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Miller Updegraff:
Artist - Los Angeles

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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created August 5, 2002
Latest Update: August 7, 2002
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takata@uwp.edu

Site Teaching Modules Gallery 825 Exhibition:
Ten Little Indians and Two Big Girls
Coming in September 2002
Miller Updegraff has uploaded a website to show off some of his paintings before his upcoming show at Gallery 825. Miller is a member of the Los Angeles Art Association, and is a member of our current art crit group. I thought the September Exhibition would be a wonderful opportunity to share some of his work.

To that end, I'd like to share with you some of my reactions to his work. I wrote these reactions without reading Miller's statement about his work. I chose two of his paintings from the Ten Little Indians Series:

Miller Updegraff's No. 4 -- Marten No. 4 -- Marten
Click on the thumbnail image to see the full image on Miller's site.

and

Miller Updegraff's No. 1 -- Mathilde No.1 -- Mathilde
Click on the thumbnail image to see the full image on Miller's site.

Perhaps the first reaction I had was to the unusual cropping. In none of the paintings does the child's head show. Brought to mind much of the current feminist literature on the body, and the messages the body carries. Certainly in this case the gender is clear. Or is it? I assumed that Marten was a boy, as the title would seem to confirm, and that Mathilde was a girl. The skirt was a dead give away there. But in today's world might that have been questionable without the name in the title?

The backgrounds bring to mind the old corner store, somewhere in the 1930's, maybe into the early 40's. I don't know about the 1920's because I wasn't around yet. But I still have two old pictures that hung on our apartment walls in the 40's - both with backgrounds very much like this. The clothes are also of that period. We'd never mistake these kids for the blue-jeaned, active crowd of today. Today's kids are all aflurry with overcrowded schedules and never-ceasing purposeful activity, at least the kids that are dressed this well.

My first reactions situate the paintings in an historical, sociological context that brings out a nostalgic note. These are Norman Rockwell kinds of memories, good memories, warm and fuzzy. No pain, dirt, poverty, hunger. These are the good times of childhood. Marten's painting even has the word "good"in its lower left hand quarter.

I haven't had a chance to talk with Miller about the series, but it brings to mind for me what Maria Pia Lara has to say about Hannah Arendt's retelling of the autobiography of Rahel Varnhagen. (Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman. See Moral Textures: Feminist Narratives in the Public Sphere. Pia Lara theorizes that: [t]he retelling of the story of Rahel not only recovers in memory what has happened, but allows Arendt the possibility of a new beginning." At p. 39. That is, retelling Rahel's story of her experiences of being a Jewish woman in prewar Germany gives Arendt the opportunity of self-reflection on her own experience as a Jewish woman in more recent times, so that the retelling of Rahel's story becomes, in a a sense, Arendt's own story, and transforms discourse by offering women new ways of telling their story, telling themselves and the world of their lived experience, and the good life as it comes through their experiences. Passim, at p. 37.

Miller's collection of paintings in the Ten Little Indians Series, for me, seems to linger over these nostalgic images of childhood, retelling the happiness of that time, with color and the body, and memories of the context that once was. Does that offer us a new way of seeing childhood today? Could we search for the bits of joy, even in the midst of our fast track world? Could we find moments we could freeze-frame this way? Moments that today's youth would recognize as I recognize those moments from the '30s? Or could it make us more aware of the need to capture and record those freeze-frame moments for tomorrow's children? Does the joy of childhood speak to us across the decades, and enhance our solidarities?

We are in the realm of philosophy when we value art for its performative aspect, for those moments when it serves to speak to us across history, and needs an audience, a viewer to complete the performative act that alters our understanding and our possibilities. I would like now to turn to the realm of painterly moments, and consider our reactions to the paintings simply as works of art.

In No.4 -- Marten, the superimposed black and white image of Marten stands out against the richly colored background. The whole still fits together, but the the child and his context are effectively split, giving perhaps more recognition to the individuality of the child, in a setting where the community was as controlling as any socialization. So perhaps I could say that I see here the tension between the individual and the community.

I liked what I thought at first was a flower, a daisy or a zinnia, but which turned out to be the underside of an umbrella. That yellow highlights the space to Marten's right, and echoes another umbrella, larger in the upper left corner. There's movement down the upper left/lower right diagonal, reflecting the movement suggested by Marten's raised left arm and slightly raised left leg.

The doll, or smaller girl-child in pink, behind Marten, seems to move at right angles to Marten, stopping us from falling off the lower right corner. The reds frame and support Marten within them, The umbrella, or whatever, in the upper left corner, the spilled apples in the lower right corner. And the framing is completed by an apple, rolled out of the basket, almost out of the picture frame, just like the bit of red across the top of the painting that makes it seem quite natural that we cropped it as we did.

G - O - O - D, rubbed partially out by the passage of time, but offering a comment on the narrative we want to retell. Perhaps a hint of what we need to consider as we restructure our own narratives. As Hannah Arendt noted in her story of Rahel, "Rahel's mistaake was to believe that she could accomplish her goal of miking her life a 'wowrk of art' through a solitary act." When, in fact, a reader, to complete the performative act, was needed.

In No. 1 -- Mathilde, the colors are again rich and inviting, warm, and draw me to the paintings. The brilliance of the blue, and Mathilde's swinging skirt draw me into the painting, where I can lose myself in the nostalgia of the old country or corner store. The cans, huge, matching Mathilde's size, alter space to fit an imaginary world where the "good" images crowd out the quotidien, the ordinary, the "more of the same old thing" vision that blinds us so often to those freeze-moments.. Mathilde's figure is so much alive, I barely notice I've cropped off her head.

And, why, that's a television or a computer, there on the left side of Mathilde, about knee level. Now, that ought to throw off my whole theory of nostalgia. There were no TV's or computers in the 30's, in the days when kids wore clothes like that. But I'm willing to accept the contradiction to hold onto my nostalgia. Could it mean that those freeze-moments aren't so different across decades, maybe even centuries?

And that Campbell's soup can off to the left. That takes us right into Pop Art and Warhol and Marilyn Monroe. The 30's, indeed. But what does it all mean? That's the beauty of performative art. It takes a reader or a viewer to complete the act. It lets us learn from each others' sensitivities. And it lets us transform our lifeworld to make it better, closer to the good life.

jeanne sent a copy to Miller.
On Monday, August 12, Milller responded:

"Jeanne,

I am deeply moved by your writing. I have always enjoyed hearty theoretical discourse and your piece brings to mind my graduate school days. Years ago I received my MA in Technological Anthropology, focusing on the interface between human and machine. But my passions also led me to research other issues, such as the "biology of gender" through the Women's Studies Dept., and the human response to catastrophic change, either due to sweeping social changes or through environmental destruction. Due to my interest in the latter, I am very familiar with Hannah Arendt's writing.

Thank you for sharing this with me. I am flattered and enlivened.
See you soon,
M