“HIS CREATIVE INCLINATIONS”an introduction to the Artist by Cally Miller

I think that one of the most of creative inclinations is to birth a member of thenext generation – we’ve birthed several, all daughters who, with little or nohelp from us, continue the process. Our other creative inclinations have beenbuilding, painting and drawing and this exhibition features some these aspects.

Harley had been running his own architecture practice through the 1960s andthe aspect he really enjoyed was the presentation work; perspective drawingsand models of proposed developments to help confused clients understand histhinking and visualise the plan pictorially. One such client was the NationalTrust - South West. They said ‘we see you like drawing – would you like toillustrate a book for us?” Thus began his second career, starting with pen andink drawings of the interiors of Trust properties including Saltram House,Arlington Court, Killerton, Compton Castle and Lhanhydrock. This gave himfar more personal fulfilment than the day-to-day trials and tribulations of hispractise but unfortunately the drawing contract was a one-off.

At that time we were living in the delightful Devon town of Sidmouth withour four daughters, dog, cat, hamster and guinea pig. Sidmouth is renownedfor its Cottage Orné style of architecture:  'rustic' stylised cottages of the late18th and early 19th century. They made ideal subjects for a representationalartists. So Harley started to wind up his practise and began knocking onCottage Orné doors. “I love the look of your delightful property, please can Idraw it for you?” In most cases he received an enthusiastic response from theoccupier, particularly when it was explained to them that the drawing could bereproduced by a local friendly-printer as postcards, invitation and greetingscards and as letter-headings. Often he would be immediately ushered into thegarden and would spend the next hour or two sitting in the sun with hisdrawing pad (no photographs for him) and served with tea and bikkies. Eachday he would return home with a wallet stuffed with real money - so differentfrom his architectural practice where we were often kept waiting a year or twobefore his fee was paid.

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That first summer he spent many days drawing people’s houses, however,warm summer turned to cool autumn and outings became more dependent onthe weather conditions. When winter set in and the drawing ink began freezingin his pen, it was obvious that something had to change. We sought the adviceof a friend who worked in the gift-trade and he was able to direct us to giftshops who were open to stocking prints, folded cards and postcards. Alreadyhaving a local firm of Printers involved in our work and having gained someunderstanding of the processes of print reproduction we decided to start-up aprint publishing business.

During the winter months we began to produce a collection of Devon andCornwall scenes for the spring Gift Trade Fairs and for direct sale. Harley wasour artist/salesman and my part of the business was to deal with the Printerand get the orders ready for despatch. The printing process was letterpress anddrawings photo-etched onto zinc plates mounted on wood blocks - this waslong before the development of instant photo, ink jet and laser printing.Producing the printing blocks and setting up the printing press required a longrun of prints if it were to be cost effective and produce a profit. Generally arun of a thousand cards would make the run viable, unfortunately we seldomlanded a single order for such a quantity. Across a portfolio of 50 subjects wemight sell 50 prints of each subject to one shop and 10 prints of each toanother and 5 of each to the third and so on. We had previously converted ourdining room into a stock room filled with boxes of unsold prints and cards. Wehad to rapidly learn the art of balancing print re-stocking against orders in-hand and predicted orders if we were to remain in profit.

Through his face-to-face meetings with buyers, Harley identified some nicheopenings for new items including local guides and calendars. In third yearpublished a series of local Devon and Cornwall calendars based on ourexisting portfolio of drawings, now number 250 subjects. These would besold into retailers in July and August for the following year. In the first yearwe printed 3,000 for each area and were delighted to find that these were soldout in the first months of delivery so the next year the Retailers increased theirorders. May and June was assemble time for the calendars. Friends and

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relatives who had assumed they would be staying with us in Sidmouth for arelaxing summer holiday would instead find themselves roped in to help cut,wrap and pack calendars. By 1972 we had expanded our publication portfolioto cover eight individual areas to include Wales, Dorset, Hereford andWiltshire.

We have always had a fascination with the sea and ships and our portfolioincluded the ‘Kathleen and May’- a three-masted sailing schooner recentlyacquired by the Maritime Trust. It occurred to us that a Maritime Trust wouldbe an interesting project. Harley met with their curator, Captain Greenleeswho thought the idea had merit. The Trust owned a collection of vesselsacross the UK and in various state of repair and we eventually received acommission for drawings of twelve of these vessels to form the MaritimeTrust Calendar for 1972. The project involved a huge amount of research intothe vessels histories and several trips to the Maritime Museum at Greenwich.We visited the 12 chosen subjects to inspect and sketch their structures andconditions - our family spent a lovely extended holiday in a camper vantouring these sites. Amongst other places we visited Bristol to see the sitewhere the SS Great Britain, which had just been unearthed in the FalklandIslands, was to be restored; Milford Haven and the HMS Warrior, the firstironclad Royal Navy ship, which was now just a hulk used by Shell Petroleumas a landing stage; the Clyde Puffer ‘Auld Reekie’ in the Inverness CanalBasin skippered by James Dinwoodie; the steam pleasure craft ‘Dolly’ onLake Windermere; the herring drifter ‘Lydia Eva’ in Great Yarmouth; the‘Cutty Sark’ at Greenwich; the oyster dredgers at Falmouth, and so on. Duringthis period we also produced and published drawings for the opening of MajorGoddard’s Maritime Museum in the Exeter

The Maritime Trust calendar was printed by Harvey Barton Ltd. of Bristol.Being publishers they became interested in our business and proposed a ‘takeover’. It seemed an attractive offer and we agreed to a three year trial withHarvey Barton Ltd. having first right on Harley’s artwork plus paying him anannual retaining fee plus royalties on sales. Actually it was a huge relief for usto be shot of the business admin., sales and distribution and this left time for

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the development of our other projects: the sculpture and manufacture of highrelief medallions and diamond stipple glass engraving of windows andgoblets. One particular commission was for the stipple engraving of 50Dartington Glass goblets - when Harley was glass engraving – a delicate art -our four young daughters had learned creep around the house so as not toupset the ‘master’ at work. But unfortunately Harvey Barton did not fulfil ourexpectations and we decided not to renew the three-year agreement.

In 1974 we moved onto ‘The Iolanthe’ a houseboat on the River Bure inHorning, Norfolk. Now, in addition to pen and ink drawing, Harley wasdeveloping as a painter. He adjusted well to the life of a ‘glamorous artist’with exhibitions in Norwich and now had a circle of arty friends. By now Ihad learnt how to cut mounts and frame pictures. By the early 70s instant-printing was becoming available and we were able to order smaller print-runsthan before.

On the Horning front just down the river from our houseboat we rented an out-of-use tennis pavilion and ran an art gallery during the summer months. Inaddition to the painting, drawing, prints and calendars we offered a range ofminiature drawings of Norfolk scenes including windmills and herons, whichwe sold at a price that children could afford and that was fun. We exhibitedsome of Harley’s diamond glass engraving and this lead to commissions forwindow engraving including one from the Seventh Day Adventist Church inNorwich – a depiction of the “Angels of the Revelation” on their largeentrance screen. Our Horning Gallery also gave him the opportunity todevelop his painting style. In the run-up to Christmas in 1976 he rented aspace in a Norwich department store and did ‘while-u-sit’ portraits of peopleand dogs. It was mostly an enjoyable experience, except when having to dealwith reluctant four-year old boys!

During this period I struck out on my own, working in a local boat yardpainting the interiors of pleasure cruisers; possibly the only woman on theNorfolk Broads doing this because it was a very male dominated occupation atthat time.

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In the Spring 1977 Harley and I, with our youngest daughter, moved toFindhorn in Scotland and a year or two later founded the Newbold Houseproject in Forres where we presented adult courses using painting and drawingas a medium of personal and group expression. One such course was “PaintYour Dragon” - a tool for conflict resolution between groups. Between 1982to 87 Harley travelled, designing and presenting holistic art workshops,seminars and courses in both in East and West Europe and America. Icontinued my work until the late 1990s as a Personal Counsellor and ranpersonal growth workshops and conferences.

In 1989 we moved to Roseisle in Moray where we took ten years to designand build a house on a hill! During this period he re-found his pen and brushand began painting and producing pen and ink drawings of local viewspublished as hand-coloured and mounted prints; initially to retailers in theNorth East Scotland and then spreading outwards. I found the hand-colouringof prints provided a soothing balance to my intense counselling work.

Through the 1990’s Harley accomplished his Images of Enterprise projectdepicting fifty different aspects of Scottish business, commerce and industrypresenting what he calls the ‘soul-quality’ of each enterprise, a portrait asagainst an advertisement. Each enterprise commissioned their painting andkept him extremely busy travelling all over Scotland, including the Islands,visiting clients and their scenes of operation. Most clients also wantedreproductions of their finished painting as artist-signed prints, which was avaluable addition to the commission. These prints were processed by A.M.Graphics, Glenrothes. An add-on to Images of Enterprise was a collection ofsmall painting depicting the skyline behind each of the company premises andpublished as subscribed edition-prints. The commissions produced a goodincome which helped towards the costs of our house-building.

Alongside the Images of Enteprise project, he designed and publishedreconstructions of vintage railway stations and completed severalcommissions for his ‘Ancestral Landscape Painting’ for overseas clientsdescended from Scottish family estates.

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Having now spent three decades working as an Professional Artist he hadbecome used to hearing comments such as ‘You can’t possibly be making aproper living from painting!’ or ‘You’ll be worth more when you are dead -ha! ha!’. Even fellow artists would say ‘An artist always needs a part-time jobto support their painting’ In 1998 Harley devised and presented a six-sessionevening class in Elgin for local professional artists and for those with thatambition, sponsored by the Workers Education Association. It was very wellattended and received and it was obvious that a book on this subject would beuseful, so he set to and wrote ‘Painting for Your Living’ which lead to thedevelopment of two-day seminars of that title.

In 2001 we sold our self-build house, bought a 28ft American luxury RV andbegan a UK-wide venture, presenting “A proper Living From Your Art”seminars which were mostly sponsored by Business Link and Local EnterpriseAgencies. For four years we travelled the length and breadth of the country,from Kirkwall in Orkney to Lands End in Cornwall and lots of places inbetween. It was adventure, fun and hard work but always rewarding; meetingfellow artists and discovering parts of Britain we may otherwise never haveseen. Now ten years on we continue hear from some of our course participantsand receive updates on their enterprises. The unedited version of our chronicleof this time can be downloaded at:http://www.harleymiller.com/freewheelingtravel.htm

Soon after we began our travels in 2001 we realised that our first book wasshort on substance and there was a demand for a more comprehensive self-help book, so we set to and wrote and published ‘A Proper Living from YourArt’ which can now be downloaded free at:www.harleymiller.com/booklivingfromart.htmThe Society for All Artist commissioned us to write ‘The Professional ArtistsManuel’ and they continue to present this to their professional members.Alongside this Harley also offers a free on-line mentoring service.

In 2006 we called a halt to our seminar presentations, said goodbye to ourluxury American RV and settled into Sluie Lodge close to the River Findhorn.

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Soon after moving here Harley was commissioned to produce the RiverFindhorn Salmon Pool map and several paintings. And he has now re-identified himself as a digital graphic artist and has had to quickly learn themagic of digital graphic art, photo-resolution, website construction andongoing management which has opened him to a new world of creative fun.Together we have drawn upon our individual life experiences to createwebsites which appreciates building heritage of the High Street – seewww.elginstreetparade.org and www.regentstreetparade.org for which Iprovide the historical research and some of the photographic work – whilstsliding into the garden whenever I can.

We have grown close to our neighbouring River Findhorn after meandered itslength from its source in the Monadhliath Mountains to its estuary on theMoray Firth and have produced an on-line audio/visual of its sight and soundssee: www.youtube.com/watch?v=H68ZvwjUwEw

So now we offer you the Gallery as an on-line walk-in experience and hopeyou might find it to your liking and might even wish to acquire somethingfrom our portfolio. Pleased do contact us with any questions or sound us outwith ideas.

Harley and Cally MillerSluie Lodge, Dunphail, Moray IV36 2QGTel: 01309 611708harley@harley miller.comcallymiller@gmx.co.uk

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