Kirk Miller art

Nearly three years have passed since my retirement from teaching, a transition that has afforded me the invaluable resource of time. This period has enabled me to reengage deeply with my long-standing interests in reading, writing, and the visual arts. More significantly, it has provided opportunities to connect with family through shared travel experiences, particularly those involving visits to museums and galleries—sites that continue to inform and enrich my artistic practice

As a committed lifelong learner, I have found particular satisfaction in enrolling in foundry courses at the local community college. Working with bronze has introduced a compelling new medium into my practice, one that has allowed me to revisit earlier projects which, for various reasons, remained unresolved. This renewed engagement has not only facilitated technical development but has also enabled a more nuanced exploration of longstanding conceptual inquiries. Central among these is an investigation into the nature of the self—a subject that has consistently shaped my artistic trajectory. The majority of my recent work within the foundry context has been introspective in nature, and while reflective, it has generally maintained a tone of affirmation and personal growth

My final project for the semester, Six of One. A Half Dozen of the Other, extends a conceptual line of inquiry that has preoccupied me for several years: the ontological and metaphorical implications of nothingness, or what I term no-thing-ness. This theme first emerged in my practice through the influence of absurdist theatre—particularly the works of Eugène Ionesco and Samuel Beckett—which articulate a worldview wherein human existence is portrayed as inherently purposeless and absurd.

Over time, however, my engagement with the idea of nothingness has evolved. In more recent works such as sacredTextSacredSpace and Fragile, I have come to conceive of nothingness less as a void and more as a space of generative potential—what Charles Sanders Peirce might call “Firstness” or the state of pure possibility. This shift marks a movement from existential skepticism to a more expansive, speculative optimism. Nevertheless, I remain cognizant of the cyclical nature of creative engagement, and I am aware of the tendency to periodically revisit more ambivalent or even cynical modes of artistic inquiry.

Six of One. A Half Dozen of the Other employs the geometric form of the torus, a donut shape, as both formal structure and conceptual metaphor. The torus serves as a visual representation of the void: a literal and figurative zero. Donuts, as cultural objects, are imbued with paradox—they are pleasurable, visually inviting, and calorically rich, yet ultimately hollow, offering little substantive nourishment. This duality echoes the themes at the heart of the project. I am particularly influenced by Kara Walker’s commentary on the symbolism of sugar in her work A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, as cited in Adam Moss’s The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing. Walker observes, “Sugar has been about desire, since it was refined,” a remark that underscores the complex entanglement of consumption, longing, and aesthetic appeal.

My intention with Six of One. A Half Dozen of the Other is to provoke a sensory and conceptual response that parallels the fleeting encounter with beauty—akin to the ephemeral experience of observing a flower in bloom. The work aspires to engage the viewer in a dialogue about desire, emptiness, and the elusive nature of fulfillment—concepts that continue to animate my practice and my ongoing inquiry into the self.