Resident Spotlight 2012: Naomi Miller

Naomi Miller hails from Brooklyn. She is a multidsiciplinary artist with a backgound in photography whose recent work explores the idea that her social interactions with friends and family members measure her engagement with the world. Naomi is also the Program Coordinator at Artadia.

Now that the 2012 Residents have settled in to their awesome communal studio, we wanted to see if we could get a bit more of a sense of their studio practices, working habits, and their personalities. So, we asked each of them to answer a series of questions ranging from their artistic fantasies to their favorite foods.  See how Naomi answered our questions...

PS: What are you working on now? 

NM: A script for a performance or video (uncertain which right now).

PS: What is your experience so far? 

 NM: Within the residency? Quiet time, space apart from my apartment/studio, frustration and confusion working out a project that's very new to me. But I suppose that it's necessary. Looking for that moment of transcendence!

PS: If a celebrity were to play you in a movie who would it be?

NM: Catherine Keener

PS: Early morning bird or night owl?

NM: Night owl despite being conditioned by a working life.

PS: Tips on staying focused?

NM: Yelling at myself, stick and carrot sort of thing.

PS: What is your favorite food?  Savory or sweet?

NM: So depends, but to be purely satisfied on all levels, I can't go wrong with ice cream. So that means I'm not fully satisfied very often.

PS: Preferred mode of transportation: taxi, bike, subway, foot?

NM: Bike is at the top with many supporting arguments: efficiency, financial, exercise, higher moral ground (haha!), then walking, then subway, then car, then taxi.

PS: If you couldn’t work in the arts/be an artist, what kind of work would you do?

NM: Be a writer (is that still the arts?), work in publishing, maybe be an editor. Completely outside the arts: illiteracy. A for-hire singer, like with a wedding band. That's the only one that seems plausible.

PS: What are your creative inspirations?

NM: Fiction, ideas I come across, tracking my thoughts, film, hearing the occasional artist/director/writer who is a good speaker, seeing other artwork.  

PS: If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?

NM: Laurie Anderson, my dad, my mom, any semi-well-known New York artist who wants to be a part of my Iron Maiden Artist Tours project, Werner Herzog, Chris Kraus.

PS: If you could have lived as an artist in any time period, when would that be?

NM: New York in the 70s and early 80s, and now. Now is pretty good.

Check out Naomi's website for more about her and her work: naomiller.com

Click here to read about Naomi's professional life.