Although I identify myself as being simply American, I grew up in a true ethnic mixing pot in Santa Barbara, California with a Mexican-American father and a Greek-Armenian mother.  My parents divorced when I was eight years old and I didn’t have contact with my father again for many years.   I spent my high school years in upstate New York with my mother and her 2nd husband, Robert Miles.  He legally adopted me and my two older sisters but I always wanted to know about my real father and his family in California. 

      It was during my Navy travels that I began to develop an interest in icons and religious symbols.   After undergraduate school,  while working  as a graphic designer,   I began producing a series of works on paper that utilized a combination of religious symbols and bands of geometric forms.   The paper pieces soon evolved into labor intensive works on wood with multiple layers of carving, metal leaf and paint, all of which evoked  a look of altar pieces or icons.   In art school I formed a mental connection between my father’s Mexican heritage and the icons.  At the same time I learned that my mother had also been adopted and that her biological parents were Greek – Armenian. 

      I was 36 years old when I initiated contact with my father and I was able to reestablish a relationship with him before he died.  Ironically, I learned that he  had an interest in art that manifested itself in highly elaborate car painting, an art form that  epitomizes the multi-cultural lifestyle of Mexican-Americans in Southern California.

     The iconic look has continued in my work, and  I call my most recent pieces Altaria (from a Latin word that originally meant “burnt offerings” but also has some connection to the Latin word altus, high).   My Altaria are table top structures embellished with symbols and patterning taken from numerous cultures including  Byzantine, pre-Columbian and Arabic.          

Resume / Bio

BIOGRAPHY

1958  Born Santa Barbara, CA

1977 – 1981  U.S. Navy

1986 BFA Degree in Graphic Design, West Liberty State College, West Liberty, WV

1988 – 1990 Attended Savannah College of Art and Design

1990 – current  Miles Studio, Roswell, GA

SELECTED EXHIBITS

Aliya Gallery, Atlanta (Group)

Camberwill School of the Arts of the London Institute, London, England (Group)

Clayton State College and University, Morrow, GA Artist in Residence

Imatra Art Museum, Imatra, Finland (Group)

Kouvala Art Museum, Kouvala, Finland (Group)

Mary Praytor Gallery, Greenville, SC (Group)

Oasis Gallery, Savannah, GA (Solo)