Interview: Jill Miller

artist's rendering of 'the Getaway Van,' part of a new project by artists Jill Miller and Marianna Taylor.. a

Jill Miller is a visual artist who creates socially engaged art works centered on maternal practices and creativity. She has searched for Bigfoot in the Sierra Nevada, inserted herself into the art historical work of John Baldessari, engaged homeschooling as a lens for artistic production, and launched The Milk Truck, an eye-popping emergency vehicle for breastfeeding mothers, in Pittsburgh, PA. This year the Milk Truck gets a makeover as part of ArtReach Studios, a reinvention of the artist residency program created in collaboration with writer Marianna Taylor.

ArtReach is a radical revision of the artist residency that supports the creative work work of families, who are often excluded from typical residency opportunities. The project is fully mobile, incorporating both a vintage camper and the former Milk Truck, both fully outfitted with custom cabinetry, workspace, tools and materials. The project offers two innovative programs: a Family-in-Residence initiative fostering projects by artist-families working collaboratively with local neighborhoods, and the Getaway Van, offering 3-5 day micro-residencies for artists who are primary caregivers. ArtReach offers a level of support previously unheard-of, working with each artist to coordinate meals and childcare or eldercare so that residents can focus on their creative work. Needless to say, we’re pretty excited about this new project, and had plenty of questions for Jill about ArtReach, her life and work.

Body Configurations from the "Homeschooled" series

Cultural ReProducers: First off, could you briefly describe your kids in your own words?

Jill Miller: Paxton, age 9, intense, brilliant, a better artist than I! Argo, age 5, incredible sense of humor and obsessed with sharks and other water animals. We gave him the right name.

CR: Your work has playfully engaged family life since your kids were very young. Who have been your role models for artist-parenting/parent artisting, or more broadly the intersection of art and everyday life?

Jill: I have been most influenced by feminist artists, especially groups like Mother Art, who made art about motherhood when that was not popular in the feminist art circles. I’m also influenced by Mary Kelly, who was my mentor in graduate school. And of course Mierle Ukeles, who was engaging in social practices before we had a name for it.

The Milk Truck mobile breastfeeding unit (top image)
in-progress view of its transformation for ArtReach residency (bottom)

CR: The Milk Truck tackled issues of harassment and access for nursing mothers. Your newest project, ArtReach, reframes the format of the traditional artist residency – something artists often feel is out of their grasp once they become parents - to create a program supporting the work of artists who are also caregivers. How did this project come about?

Jill: The true germination happened when my first child was born, just two years after I finished my MFA. I was exhibiting regularly until he was born. He was such an intense little human that I had to say no to a lot of opportunities that came up, and it became clear to me that the traditional model for an art career (travel, residencies) wasn’t going to work. Years later, when I met Marianna Taylor, who is my collaborator on this project, we started having conversations about motherhood and creative practices. She has an MFA in creative writing and an intense first child, so we connected over that. We talked for years about wanting other mothers to have a space for their work in a way that we didn’t.

CR: What's your own relationship to artist residencies, before and after having kids?

Jill: I never did the residency circuit the way some of my friends did. I always worked in the summers between the academic years, and then right after I graduated I had a faculty position lined up at the San Francisco Art Institute. I did a residency at Stanford when Paxton was about 9 months old, and it was nontraditional in the sense that I had access to the facilities and got to go to campus as many times as I wanted. It wasn’t immersive, but it was what I needed at the time.

Jill nursing in Pittsburgh's City Capitol building during
a proclamation of "Milk Truck Day" by the City Council

CR: Like a lot of artists raising kids, you wear many hats. How do you find a balance between parenting, teaching, and an art practice that now includes running a nonprofit?

Jill: It’s taken years to align family life with my creative practice and teaching. When I’m teaching, my classes cover social sculpture or critical, participatory artmaking, which is aligned with my own practice. They feed each other. When we do community events with the Family in Residence program at ArtReach, I can bring my kids and they can participate. My eldest son has some special needs, so my artwork has to be flexible to work with my family. It seems like right now things are coming together in this very wonderful way. But ask me next month and things may have completely fallen apart!

CR: Right now ArtReach focuses on artists based in the Bay Area. I know lots of artists will want to know: are there any plans to make it available to artists from outside of the region? Or is this a creative model you’d like to see other institutions expand upon?

Jill: We hope to bring the truck across the US next year after we’ve piloted the program in the SF East Bay. This will require additional fundraising, and we are looking for partner institutions. I’d love to see The Getaway Van take a Transamerican tour.

We'd love to see that happen, too! To learn more about the project visit the ArtReach residency website, donate to help support what they're doing, and if you’re near the Bay Area, be sure to apply.

inside the new ArtReach residency truck, with workspace, storage, and chalkboard walls.