"Lawn Ornaments" by Judy Miller
Judy Miller is a Tucson based artist who holds an M.F.A. in photography, with a minor in drawing, an M.A. in print making and a B.A.E. in art education. Miller’s artwork is in numerous private and public collections including Dallas Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum (Ft. Worth) and the Erie Art Museum (Erie, PA).
Miller’s Imaginary Dioramas photo series, currently at the Tucson Museum of Art (TMA), has been lauded by art critics. Dick Malewski of The Kansas City Star, said “the settings are improbable, but the images are powerful.”
Art photographer and critic Ronn Spencer describes it as “gazing through the portal of something familiar yet wholly unexpected - a phantasmagoric otherness torn from the pages of Through the Looking Glass.”
Last month, Miller sat down with Zócalo to discuss her TMA exhibit.
Zócalo: The almost human images in your photos are wax figures. When you go a particular wax museum are you looking for a specific figure or are you open to whatever is there?
Judy Miller: Unless I’m going back to a wax museum for a second time, I almost never have a pre-conceived notion. And even if I am going back, the museums change. They move figures; they change their costumes, give them a new wig, or modify them in other ways. So generally I just go with the flow, but if I am going a second time it might be because I want to reshoot a figure. Maybe I need a different angle or to just do something a little different from the first shot, in terms of a lens or in terms of perspective.
Zócalo: By the time of your second visit, have you already made a decision about the setting you will put the figure in?
JM: Sometimes, but not always. And if I have, it does make a difference. Sometimes it’s because I need a different image. For example, I was working on a piece with Jackie Onassis in it. I wished I had photographed her close up, because I needed her image larger to make the composition work. But when I went back, she was off the floor.
Zócalo: Do you need to come to some kind of agreement beforehand with the museum about taking these photographs?
JM: I call them ahead of time and I tell them what I’m going to be doing. Most of them allow me to bring a tripod but others don’t. It depends on how crowded the museum might be. But they all know what I’m doing and none of them have ever had a problem with it.
Zócalo: Are there legal boundaries of using wax images of celebrities?
JM: No, Madame Tussauds does not have a problem with my using the images of their wax figures as long as I don’t do something distasteful with them.
Zócalo: And the estates of the people depicted? Do they ever get involved?
JM: No. They have never said anything, because the wax figures are the property of Madame Tussauds. These are all interactive museums. You can touch the figures; put your arms around them. You can pretty much do anything, as long as you don’t damage them.
Zócalo: When you are making these photographs are you thinking a story about them right then?
JM: No, that all comes later. Basically, I’m just thinking about why I’m attracted to this figure and most of the time it has nothing to do with the personality. It’s more about looking at it abstractly. It’s the gesture of the figure, the expression of the figure and the posing of the figure. It’s way beyond celebrity. These figures are vehicles for my imagination. And very few of the compositions are about
celebrity itself.
Zócalo: In your artist’s statement you mentioned being attracted by flaws in some of the figures. Could you elaborate?
JM: An example would be the Johnny Depp figure that’s in the show. He’s missing a right arm, there’s no armature in the sleeve. He’s missing a hand. They tucked his sleeve into his pocket. They take shortcuts sometimes. Paris Hilton’s hand in “Idols,” is realistic, but it’s attached to a shriveled up arm.
Zócalo: Is it important to you that people have the same reaction you do when you look at your work?
JM: No. In fact I think I’m most successful when the work can be interpreted on multiple levels. It gives [the viewer] the opportunity to go back and see the work in a different way depending on their state of mind, or whatever their reference point might be, and that can all change.
Zócalo: How many pieces are in your show?
JM: Nineteen, though the series itself is much larger. Nineteen was the number chosen because the limitations of that room.
Zócalo: And your show runs from when to when?
JM: All of it (was) up the first weekend in October, and through to January 30.
Tucson Museum of Art is open Tue-Sat, 10am-4pm; Sun, noon-4pm. $8, adults; $6, seniors; $3, students 13 ; free, children under 12, members; free to all the first Sunday of the month. 140 N. Main Ave. 624-2333, TucsonMuseumofArt.org
