flower image : performer taking their talents to Indiana Festival

Anna Miller moved to Indianapolis with her parents when she was 14. Speaking no English at the time, her love of drawing and painting gave her something familiar to do while she adjusted to life in middle America.
After graduating from Howe High School, Miller headed to Vincennes University to major in painting. It was there that she discovered photography, setting aside her paintbrushes for cameras.
From Vincennes, Miller returned to Indianapolis and enrolled at Herron School of Art, graduating with a degree in photography in 1994. Since then, she has split her time between her day job -- as a digital imaging technician at Firehouse Image Center -- and shooting the landscape and flower pictures that are her passion.
"I photograph when the muse strikes," said Miller, standing among an array of her photos in her Eastside home. "I see something that strikes me and I go get the camera."
But she hasn't completely lost touch with the painter she once was. After printing her photos on canvas, she often embellishes them with paint -- especially her flower images, which she said are influenced by the flower paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe and Claude Monet.
"I don't really have time to paint much anymore," Miller said, "but I like to paint on top of photographs, to give them a finish."
This is Miller's first year of venturing into the world of art fairs, and she's looking forward to being at the Indiana Festival. "It's a way of having your own gallery for a few days, so you can show off your work."
She's especially looking forward to talking with visitors to her booth. "I love the feedback," she said. "To think that people might actually want to have something I did hanging in their homes is a real inspiration."

By S.L. Berry