller, Untitled

Written by USU Student Kameica Yazzi

July 29, 2016

Southern California based sculptor and ceramic artist Bradley Miller was born in Oregon on July 23, 1950. Miller attended the University of Oregon where he received both a B.F.A (1974) and M.F.A. (1977) in the areas of ceramics and graphics. While completing his studies Miller worked part-time at the University of Oregon. He held jobs in the film studies studio, where he became the shop manager, and as the manager of the basic design studio. After graduation Miller had the opportunity to become an instructor in the basic design studio.

After reviewing images from NEHMA’s collection I become engaged with Bradley Miller’s art piece. I love the spectacular and unusual structure of the piece. In this untitled work, Miller used clay to sculpt the elegant form. The unique form was created during a kiln accident because Miller used recycled instead of fresh clay. Miller is known to create organic, layered abstract forms that embrace texture. The cell-like sphere is made up of flattened, oblong pieces and, at first glance, the pieces seems to be tightly compressed together with a string. When looking closer you can see that the string isn’t doing anything. It is just there to make the viewer think that the string is keeping the piece joined together. This piece is asymmetrical in shape meaning that if you were to take a picture of this piece and draw a line through the middle you will find that the sides are not mirror images.