February Artist of the Month: Camille Woods

Camille Woods is an artist based in Johnson City, TN and Austin, TX and is passionate about expressing the beauty and fragility of life through her paintings. With her use of bright colors and bold strokes, Camille seeks to create a connection between the painting and the viewer.

She works mainly in portraiture and landscapes, telling stories of both internal and external struggles. Through the use of color and composition, Camille channels the underlying strength of our individual and collective ability to not only survive, but to thrive in the face of adversity. Through her work, Camille creates a physical representation of the emotional connection we all have to our individual landscapes, ourselves, and each other, engaging the viewer with a strong visual story.
 
“Dana is by far one of the best in her field. She consistently provides an amazing service. Her eye for color matching is one of a kind. The color and texture of each print of my artwork looks exactly like the original paintings. I feel so good being able to give my art buyers such a high-quality print. My interactions with Dana have always been pleasant. She’s responsive and super helpful and just a really kind human.”

Contact Camille:
Instagram: @camillewoodsart
Website: camillewoodsart.com

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

January Artist of the Month: Meena Matai

Meena Matai creates vivid and lively abstract art with detailed designs that showcase a balance between spontaneity and introspection. Art has remained a constant throughout her life growing up in India and now, as an artist, engineer, mother, educator, and community organizer. She strives to find balance in her many roles while living and working out of Austin for more than a decade. Meena has been featured in many arts media programs and press. Her vibrant paintings are part of corporate and private collections, both in the country and internationally.
Statement:

In the midst of a world marred by pandemic, conflicts, and widespread suffering, a call resonates, urging us to return home – to our core, our roots – in search of stability. As an immigrant, Meena recognizes that the true definition of home can evolve from an external concept to an internal one. From this introspective space, Meena’s art finds its birth through play and experimentation, as she delves into the experience of creation emanating from the place she calls home – her being.Meena’s art explores the complexities of identity and the fluidity of boundaries between seemingly opposing concepts. As an Indian-American artist and engineer, and a working mother, she intimately understands the constant balancing act of navigating different cultures and roles. Her work depicts the delicate balance between feeling foreign and at home, between nurturing others and self care, between practicality and imagination, between spontaneity and planning, and between action and reflection. Through her art, Meena seeks to capture the richness and complexity of the balancing art and feels fortunate to be able to explore these themes in her own life.

Meena invites viewers to engage with her art with an open mind and a boundless imagination, while being grounded in the origin stories and rich history that inform her work. She hopes that her art sparks a sense of recognition of our shared humanity despite our differences. Her ultimate goal is to inspire positivity, collaboration, and support, starting with the self and extending beyond.

Contact Meena:
Instagram: @meenamataiart
Facebook: @MeenaMataiArt
Website: meenamatai.com

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

December Artist of the Month: Caitlin Brasel

Born with an innate passion for the arts, Caitlin Brasel’s journey through the realms of creativity has been both transformative and impactful. As the visionary behind Brasel BeDazzled, San Angelo’s premier mobile paint party business, Caitlin has seamlessly merged her love for art with the heartbeat of her community.
 
Drawing since she could remember, Caitlin’s artistic evolution over the years is both captivating and inspiring. Her ventures into the art business began merely two years ago, an undertaking fueled by newfound confidence and a desire to share her creations. Her dedication and talent have not only resulted in captivating artworks such as Embrace Existentialism, but also in fostering a space centered on fun, community, and creative expression.
 
Brasel BeDazzled is not just a business for Caitlin; it’s a movement. By working closely with San Angelo’s community, Caitlin has epitomized the symbiotic relationship between art and community engagement. Over the past half-year, this realization has been underscored, giving her deeper insights into the essence of communal collaboration.
 
Philanthropy forms a core part of Caitlin’s ethos. Her support of esteemed non-profits, such as the Hands of Mercy Cat Sanctuary, Open Arms, and even the Mechanical Engineering group of Angelo State University through Brasel BeDazzled bears testimony to her commitment towards making a positive difference.
 
Caitlin discovered Miller IDS through her supportive Austinite Uncle, which led her to discover the brilliance of Dana, who meticulously brought Caitlin’s art to life in print form on watercolor paper! This collaboration further solidified Caitlin’s footprint in the artistic arena. Caitlin has been a huge fan of Miller IDS ever since!
 
Although the demands of Brasel BeDazzled have momentarily shifted her focus from fine arts, the embers of her artistic passion continue to glow. As she finds her rhythm in her business, Caitlin is gradually rekindling her artistic pursuits, reminding the world of the fine artist that lies within her.
 
For all budding artists, Caitlin’s message is simple yet profound: “Get out there! The world awaits your art, and there’s a community that will embrace you with open arms.”Contact Caitlin:
Facebook: Brasel BeDazzled 

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

November Artist of the Month: Lori Sonnier

Lori Sonnier creates colorful paintings inspired by the beauty and vibrant colors of the natural environment. She has a background in biology and worked for a decade in environmental management. But she was always interested in art and began taking art classes at night through UCLA Extension while working full-time.

In 2006, her family moved to Austin when her husband was hired as a faculty member at UT. “We really like Texas and were so excited to move to Austin”. Shortly after arriving, Lori began taking painting classes through The Art School at The Contemporary Austin (Laguna Gloria). She also did painting workshops in Santa Fe, New Mexico with Albert Handell and Lee Rommel and began painting both indoors and outdoors. “I hope that my paintings bring joy to people, and that they help people appreciate the beauty that is around us in the world”.
  
Lori came to Miller IDS in 2022 to find a local business partner in creating fine art prints and notecards. “It has been great working with Dana Burton at Miller on my prints. They have turned out very well and I am happy to say they are made locally here in Austin. Dana has a great eye for color and detail, and the staff at Miller have been a pleasure to work with.”
 
Read the rest of Lori’s feature on our website.

Contact Lori:
Instagram: @lorisonnier.art
Website: lorisonnier.com
Email: lorisonnier.art@gmail.com

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

October Artist of the Month: Rachel Hurst

Rachel is the youngest child of famed western artist Oleg Stavrowsky. Like her seven siblings, she grew up surrounded by world class art, learning the principles of good composition and design through constant exposure. She won her first art contest in 3rd grade and after college traveled to Italy to study Renaissance art. She soon began earning her living painting enormous ceiling and wall murals in the Italian fresco style.  
 
Rachel eventually discovered her passion for fine art on a much smaller scale, incorporating three of her favorite things: animals, abstract design, & color. She loves to juxtapose representational animals against an abstract background – backgrounds she paints to communicate the way she feels when looking at a particular creature. 
 
Rachel always exclusively has her fine art reproductions printed by Dana Burton – Miller’s fine art specialist. “Dana is an artist herself so she really understands the need to produce an accurate color match when making prints. She is an amazing person to work with and the turnaround times are great!”
 
Rachel happily donates 10% of all her art sale profits to Safe In Austin: a facility that homes and rehabilitates neglected animals and lovingly connects them with groups of abused and neglected children, allowing mutually loving relationships to develop between the two groups. She lives in Austin with her husband Travis and their two insane cats.  
 
Contact Rachel:
Instagram: @RachelHurstFineArt
Facebook: Rachel Hurst Fine Art
Website: RachelHurstFineArt.com
 
Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

September Artist of the Month: Kara Buse

A Central Texas native, artist and photographer Kara Buse finds beauty in the uniqueness of each individual, the diversity of the planet, and mother nature in all her glory. Kara is driven to discover the balance between expressing something that is deeply meaningful and creating a sense of joy that will touch the lives of others through her work.

Kara uses visual storytelling to showcase the organic, visceral human experience where words often fail. This is the WHY behind Kara’s work, and the reason for the Y in Wyld Roots. Kara has had the privilege of working with some of the most inspiring creatives and brands: strangers and friends who have supported and contributed to making Wyld Roots an inimitable lifestyle platform.

“I have been a loyal customer of Miller for going on 4 years now and I couldn’t be more happy with the quality of their work and people. Dana, the fine arts specialist, has given me so much joy by helping me honor the meaningful photography in my life through printed and tangible artifacts that I have sold in galleries or hung in my own home. She has nurtured my understanding of the art of printing and I am very grateful!”

Contact Kara:
Instagram: @wyld_roots
Website: wyldroots.com

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

August Artist of the Month: Salvador Rodriguez

Salvador Rodriguez was born in Tijuana, Mexico. Perhaps inadvertently, he has painted and studied landscapes almost all his life. Salvador lived his childhood in the countryside not far from the city. From a very young age he used to run in the hills, climb mountains and spend a long time contemplating the landscape until sunset where he liked to keep all the details of the landscape in his memory and paint and draw them at home.
 
In high school Salvador first demonstrated his skills in painting without any previous studies. He participated and won first place at a local and national level, and thanks to this won a scholarship to attend drawing classes at the local college for a year. On the other hand, his interest and love for physics and science led him to be awarded a scholarship to attend college at ITESM in Monterrey where he obtained a degree in Engineering Computer Science in 1992.
 
“I pursued my career for over 23 years, traveling and visiting many places but never missed an opportunity to study landscaping and painting…even so, my production was very small. It wasn’t until I arrived in Austin in 2014 that I was able to really immerse myself in art and produce over 50 big paintings in a few years and be part of many exhibitions.
 
I love Texas and my favorite landscapes to paint are deserts, especially Big Bend where the mountains and sands are the frame of my paintings and along with the blue sky and its capricious clouds create a composition that gives me that energy and tranquility of balance that I tried to put in my paintings.
 
Also, my interest and passion for the study of the life of plants of different species and of trees have led me to participate in the art of Bonsai. I have immersed myself in Bonsai associations which have allowed me to understand and appreciate the tree’s life.
 
My work is the result of a meticulous study of nature; plants, rocks, clouds in detail that can be appreciated in the composition … and the balance of its strong and soft colors, which produce pleasure and tranquility when contemplating it.
 
My inspiration stems mostly from the landscapes of Big Bend and the desert of Texas and Northern Mexico, but I am also influenced by surrealism, and I consider art as an agent of change on social consciousness.
 
Each painting is a project of months or years of work that begins with a trip and study of the place, and ends in my workshop. After adding compositions in skies, plants and rocks to give balance, and before creating a plant on the canvas, I like to study them and know them previously, as well as their ecosystem and especially the history and myths of the place, which I try to capture in my works. So beyond trying to reproduce a photographic copy is a composition and recreation of the essence of the place with native plants.
 
My most used technique now is acrylic on canvas, for practicality, since it dries quickly and allows me mobility, but I have also worked with oil and more frequently watercolors and many drawings for my sketches.
 
Since my arrival in Austin 8 years ago I have painted over 46 artworks that have been exhibited mostly at EAST and WEST Austin Studio tours and other Art Gallery in Austin.”
 
Contact Salvador:
Instagram: @salvador.rodriguez_art
Website: SalvadorRodriguezArt

 

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

July Artist of the Month: Ruth Lauer

Ruth Lauer studied at the Minneapolis School of Art and Design and lived for 10 years in Europe. She moved to Austin, Texas, in 1991 for the music. Working in oil and acrylic, Ruth’s paintings celebrate everyday life, community and/or poke fun at her own and humanity’s foibles. The featured painting, “Shirley’s Chicken Run”, was inspired by a neighbor’s backyard. The original painting sold, but prints are available.
 
I create portraits, sometimes of people, food or animals, but also of private moments in public settings. I try to portray the emotion that a memory holds, and the calm of commonplace beauty.  And sometimes I just want to push color around.” An admirer of religious and narrative art, Ruth would like her paintings to evoke a personal memory or emotion in viewers.
 
Ruth has been using the Fine Art Services at Miller IDS for 20 years. “Dana Burton and the other friendly, professional staff at Miller IDS are a joy to work with. Dana knows the technicalities of art printing and always delivers an amazing product. Her eye is true.”
 
Contact Ruth:
Email: ruthybob56@hotmail.com

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

June Artist of the Month: Richard Banh

Richard Banh was born in Vietnam and moved to Chapel Hill, NC with his family in 1975. Drawing and painting have been his passion since an early age. While attending North Carolina State, Richard was drawing cartoons and making short comic strips in between earning his degree in Mathematics and Computer Sciences. His cartoon series was published in the university’s Technician newspaper during his senior year.
 
From early 2007 to late 2009, Richard took classes from artist Denise Larue Mahlke, PSA. He was hoping to learn to paint with oil, though after a few lessons, Denise introduced him to pastels. “Their vibrancy and range of detail allow me to me to express my subjects’ emotions and my passion towards them.”

“My family is always inspiring my creativity and drive to make art. I’m married to my wonderful wife, with whom I have two beautiful daughters. And from my girls, I have 2 beautiful grandcats (as seen in some of my more recent paintings) and 2 granddogs (who have yet to be captured in pastel or paint).”

“My practice encompasses various subjects, such as landscape, still life, animals, and portraits. I love to capture the passing of clouds, or trickling streams, and even some feathered and furry friends.”
 
“Miller is the best place to get digital images for my paintings. The staff is always helpful and friendly. Dana is wonderful to work with, her knowledge of color accuracy is superb! You can always count on great results.”

Contact Richard:
Website: Austin Art & Frame

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.

 

May Artist of the Month: Shakti Sarkin

Shakti Sarkin was born in Ohio, received her BFA with a Painting and Sculpture focus, at Kent State University, and lived in Los Angeles, England and South Africa, before residing in 78704 for the past 27 years. Before her children went off to college, she worked small-scale on her dining room table using soft pastels. Since then, with encouragement from her husband, she took over her home’s large front room for her studio where she paints larger canvases in oils, watercolors and acrylics. Shakti also creates metal sculptures by welding steel rod and affixing painted bark to them. Shakti’s artworks encompass figurative work, landscapes and abstracts.

Shakti has exhibited in Austin, Georgetown, Round Rock and Dallas, and has had many solo exhibits. She has won several art competitions, had one of her paintings appear on a nationally distributed magazine cover, and receives many commissions to paint murals, portraits, landscapes and sculptures.

Shakti says, “My art is about heart, evoking feelings, the appreciation of all life, and vibrancy through color.”

Contact Shakti:
Website: www.shaktisarkin.com
Instagram: @shaktisarkin
Facebook: Shakti Sarkin Art

Contact our fine art specialist, Dana Burton, for more information on fine art scans and reproduction.