Country Lifestyle
Finishing the Story – Steve Miller
Strong arms and broad shoulders belie the image of a simple artist. Hands, while soft enough to make the most minute change to a delicate clay leg, have also fell towering trees. Guthrie’s Steve Miller wasn’t raised to be an artist or a successful salesman, but he became both. As a storyteller, recounting the narrative behind his art, he can’t be beat. Most things he says deserve quotation marks.
Miller grew up as a fourth-generation logger in Kalispell, Montana, more accurately, the Flathead Valley. His earliest memories were of long days and even harder work. “Most people in the western industry don’t know that about me. I felled timber, set chokers, skidded logs, and loaded and drove logging trucks. I could do anything in that world and was a pretty good hand,” he shared. “It was just what you did. I always tell people that know me now that it was like being born in a coal mining town in the Appalachians.”
Every summer vacation from the seventh grade on, Miller would do a man’s job in the woods with his father. The day he graduated high school, he applied and was hired for a job at a sawmill.
Still, he always gravitated towards art. “I have loved it since I was a little kid. I would look at mountain scenery, at the deer, the elk, the horses, and I would always think, ‘How do you make that with a brush? How do you paint that? How do you get that color?’” He added, “Like all young artists, that’s what I wanted to do, but I had to go to work. I’ve worked my whole life and my art was always pushed to the back as a hobby, because I got into careers I owed a lot of time to, and there was not enough time left over.”
While he recalls the work ethic he learned in his early years and his love of art, he remembers no aspirations of a better life. “You were just a logger. You didn’t have a choice, or, better said, you didn’t think of having a choice. There were no plans for higher education; you simply needed to get out of school and go to work. I’m lucky I finished high school, because there was that mentality, not only in the Valley, but even in my family, that you just quit school and go to work,” he shared.
Looking back from where he is now, Miller contemplates how different life could have been. “I can’t believe how short-sighted I was. I take full responsibility for that. I had no clue in my 20s that I could have gone to college or that there was a whole different layer to the world,” he said.
While a death-defying experience with grievous injuries doesn’t sound like a positive, Miller is adamant that an accident just prior to his 30th birthday was just that. “The best thing that ever happened to me was when I had a logging accident where a tree fell on me. I should have been killed, but I was limbing a big tree, and the one that fell on me knocked me off of that tree down to the ground. It landed on the big tree, and if I would have been limbing a smaller one, it probably wouldn’t have ended as well,” he said.
The resulting broken back led to unemployment. “I couldn’t go back to work in the woods. I was on food stamps and had two kids to support. I remember thinking, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’” he recalled.
In a twist of fate, Miller met a friend of his father’s who’d heard of his bad luck. The man offered to teach Miller how to be an audiometric technician. “That basically means you sell and fit hearing aids. I didn’t have a college degree, but he told me I didn’t have to, I just had to work under his supervision for a year,” Miller said.
It only took a week of work for Miller to realize he had a talent for sales. Just two years later he had worked up to being the Regional Manager of the Miracle Ear Hearing Aid Company and was one of the top 12 sales representatives in the nation.
A few years after that, the National Sales Director job came open, and Miller applied. “I’ll be darned if I didn’t get the promotion,” he laughed. Soon he was living in Minneapolis, working out of a corner office on the seventh floor. While his career was thriving, Miller himself was dying on the vine.
“I’m a team roper. I grew up in the country, but my horse was 50 miles away in a stable and I never got time to ride him. I took a Western Horseman magazine with me to work one day, made a list of every company that I might want to work for, wrote up a resume, and sent it out,” he said. “I got a call from Montana Silversmiths back in my home state. I interviewed for the job and got it.”
Miller has worked for Montana Silversmiths for nearly 30 years. He started his career as the Vice President of National Sales and Marketing. While he’s handed over the reins for most of his duties, he’s still an Ambassador at Large for the company. “I think my biggest claim-to-fame there is that I put together one of the best sales rep forces in the industry, so much so that I was approached by other major western industry companies to help with their sales staff,” he shared.
The Art
Miller never pursued art as a career, but he couldn’t help indulging in his hobby. “I can’t even tell you how many pictures I’ve given away. Drawings, paintings, you name it,” he laughed. If you find him sitting still for more than a minute, he’s likely roughing something out. “I’ve spent several long conference calls doing sketches.”
He had no formal training in art, but if he begins to question his ability, he reminds himself of Charlie Russell, a well-known American artist of the old American West. “Charlie Russell never had a lesson in his life, and he was able to do it. He’s my hero. I have read everything about him and know the names of most of his paintings. I was actually born on the same date he died, just different years, of course. I always say I hope I got a little piece of him,” Miller shared.
For a long time, he wondered where his artistic streak had come from, but he recently found out that it came from his mother’s side of the family. “That family is Norwegian. My great grandfather came here from Norway in 1904. Because of social media, I’ve been in touch with that side of the family, and they all make their living as artists in tv, film, and painting,” he shared. “My son, Jason, is a better artist than I’ll ever be, really, so we got that from somewhere.”
Miller began with acrylics, but found his talent lay in oil painting. “I feel like it’s easier for me to paint with and is much richer. My son got me into sculpting. I picked up some clay he sent me and took some coat hangers and bent them up for armatures, and started doing some sculpting, and wound up making more money on my sculptures than my paintings,” he said.
He did his first sculpture in the early 1990s, and by later in the decade, his hobby and his work finally collided. Montana Silversmiths was hoping to expand into the lifestyle sector. “They wanted to do sculptures that could be sold through Western stores at a reasonable price so that anyone could own a gallery quality sculpture for their home,” he shared. “Instead of paying $10,000 for a bronze, they could buy a resin one for $200. It wound up being a very successful line.”
Miller began working on the sculptures, which became the Steve Miller line that he called “My Vision of the West.” The series consisted of nine pieces, concentrating primarily on the people and times of the mid- to late 1800s. “It’s how I see the west. But the west as we know it started with the discovery of the New World. The first Europeans entered a new land, a land that to them seemed an empty wilderness to be settled and tamed.
“But the land they saw as empty wilderness was not empty, and it certainly would not tame easily. This land was home to many tribes, languages, and cultures of people. These were an innocent and primitive people, open, and even helpful to the culture that would soon overwhelm them. These were a people who did not work iron, copper, or steel, nor did they know of the wheel, or write their language. But they did know the land and how to live off its bounty. It provided all they needed, and they left it as they found it, unscarred and flourishing with animal life of every kind. The meeting of these two cultures would soon become a violent collision,” Miller explained.
“Of Stone and Steel” was the first in the line, showing a lone Indian curiously tapping his arrow against the railroad tracks; something strange that appeared during his time away from home. “I have no idea where the ideas come from. I just saw something and wonder what it would be like to be this young man. You see, this man was a Cheyenne, but the territory stretches from southern Nebraska up to Montana. These kids would go visit relatives far away for a few years to find a wife before heading home. What would it be like for him to go find a wife, start riding home, and then there is this monstrous looking snake crossing the prairie? What would he be thinking?
“I’d just be thinking about that, and then pretty soon I’d doodle a picture and then make a sculpture,” he shared.
That same thought process took him through the entire line. The remaining pieces were named His New Winchester, The Highest Price for Beef, When Beef Was Wild, When Cowboys Take a Dare, the Houlihan, the Crossing, When A Woman Knew Her Place, and Sittin’ Pretty.
The title of the artwork is important to Miller. “The stories behind the artwork make the piece, and I always said you can’t have a piece of artwork unless the title can tell you the story,” he shared. “It’s important to me that my work allows people to finish the story for themselves. The person looking at it has to decide how each of those stories end. For example, in the Highest Price for Beef the horse and rider are falling in the middle of this stampede. What happens? Does the cowboy pay the highest price? In the Crossing, does the rider make it to the other shore, or the distant shore?”
While the Steve Miller collection was exceptionally popular, selling out quickly, his most prized work did not make him a dime. He did a series of sculptures of three Cheyenne warriors killed in the Battle of Little Bighorn, which was commissioned by the tribe to raise money to mark the Cheyenne deaths on the battlefield.
“The Cheyenne don’t refer to it as Custer’s Battle. They refer to it as the Battle of Greasy Grass. That battle, outside of Napoleon’s Battle of Waterloo, is the most written about battle in history. When I started the sculptures, the only marker on the battlefield for a Native American was because a soldier had documented where he had fallen,” Miller said.
The three Native Americans Miller portrayed were Lame Whiteman, Limber Hand, and Noisy Walking, and all three men still have living relatives. “I roped with Dennis Limberhand, and that’s how I knew they were wanting to do this project. I made the sculptures, gave them to Dennis, and he took them to the tribal council,” he shared.
As with most of his works, Miller engrossed himself in the project. He shared the story of Noisy Walking. “He was a 14-year-old boy. His relatives told me he would have had four braids, because he hadn’t been in war yet. You can see he has a stake with a loop on it, and that’s because he was an Undefeated Warrior. The Native American’s don’t have a name for a Suicide Warrior, like we would call it. When the battle started, they were required to put that loop around their ankle and drive the stake into the ground. The only way they could retreat was if another warrior pulled the stake or they were killed. The night before the battle, him and about 14 other young men took the undefeated pact, not knowing there would be a battle the next morning,” he shared. He learned that Noisy Walking would have been armed only with a bow and arrow, and his sculpture reflects that.
He spent an incredible amount of time researching each man, then donated all his work, including foundry costs for the originals and molds. “They were trying to raise money to put markers on the battlefield, so it wasn’t something to make a profit on. It’s the work I’m proudest of,” he said. “I was able to help the Cheyenne Indians put markers on the battlefield where their family members died.”
In addition, Miller created the Miss Rodeo America pageant’s perpetual award and did a bronze of Bodacious with his son, both sculptures are in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. He also created the bronze sculptures given to the Head and Heel Horses of the Bob Feist Invitational each year.
These days, Miller is focusing on his oil paintings, spending his time perfecting his technique. “I found I really enjoy doing portraits in oil and special projects for people, instead of just painting a picture and hoping someone likes it. I love doing commissioned work.”
Learn more about Steve and his art in the August 2020 issue of Oklahoma Farm & Ranch.
Pollinators, especially bees, play a crucial role in our ecosystem and agricultural landscape. They are responsible for pollinating many of the crops that we rely on for food production. However, bee populations worldwide have been declining due to various factors, including habitat loss, pesticide use, disease, and climate change. In Oklahoma, where agriculture is a significant industry, protecting pollinators is of utmost importance. Here we explore some strategies for supporting bee populations in Oklahoma and why it’s essential for the health of our environment and economy.
Understanding the Importance of Bees
Before delving into strategies for protecting bee populations, it’s essential to understand why bees are so vital. Bees are one of the most effective pollinators, playing a crucial role in the reproduction of flowering plants, including many crops such as fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Without bees, the pollination process would be severely disrupted, leading to reduced crop yields and potentially threatening food security.
In Oklahoma, bees contribute significantly to the state’s agricultural economy by pollinating crops like cotton, canola, alfalfa, and various fruits and vegetables. According to the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry, pollinators contribute over $157 million annually to the state’s economy. Therefore, protecting bee populations is not only essential for environmental conservation but also for the economic sustainability of agriculture in Oklahoma.
Challenges Facing Bee Populations in Oklahoma
Despite their importance, bee populations in Oklahoma, like elsewhere, face numerous challenges that threaten their survival. One of the primary threats is habitat loss due to urbanization, agricultural expansion, and land development. As natural habitats disappear, bees lose the food sources and nesting sites they need to thrive.
Furthermore, the use of pesticides, including neonicotinoids and other chemical treatments, poses a significant risk to bee populations. Pesticides can harm bees directly through poisoning or indirectly by contaminating their food sources and disrupting their reproductive cycles. Climate change also exacerbates the challenges faced by bees, affecting flowering patterns, altering habitat suitability, and increasing the frequency of extreme weather events.
Strategies for Supporting Bee Populations
While the challenges facing bee populations are daunting, there are several strategies that individuals, farmers, and policymakers can implement to support bee populations in Oklahoma:
- Creating Pollinator Habitat: One of the most effective ways to support bees is by creating and preserving pollinator-friendly habitat. This can include planting native wildflowers, flowering trees, and shrubs that provide bees with a diverse and abundant source of nectar and pollen. Additionally, leaving natural areas, such as meadows and hedgerows, untouched can provide essential nesting sites for solitary bees.
- Reducing Pesticide Use: Minimizing the use of pesticides, especially bee-toxic chemicals like neonicotinoids, is crucial for bee conservation. Farmers can adopt integrated pest management (IPM) practices that prioritize non-chemical methods of pest control, such as crop rotation, biological control, and using pest-resistant crop varieties. When pesticides are necessary, they should be applied judiciously, following label instructions and avoiding spraying during times when bees are most active.
- Supporting Organic Agriculture: Organic farming practices that eschew synthetic pesticides and fertilizers are inherently more bee-friendly. By supporting organic agriculture and purchasing organic products, consumers can help create demand for farming methods that prioritize environmental sustainability and pollinator health.
- Educating the Public: Increasing public awareness about the importance of bees and the threats they face is essential for fostering support for bee conservation efforts. Educational initiatives can include school programs, community workshops, and public outreach campaigns that highlight the role of bees in food production and the steps individuals can take to protect them.
- Collaborating with Stakeholders: Protecting bee populations requires collaboration among various stakeholders, including farmers, landowners, conservation organizations, government agencies, and researchers. By working together, these groups can develop and implement comprehensive strategies for conserving bee habitat, reducing pesticide exposure, and promoting bee-friendly farming practices.
Conclusion
Protecting pollinators, particularly bees, is a critical priority for environmental conservation and agricultural sustainability in Oklahoma. By implementing strategies such as creating pollinator habitat, reducing pesticide use, supporting organic agriculture, educating the public, and collaborating with stakeholders, we can help support bee populations and ensure their continued role in pollinating our crops and maintaining ecosystem health. By taking action now, we can secure a future where bees thrive, benefiting both our environment and our economy.
Top of Form
References:
Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry. (n.d.). Pollinators in Oklahoma. Retrieved from https://www.oda.state.ok.us/food/fs-pollinators.htm
Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. (2022). Neonicotinoids. Retrieved from https://xerces.org/neonicotinoids
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. (2022). Climate Change and Human Health – Heat Impacts on Pollinators. Retrieved from https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/translational/peph/webinars/heat-impacts-on-pollinators/index.cfm
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2022). Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Principles. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/integrated-pest-management-ipm-principles
Organic Trade Association. (n.d.). Why Buy Organic? Retrieved from https://www.ota.com/why-buy-organic
Pollinator Partnership. (n.d.). Education & Outreach. Retrieved from https://www.pollinator.org/education-outreach
United States Department of Agriculture. (n.d.). Partnerships for Pollinators. Retrieved from https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/06/24/partnerships-pollinators
These references provide a comprehensive overview of the topics discussed in the article, including the importance of pollinators, the challenges they face, and strategies for supporting bee populations in Oklahoma.
I am a mother. I do not know about the rest of you mothers, but the second I became “Mom,” my life became a constant state of wondering if I am doing a good job.
That is especially hard to tell when you choose to homeschool. I have no feedback from anyone that is not family. No teacher conferences telling me the little girl talks too much or the oldest boy can not sit still. Sure, I could ask my husband how he thinks our kids are maturing emotionally and intellectually. Still, he would most likely look out the window and see the aforementioned children running around in the sand with only socks on. He would then look at me and ask me to make him a quesadilla. I would say yes, we would joke about socks, and life would go on. See? Zero feedback to go on here.
So, you start to rely on personal experiences. You come up with little tests throughout your days to rate your kids “ready for society” level.
Example 1: A trip to the big city where the kids treat the grocery store as their personal snack depot. They successfully eat all the grapes and a whole block of cheese in your basket before you can check out. As you leave, they tell the door greeter, “Have a nice day.”
Example 2: Your husband enters an indoor rodeo. You are bouncing the baby and notice your oldest child is eating a bag of dippin dots. First, you smile and then remember that she has no money. Come to think of it, the concession stand is not even open. You have now concluded your firstborn has broken into the closed concession stand with her posse of four-year-old convicts and has helped herself to some ice cream.
Example 3: You are in church. The children have managed to be nice and quiet the entire time. After the message and the closing “Amen” is said, your three-year-old turns to you and says, “Well, that wasn’t so bad.”
After a little while, you start to question your “Ready for Society” tests. Are they productive? Are they accurate? I figure the answer to that question is better left unanswered.
One evening this summer, after I had quit conducting all these tests, I was mourning the loss of my children’s place in society when I looked up and noticed all our horses running down our driveway, headed for the neighboring pastures. For a minute, I just sat there wondering what I should do. I was holding the baby and wearing the ever-practical slip-on loafer and had absolutely no idea what was for supper. That had nothing to do with the horses being out, but that is part of being a housewife, I guess. You always wonder if you left the iron on and what is for supper.
While I sat there stunned, pondering life’s biggest questions, my husband and my daughter yelled at me to get a move on as they were already springing into action. My husband ran to stop them, and my daughter was on her way to the barn for some halters. Meanwhile, I was tripping over my loafers, scaring the horses and making already stressful matters much worse.
My husband finally got the horses cornered at the far end of our neighbor’s pasture and waved at me for some assistance. I handed the baby to my daughter and told her to watch the boys and stay in the house while I headed to help.
Within 30 minutes, we caught the horses and led them back to the corrals. I was in a near state of panic, wondering how long the boys had been crying and what state of mind my daughter was in, having just witnessed her dad nearly sweat to death and her mother make terrible fashion choices.
To my surprise, as I walked up to the house, I saw three happy children on the porch eating a supper of plums and peaches. The boys laughed at their sister as she shuffled little cars and cows around for them to play with. Not only had she fed and entertained her brothers, but she had also cleaned the house and fed the chickens to boot. I just stood there quietly watching for a while, not wanting to disturb the moment.
After the kids passed their first ever Ready for Society test, I realized that society’s standards versus my own were probably quite different. Society tells me that my kids need to be clean and quiet. Seen but not heard. Able to recite the ABCs on command but have no opinion on political matters. To be kind to everyone but never bring up God’s name and what He has to do with it. Society says my kids should fall into the assembly line and attend a good college someday to get a good minimum-wage job.
Why would I want my kids to fit into society when I do not even fit into society? No, I think I will keep my dirty little misfits all to myself. I think I will continue raising them to know how to care for themselves and each other. I will continue to show them how to serve God and work hard. I will continue to raise them never to wear slip-on shoes in the pasture and that plums and peaches are a totally acceptable supper on a warm summer evening.
By
Norman Winter
Horticulturist, Author and Speaker
National Poinsettia Day just passed, December 12 to be exact. While I am sure the powers to be wanted a celebratory type day, from what I have been seeing this year is this may have been a deadline day. This most likely applies to poinsettia partners too! If you are asking what a poinsettia partner is then put on your thinking cap and gather around.
Proven Winners got most of us to thinking partners when they introduced the concept of combining poinsettias with Diamond Frost euphorbias. This is one of the best ideas ever and we now actually have three choices, Diamond Frost, Diamond Snow with double flowers and Diamond Mountain that is the taller of the three.
To a horticulturist like myself this combination is so special because both the Poinsettia and the Diamond Frost are Euphorbias. That’s right, they are cousins. Just like Christmas, families visiting and long-lost cousins getting together. Of course, the main reason we like this idea is that the red, pink, or variegated poinsettia looks incredible, it’s as though it is sitting on a bed of snow or frost. I have found these to be more available at fine florists.
But if you are going to create your own and go plant shopping then keep in mind some other options you might want to-try. For instance, a couple of years ago Jenny Simpson of Creekside Nursery in Dallas North Carolina introduced us to not only using caladiums at Christmas but even in combinations with poinsettias. She used the Heart to Heart White Snowdrift caladiums which turned out to be a perfect partner with red poinsettias.
My time as Executive Director at the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens in Savannah GA taught me there are opportunities for outside use with poinsettias, particularly if you are astute at long range weather forecasting. First consider that Savannah is technically zone 8B with a proclivity to lean into zone 9. We used poinsettias in large planters surrounded by Silver Bullet Dusty Miller or artemisia.
A similar application gave me the opportunity of photographing pink poinsettias mass planted in an atrium-like setting and surrounded by gray leaved Icicles helichrysum. But the most obvious and perhaps easiest if you are getting a late start is to combine your poinsettias with another Christmas plant like cyclamen. White cyclamen around a red poinsettia can be simply breathtaking.
This year I have also been watching what I call the professional garden club ladies walking out of both florists and floral departments with holly berries. We all think of hollies on swags above the fireplace or front door, but two or three preserved branches loaded with red berries stuck in a pot of white poinsettias is quick, easy and unbeatable.
Red berries for Christmas, landscape beauty, and of course feeding the birds is a prime reason to grow winterberry hollies like the compact Berry Poppins. Consider also growing Berry Heavy Gold winterberry holly. Cutting branches of the gold berries to be used with red poinsettias makes a stunning partnership. Go to Proven Winners site, Winterberry Holly: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Colorful Berries. If you don’t have poinsettias yet make today your shopping day! Follow me on Facebook @NormanWinterTheGardenGuy for more photos and garden inspiration.
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