DESCRIPTION OF WORK

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Paton Miller’s energetic paintings seem inspired by otherworldly sources--as though the artist (shown above, with “Portrait of Kamauela,” 2001) could peer into a crystal ball to capture the passing daydreams of some ancient mariner or the tequila-induced hallucinations of some carousing village jefe.

Miller’s intensely colored gouaches and oils overflow with vaguely mythological imagery: leaky rowboats listing on roiling seas, sinewy peasants toiling with toothy beasts, timeless villages populated by guitar-plucking troubadours and dancing cats. True, much in Miller’s work is surreal, but he draws more from experience than one might think. This lifelong surfer and sailor came of age in Hawaii, wandered Asia in his youth and lived for a time in a tiny fishing village in Mexico. He also worked at the base of the world’s highest sea cliffs in Molokai, Hawaii, where he taught art at a leper colony accessible only by donkey trail. “That looked good on my resume,” Miller jokes.

METHOD OF WORK

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Standing before a blank canvas, Miller begins by picking up a piece of charcoal and watching--somewhat detached--as his hand begins to draw. “When I start a picture I don’t necessarily have a specific thing in mind,” he says. “The subject is revealed to me in the process. It’s almost like going to sleep and seeing what arises.” Miller can work on a drawing for days or weeks, then, dissatisfied, set it aside to start another. He never forces the process. “The less directed you are, the deeper you’ll go into that part of your brain that can bring things out that stretch back years,” he explains. “It’s almost as though you’ll hear a click--‘Ah, there’s the story. This is it.’” Miller’s aloofness ends, however, when he starts to paint. “The painting is very emotional,” he says. “The way I paint is like an attack almost, and yet the edge of the drawing is so important that it’s also a restraint.” Miller also “attacks” his old canvases and sketchbook pages, cutting them up to create collages and mosaics that add yet another dimension to his artwork.

ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT

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Having grown up amid the misty seascapes of the Pacific Northwest and the volcanic vistas of Hawaii, Miller in his 20s gravitated toward landscapes. He abandoned plein-air painting, however, after enduring a series of crushing trials. “There will be a time in your life when a lot of things happen--maybe your parents die or you lose a best friend or you get divorced,” says the 49-year-old artist. “Something very serious will happen to you, and you will have no choice but to deal with it.” Miller’s way of dealing with his own dark time was to exorcise it on canvas. His paintings from this period seethe with violence and struggle, prompting comparisons to Francisco Goya. It would be a mistake, though, to overlook Miller’s joyous side. He loves to play with color and line--to, as he says, “create a world on a flat piece of paper”--and he exuberantly explores the awesome and the mysterious, from the beauty of his children’s innocence to the power of nature to the delights of creativity.

MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE

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Goya, Velazquez and El Greco are among Miller’s inspirations, but memories of humbler figures--such as the one-legged boss of a dynamite crew for whom Miller worked as a youth in Hawaii--exert a strong hold. The dynamite boss “hired me because he’d blown up half his leg,” the artist recalls. “I’ve done all kinds of work: I’ve done contracting, masonry, house painting. I’ve driven a truck; I’ve been on a jackhammer.” No wonder the struggle for survival is among his perennial themes. Miller also credits his family. “There were no artists in my life. My father was an airline pilot and my mother was a chemist,” he says. “But they were very encouraging. They saw that this surfing, non-student son of theirs had one good talent.”