Painting His Way through National Parks

By Shelby Smithey

Completing 409 paintings in 365 days—it’s probably as difficult as it sounds, but Pensacola artist Loren Miller plans to find out for himself at the start of the new year. His project, “American Canvas,” is a massive endeavor in which he plans to create a painting of each of the 409 National Park Service Units in one year to commemorate the 100th year anniversary.

“It calculates to roughly 1.12 paintings per day, including weekends and holidays,” Miller said. “I’ll be relying on people all across the nation to help provide inspiration and reference to the many Park Service Units I could not possibly visit.”

Miller is from Jay and began drawing and painting in high school. He attended the Savannah College of Art and Design and later Florida State University. He has been painting for about eight years and opened his art studio, Koa Studio, in May and has been working as a full-time artist since then.

Between portrait sittings, art classes, and tattoo sessions, Miller has started a Kickstarter campaign aimed at raising enough support to allow him to undertake his ambitious year-long art project in 2016.

“Of course the largest obstacle is the amount of painting I’ll have to do in one year,” Miller said. “A total of 409 paintings in 365 days is quite a task. If the project is funded, I’ll be able to devote all of my time to the project and not have to worry about working other jobs to pay for studio rent.”

Miller said that he has a great team of people that will be assisting in the creation of the prints and, most importantly, the final book.

“Needless to say, I’ll be a busy man, but this is something I am very passionate about,” he said.

Miller said that he grew up in a family that instilled a deep love and appreciation for the outdoors. Once he learned to paint in college, he began to combine his love of hiking and painting by creating outdoor landscape paintings.

“I’ve always loved the outdoors, and Gulf Islands National Seashore has been a constant source of inspiration for my landscape artwork,” Miller said. “One evening I was talking with my good friend Tim Roberts about my paintings and upcoming painting trip to Grand Teton National Park, when we got into a discussion about the history of the NPS.”

Roberts is a professional consulting historian with 321Innovations and has worked with the National Park Service many times during his career.

“I discovered that other than the 59 National Parks, there are actually 350 other National Park Service units, including historic sites, monuments, parkways, battlefields, recreation areas, seashores and more,” Miller said. “All of these units are beautiful and unique, but often overshadowed by the larger parks and remembered only by the locals.

Miller said that he and Roberts came up with a plan to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NPS by highlighting every single NPS unit, which later became ‘American Canvas.”

“During the last year, I have been involved with a number of projects related to the upcoming Centennial celebration but never saw any projects that were looking to encompass all of the units,” Roberts said. “Loren’s artistic ability is amazing, and the idea of him working with people all over the country to capture the essence of so many special places on canvas just seemed like a worthwhile way to celebrate America’s Best Idea.”

Miller will travel to as many units as his budget allows but said that the rest depends on fellow National Park enthusiasts across the nation to be his eyes in the parks that he cannot get to. He said that most every park he’s contacted has been more than gracious in sending photo references of their parks.

“The amount of traveling I’ll be able to do will depend entirely on how much money we raise,” he said. “Initially, I was worried about getting reference photos for the parks that I cannot visit. After talking to many parks and discovering their enthusiasm in helping contribute to our effort, that fear has since disappeared.”

Miller said that the most challenging part will be the amount of painting involved.

“Our plans are to spend some time exhibiting all of the paintings in various museums and galleries, to help raise awareness of the National Park Service,” Miller said. “After that, we plan on working with each park to sell the paintings, with part of the proceeds going to that specific park.”

Miller said that his goal is to raise $35,000, which the largest bulk of will go toward supplies for paints, canvases, brushes and any other materials needed to create the paintings. He said that the second part of the money will go toward the design and creation of the book, which includes scanning and editing all of the paintings, and the introductions to each park.

Miller said that the book will highlight each and every NPS unit and include information about what makes each unit so unique.

“The last part will go to paying for the studio space for me to work in,” Miller said. “Being that this will be more than a full-time job, I will not have time for any other work. I will be entirely dedicated to this project during the year. Any additional funds will go to travel expenses. The more money we raise over our minimum, the more I’ll get to visit these amazing parks and paint them in person.”

“The National Park System is by far America’s greatest idea, and it is my hope that with other’s help, we can celebrate it through painting in 2016,” Miller said.

To donate to Miller’s project, visit kickstarter.com and search for “American Canvas” or visit lorenmillerart.com.