Artists In Residence

1979

Gus and Jan Miller at their beachfront home in Vero Beach. “After 40 years of marriage, we give each other space,” says Jan. “I work mornings, he works evenings.”

After more than 40 years of marriage and a lifetime spent as working artists, both Janvier (“Jan”) and Gustaf (“Gus”) Miller found themselves working with a new medium this past fall. Instead of painting a series of shoes on a large white canvas or splattering paint on wooden blocks shaped into a series of characters, Jan and Gus spent much of October painting drywall.

The drywall project was an attempt to create a new avant-garde series where sections of drywall replace canvas. But their project was for practical purposes, not artistic. Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne damaged the Miller’s roof, allowing water to creep in through the ceilings and down the walls of their oceanfront home. “It’s a constant battle: Do you finish the painting you’re working on or do you clean up the yard?” says Jan on a warm October afternoon as she surveyes the mold she’s been trying to evict from her second-floor studio.

Read the entire article in the January 2005 issue

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