Not cow tipping.
Cow ‘Tippie’

Painter Valerie Miller is devoted to her bovine subjects—and to her alma mater

By Rob Cline

It would only be natural to assume that an artist who devotes years of her career to painting a single subject might eventually tire of said subject and turn her attention to something — anything — else. But if you were to assume that about Valerie Miller, who has been painting cows for 10 years, you’d be mistaken.

“I feel I have thousands of cows left in me still to paint,” Miller said in a phone interview from her studio, (STEEL COW) gallery & studios, in Waukon.

One senses this is no hyperbole. She readily — indeed, eagerly — admits that “these cows are just so much fun for me to paint,” but it’s clear this isn’t just a lark. Miller is an artist with an eye on the future, and that future is filled to bursting with cows.

But let’s go back to the beginning.

Growing up in Waukon, “I knew since I was young that I wanted to be an artist and have my own studio,” Miller says. Her subject matter came into focus during a family trip to Switzerland during the summer of 1998 following her high school graduation.

She recalls it as a time when she was “soaking everything up,” and two experiences had a major impact on the course of her artistic endeavors.

The first was a ride on the back of a motorcycle. While in Switzerland, the Millers stayed in a family home and the man of the house took the young artist-to-be on a ride through the countryside. As the wind swept through her hair and she took in the sights, she was struck by the cows.

“Looking at these cows was something that I’d never experienced before, even though I grew up in a dairy community,” she says.

After spotting those cows in their natural environment, Miller experienced a very different set of cows in a very different place. In 1998, Zurich was home to the first iteration of what would come to be known as “CowParade,” the popular public art project that has brought fiberglass cows decorated by local artists to the streets of cities around the world.

Miller, perhaps unconsciously, filed away the idea of cows portrayed outside of their usual context. “I realized later the impact,” she says.

Back in the United States, Miller headed to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where she had been recruited to play golf. The private school offered her the opportunity concentrate on her art while still competing in her chosen sport at the division one level.

That combination was appealing, but Miller found herself feeling a bit out of place in Peoria. “In a lonely moment…I painted two or three different cow paintings almost as a reminder of home.”

This artistic cure for homesickness was the start of something much bigger. “Something sparked,” Miller recalls.

Miller wasn’t satisfied with somewhat commonplace images of cows in fields, however. “I took that image and those icons of rural middle America and started painting them completely out of context…I kind of felt that I was out of context…I think I started painting these cows sort of like myself in Peoria.”

In keeping with that idea, Miller’s cows are on their own. “I play on the isolation factor, so all my paintings involve only one cow.”

The hallmarks of Miller’s style, then, are immediately recognizable: Lone cows portrayed in close-up against bright, featureless color fields, or shown standing full-bodied on featureless ground bearing deep bovine shadows.

The cows in Miller’s paintings may appear devoid of companionship, but each has at least one friend: Miller herself.

“These are actual cows,” she says of her work. “I do meet every single cow I paint.”
Most of those encounters take place, as one might expect, close to home. But that isn’t always the case.

“Most of my cows are Iowa cows,” Miller says, “but I don’t only do Iowa cows.” A trip with Miller might well involve several stops along the road to look at the cows. But she isn’t content to gaze at her subject matter from afar.

When she meets a cow, it’s up close and personal. “Just yesterday I visited a farm and got slobbered on by some cows,” Miller says with a laugh.

This is an essential first step in Miller’s approach to her subject matter. She emphasizes the need to “touch them, feel them, and get a sense of their personality.”

Dairy cows, because they are accustomed to being handled by humans, are the most approachable, and one dairy cow in particular has played a prominent role in Miller’s oeuvre.

Queenie is an 11-year-old dairy cow and “the local matriarch of a diary herd. I’ve painted her no less than 10 times,” says Miller.

Queenie is among 10 cows featured in Miller’s Mini Moo Canvas Print collection, a project she initiated late last year. As described on Miller’s web site www.steelcow.com:

“Mini Moo Canvas Prints are handmade sculptural prints of cow paintings… [and] are individually signed… and are framed and backed in environmentally sustainable maple, allowing for display around the home or office. Printed on canvas, Mini Moo Canvas Prints have the appearance and feel of an original painting.”

The Mini Moos both contrast with and complement other aspects of Miller’s work.

The biggest contrast is in terms of size. “I get really excited when I paint large,” she says, and so her original paintings — whether they become Mini Moos or not — tend to be rather imposing. The Mini Moos, on the other hand, are “very intimate and they’re made to be picked up…It’s a very tactile, small way to experience the cows. It’s very different from a gigantic painting.”

Meanwhile, the “environmentally sustainable maple” that frames each Mini Moo hints at the wider concerns motivate both Miller and her husband Josh, owner of J.L. Miller Company, an Iowa-based environmentally progressive furniture and cabinet company.

“Doing things for a reason is really important to us,” Miller says, pointing out that both her gallery and her husband’s business are part of “1% for the Planet,” a project devoted to good corporate citizenship on environmental issues.

Along this line, it is worth noting that Miller thinks of her bovine subjects as more than mere portrait sitters. Though declining to get too specific, she hints at the issues inherent in using the animals for food and in the dairy industry. To date, however, the politics of cows, as it were, does not play an explicit role in her work, though “I’m certainly thinking about those issues,” she says.

She has also been thinking about ways to give back to an institution that she credits with playing a key role in her ability to realize her dream not only of being artist, but of owning a gallery and studio of her own. And so, her 11th Mini Moo, “Tippie,” has been created to benefit the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business Excellence Fund.

After finishing her art degree at Bradley, Miller earned a second degree in business at the University of Iowa. In a happy confluence of connections, Henry Tippie, after whom the College of Business is named, grew up on a dairy farm, making the “Tippie” Mini Moo a truly appropriate fundraiser.

And Miller is committed to the fundraising aspects of the endeavor.

“The whole reason behind this Tippie project,” she says, “was to raise money for the Tippie College of Business. I don’t expect to make any money from this.”

In fact, at $59, the special Mini Moo sells for less than the standard pieces in the series and 50 percent of the proceeds go directly to the Tippie College of Business. Art paper prints and greeting cards are also available with, again, 50 percent of the sale price going to the college.

On May 16 from 5 to 7 p.m., Miller will be in attendance at an open house at the Iowa Artisans Gallery in Iowa City. The gallery is selling the Tippie Mini Moo without taking a cut of the sale.

“We really appreciate what they’re doing…We’re really hoping for a good turnout [at the open house],” Miller says.

The Tippie project might not be about making money, but Miller has recently undertaken a new endeavor that is designed to put some money in her cash register. On a strictly commission basis, she has begun painting dogs. Her work under the “Petrayals” (www.petrayals.com) banner, is similar to her work with cows in terms of both style and approach.

Before undertaking a Petrayals painting, Miller spends time with the dog in question and takes a lot of photographs. As with her paintings of cows, she makes a concerted effort to capture the personality of the pet in question.

“I do a painting based on the experience I had with that animal,” she says.

In about three weeks, she delivers a painting of a beloved pet.

The project stems from Miller’s relationship with her own dog, Nan.

“Right before we opened the gallery and studio we got a puppy,” Miller remembers. “I started painting her for something to do.”

Not only is Nan the original inspiration for Petrayals, she is also devoted to making sure Miller keeps working.

“She knows I go to work at a certain time. If I’m running late, she’ll start growling at me and look toward the door. She’s a very serious studio dog.”

Once she’s herded Miller to the studio, and assuming she doesn’t have a photo shoot for the line of dog beds she has inspired for Josh’s business, Nan can relax.

“When I paint, she’ll sleep at my feet,” says Miller.

With her studio in a three-story building that has been in her family for generations and surrounded by beautiful, hilly country that is home to plenty of cows — “I don’t have to struggle to find subjects,” Miller says — the artist is happy in Waukon.

That said, the Millers may be taking to the road fairly soon in an old Airstream trailer they have recently acquired. They’ve reinvented the interior with aspects of both of their businesses — including a spot for a cow painting. Given her penchant for stopping along the way to gaze at her favorite animals, Miller will almost certainly fill up her travels with plenty of pauses for making new bovine friends.

“We’re going to take that Airstream and travel around the United States and visit the cows,” she says.