Artist uses brushes to answer hard questions about life, cancer
Questions are part of life. Call them quick quizzes — those unexpected moments when God adds another layer of character to our life experience. We pause, holding our hand to our lips, measuring our response to a child’s Where did I come from? We give a sideways glance, snapping back from a daydream, at What are you thinking? We ponder any number of variations to Why am I here?
Then there are the tougher questions, such as the one Peter Miller had to answer. Miller, a former San Diego teacher, school administrator and gifted artist, came face-to-face with a question that would have all of us pursing our lips and pondering: How will cancer change your life?
“Cancer attacks you on two levels,” explains Miller, now teaching in Vancouver, Wash., with his wife Margie. “It attacks your body, but it also attacks your mind, even after the diseased tissue has been removed.”
Miller’s surgery was deemed a success, the doctors declaring “we got it all,” but the question remained.
“The world doesn’t look quite the same anymore,” he recalls. “The sense of relief is twinged with an inescapable sense of your own mortality. You think of the things you’ve always wanted to do, you wonder what can I contribute, and you ask yourself what if I don’t have a lifetime to get it done? The classic ‘Why am I here?’ question has greater urgency.”
Here at the time was Mexico City, where the couple was teaching at an international school for students from all over the world. On weekends they would play tourist, seeing the sights, soaking up the culture, and enjoying the tremendous smorgasbord of people that inhabit one of the world’s largest cities.
On one such Sunday, the answer to his quiz question presented itself to Miller through the lens of his 35mm camera.
“We were in Chapultepec Park, and I was taking pictures of people, especially the children,” he recalls, “thinking what a diverse group they were, when I saw a small girl holding a juice carton. I was struck, simultaneously, by the simplicity of her expression and the depth of her poverty.”
In that moment he resolved what his legacy would be. He would dedicate his talents as an artist to help the children he loved as a teacher. He would paint a series of portraits of the children of Mexico City and donate the proceeds from the series to any relief organization that would promise to help children.”I’ve been an educator for over 20 years,” Miller explains. “Children have been a major part of my life. I had read an article about a woman who had used her art to help a group of people in the Middle East or Africa. She would sell a painting and build a wall, or buy cattle to feed them. Adapting the idea to benefit kids seemed perfect for me.”Working without the benefit of a true studio, the educator/artist shoehorned himself into a small room and began to paint from the pictures he’d snapped on his weekends, laboring to capture the moments within the childhood experience — painting something not quite the classic portrait. Miller explains:
“The paintings express what I see in and feel for the child. I work from photographs because it would be impractical to ask a child to sit, with a particular look, for as long as it takes to make even a preliminary drawing, especially since I’m looking for the moment when there is ‘that look’ — whether happy, thoughtful, brave or any of the myriad of emotions we all share as people. I’m not painting a portrait, I’m painting to express what I feel.”
Miller describes the series as being focused on children, but being about all of us, offering insights into children that are common to adults, as well.
“People often think of children as superficial,” he says, “but I have found them capable of displaying a full range of emotions. I have tried to capture children in their complexity, treating them with respect and dignity. With all the wars and disasters we’ve experienced around the world, it is often the children who are the most victimized. I’m hoping to encourage people to take a look at who these children are. The result has had a striking impact on me, and I hope it will have a similar one on others.”
Over a period of three years, Miller completed 28 paintings for the series, and response to them have been overwhelmingly positive. He has yet to find the relief organization which will use his work, but it is anticipated the series will be reproduced initially as a signed, limited edition of prints. There is also the possibility of posters, some with scripture verses, note cards, and maybe even a coffee table book.
“The project is still very much in its beginning,” Miller said recently from Vancouver, “but I hope it will have a long life, and will help children around the world. Whoever eventually takes up the concept will determine how the paintings are used. As long as they help kids, I don’t have any preconceived notions of this or that use for them.”
For now, Peter Miller is happy to have answered the call that began as one of the toughest questions any of us could face.
“ You think about a lot of different things when death becomes an imminent possibility for you, and it’s natural to wonder what you would leave behind. I’ve learned so much from the children who have been my students over the years, I feel privileged to be able to return the favor.”
Helping others — not a bad legacy for any of us.