Artist

Dan Miller

born Castro Valley, CA 1961
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Courtesy of Creative Growth
Also known as
  • Daniel Miller
Born
Castro Valley, California, United States
Active in
  • Oakland, California, United States
Nationalities
  • American
Biography

Miller was born in California’s Castro Valley in 1961 and joined Creative Growth, the same art studio where Judith Scott worked, in 1992. There he began making large, abstracted graphic works that function as communiqués in a self-shaped language. Miller is on the autism spectrum, significantly impacted by a syndrome in which communication challenges are central. His art draws on deeply embedded memories—linguistic and physical—and provides a means of conveying what he is unable to express verbally. Miller, like Scott before him, has become an iconic artist in the increasingly recognized sector of neurodivergent creativity.

When Miller was born, the autism spectrum was ill-understood and effective childhood interventions had yet to exist. His grandmother, a schoolteacher, was nevertheless determined to help Dan develop language, repeating to him the sounds and forms of words, time and again. Her efforts revealed their impact much later, when he began making artworks that overlay and repeat words, letters, names, and numbers, conveying, uniquely but effectively, his ideas and memories. Miller’s complex experience is mirrored in the emotionally enveloping drawings and sculptures he makes. His artworks stand on their own, but his extraordinary story offers a critically enriching context. Miller solidifies the idea that art is as unique as the maker, that labels for people can’t meaningfully describe art, and that creative practice is a vehicle for connecting with family and the world.
(We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection, 2022)

Exhibitions

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Galleries for Folk and Self-Taught Art
October 21, 2016January 31, 2030
SAAM’s collection of folk and self-taught art represents the powerful vision of America’s untrained and vernacular artists.
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We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection
July 1, 2022March 26, 2023
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, their creativity and

Related Books

Cover for the catalogue "We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection"
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, their creativity and bold self-definition became major forces in American art. The exhibition features recent gifts to the museum from two generations of collectors, Margaret Z. Robson and her son Douglas O. Robson, and will be on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum July 1, 2022 through March 26, 2023.

Related Posts

Two wooden sculptures, an elephant and a dog
06/29/2022
Discover how the creativity and bold self-definition of untrained artists became major forces in American art.
SAAM
Three people sit at a table. Racks of clothes hang behind them.
An interview with Tom di Maria, director emeritus of Oakland's Creative Growth Art Center
A man stands drawing on a white board.
The second part of an interview with Tom di Maria, director emeritus of the Creative Growth Art Center