Claire Miller’s work sometimes feels sculptural, sometimes like the patchwork assemblage of a hasty hand, sometimes organic, lifelike, and almost floral. She builds ragged imperfection, even artfully clumsy executions into her works. They beg the hand to be gentle and they ask for concentration. These are simple objects full of tactile sensations that almost demand that you slow down for just a moment and devote to them a little bit of your divided attention.
Memorializing Ryan White
Ryan White was a teenager in Kokomo when he contracted HIV/AIDS from a blood transfusion in 1984. He was by all accounts a remarkable human being. He seemed to understand the role he could play in the AIDS epidemic. He worked tirelessly, to the end of his short life, to help destigmatize AIDS. A remarkable human being.
A bronze sculpture of White was just unveiled on Indiana University's campus, created by artists and Senior lecturer of Sculpture at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design, Melanie Cooper Pennington. She also did the casting of Alfred Kinsey that sits on IU’s Campus. We talked to her about that sculpture and her more abstract work that explores organic shapes in strange, unsettling ways.