Carol Miller (author)

Last updated

Carol Miller (born November 1933, Los Angeles, California [1] ) is an American-Mexican sculptor and author. She has been a sculptor for over 50 years, with some 200 exhibits (group, individual, auctions) to her credit. She has been a writer for the entirety her professional life.

Contents

Career

Her career in professional journalism began at age fifteen and continued in Mexico where she wrote for Mexican Life, Welcome, Mexito This Month, Revista de América, Mañana, Revista Tiempo, among others. A correspondent for Life en Español Life magazine in Mexico (1962–65), syndicated travel writer featuring Mexico for Mexicana Airlines (subsidiary at the time of Pan American Airways), bilingual translator, scholar researching especially the Maya among other ancient cultures, film and art critic, also a consultant on dyslexia among other learning disabilities, as well as a magazine editor, lecturer, photographer, gastronome. In addition she has also worked for ad agencies, public relations firms, craft centers and archaeological projects. In 1960 she launched the celebrated craft market known as the Bazaar Sabado. She has produced in all 36 books, a number of them published in both English and Spanish, which have evolved out of her extensive research and travel, first among Maya sites in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador, and then distant, often related, cultures around the world, with a special focus on archaeology, religion, mythology and history. Her articles on the Greek world in the Sunday Travel Section of the now-defunct Mexico City News, published during the 1970s and 1980s, earned her the title of Honorary Cultural Attaché for the Greek Embassy in Mexico, and the nickname of "Athenea". [2]

Alma de mi alma, el México de los extranjeros, published in 2011, focuses on eighteen notable emigrants to Mexico and their contributions to the country; besides Miller, the book includes Paco Ignacio Taibo I, Leonora Carrington, Edward James, Conlon Nancarrow and Alma Reed. The book was co-edited by the Instituto Nacional de Migración and the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. [3]

Los Danzantes by Miller on the grounds of the Museo Dolores Olmedo. LosDanzantesOlmedo.JPG
Los Danzantes by Miller on the grounds of the Museo Dolores Olmedo.

Her career in the arts, and particularly as a sculptor, won her the "Superior Academic Order" from the Accademio Internazionale Greci-Marino in Vinzaglio, Italy. In 2004 this order was raised to "Honorary National Councilor for Mexico" in recognition of her overall contribution to the arts, specifically in sculpture and letters. Her work has appeared in over 200 individual and group shows and art auctions over a period spanning more than fifty years. She is a member of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) where she has served as a perennial member of the Media Relations Committee; and is a research consultant at the Institute for Maya Studies in Mexico. She serves on the advisory board of Exploring Solutions Past (ESP): The Maya Forest Alliance, with the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna in Belize.

Personal life

She is a longtime resident of Mexico where she lives with her husband, designer and art restorer Tomás González, in Jardines del Pedregal, Mexico City. She has two children, Fausto and Dushka Zapata. She is a naturalized citizen of Mexico. [3] She has also worked for the conservation of the hairless Mexican dog known as the Xoloitzcuintles. [3]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diego Rivera</span> Mexican muralist (1886–1957)

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera, was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petén Department</span> Department of Guatemala

Petén is a department of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest by area – at 35,854 km2 (13,843 sq mi) it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores. The population at the mid-2018 official estimate was 595,548.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maya codices</span> Manuscript written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script

Maya codices are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of deities such as the Tonsured Maize God and the Howler Monkey Gods. The codices have been named for the cities where they eventually settled. The Dresden codex is generally considered the most important of the few that survive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dolores Olmedo</span> Mexican businesswoman

María de los Dolores Olmedo y Patiño Suarez was a Mexican businesswoman, philanthropist and musician, better known for her friendship with the Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera; she appeared in some of his paintings. Following Rivera's death in 1957, she and Rivera's daughter Guadalupe asked then president Adolfo López Mateos to consider Rivera and José Clemente Orozco's paintings historical monuments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angelina Beloff</span> Russian-Mexican artist (1879–1969)

Angelina Beloff was a Russian-born artist who did most of her work in Mexico. However, she is better known as Diego Rivera’s first wife, and her work has been overshadowed by his and that of his later wives. She studied art in Saint Petersburg and then went to begin her art career in Paris in 1909. This same year she met Rivera and married him. In 1921, Rivera returned to Mexico, leaving Beloff behind and divorcing her. She never remarried. In 1932, through her contacts with various Mexican artists, she was sponsored to live and work in the country. She worked as an art teacher, a marionette show creator and had a number of exhibits of her work in the 1950s. Most of her work was done in Mexico, using Mexican imagery, but her artistic style remained European. In 1978, writer Elena Poniatowska wrote a novel based on her life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museo Dolores Olmedo</span> Mexican art museum

The Museo Dolores Olmedo is an art museum in Xochimilco, Mexico City, based on the collection of the Mexican businesswoman Dolores Olmedo. The museum will be relocated to Chapultepec in 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maya stelae</span> Intricately carved stone slabs made by the Pre-Columbian Maya

Maya stelae are monuments that were fashioned by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. They consist of tall, sculpted stone shafts and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period, and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered a hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala. During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maya city</span> Centres of ancient Maya civilization in Mesoamerica

Maya cities were the centres of population of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. They served the specialised roles of administration, commerce, manufacturing and religion that characterised ancient cities worldwide. Maya cities tended to be more dispersed than cities in other societies, even within Mesoamerica, as a result of adaptation to a lowland tropical environment that allowed food production amidst areas dedicated to other activities. They lacked the grid plans of the highland cities of central Mexico, such as Teotihuacán and Tenochtitlan. Maya kings ruled their kingdoms from palaces that were situated within the centre of their cities. Cities tended to be located in places that controlled trade routes or that could supply essential products. This allowed the elites that controlled trade to increase their wealth and status. Such cities were able to construct temples for public ceremonies, thus attracting further inhabitants to the city. Those cities that had favourable conditions for food production, combined with access to trade routes, were likely to develop into the capital cities of early Maya states.

<i>Maya Codex of Mexico</i> Pre-Columbian Maya book

The Maya Codex of Mexico (MCM) is a Maya screenfold codex manuscript of a pre-Columbian type. Long known as the Grolier Codex or Sáenz Codex, in 2018 it was officially renamed the Códice Maya de México (CMM) by the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico. It is one of only four known extant Maya codices, and the only one that still resides in the Americas.

Juan Pedro Laporte Molina was a prominent Guatemalan archaeologist best known for his work on the ancient Maya civilization. He studied in the United States at the University of Arizona, in which he enrolled at the age of nineteen. After just one year he transferred to the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico. He continued his studies at the Universidad Autónoma de México from 1972 to 1976, from which he graduated with a doctorate in archaeology. He worked as a research assistant at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City from 1967 through to 1976. Laporte worked at various archaeological sites while he was in Mexico, including Tlatilco, Chichen Itza and Dainzú. He first began working as an archaeologist in Guatemala in the 1970s, and was the head of the School of History of the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC) for more than thirty years. He first entered USAC in 1977, soon after returning from Mexico. In 1974 he carried out investigations at the Maya archaeological site of Uaxactun in the northern Petén Department of Guatemala. Between 1974 and 1976 he carried out archaeological investigations in Antigua Guatemala, which has since been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and around Lake Izabal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariana Yampolsky</span> Mexican photographer (1925–2002)

Mariana Yampolsky was a Mexican-American photographer. A significant figure in 20th-century Mexican photography, she specialized in capturing photos of common people in everyday situations in the rural areas of the country. She was born in the United States, but came to Mexico to study art and never left, becoming a Mexican citizen in 1958. Her career in photography began as a sideline to document travels and work in the arts and politics, but she began showing her photography in the 1960s. From then until her death in 2002, her work was exhibited internationally receiving awards and other recognition both during her lifetime and posthumously.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ana Karen Allende</span> Mexican artisan

Ana Karen Allende is a Mexican artisan from the Mexico City borough of Coyoacán, who specializes in creating rag dolls and soft fabric animals. The tradition of making rag dolls in Mexico extends back to the pre-Hispanic period with the making of rag dolls reaching its peak in the 19th century. Allende's first doll was made when her sister was about to turn fifteen. For quinceañera celebrations in Xochimilco, it is customary to give the girl her “last doll” as a means of marking her transition from child to adult. Allende decided to make this doll herself, using sewing skills taught to her by her grandmother. Soon after, she began to make dolls for her friends and family, and the attention they received prompted her to think of selling them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcela Lobo Crenier</span> Mexican painter

Marcela Lobo Crenier, is a Mexican artist from Mexico City whose work is distinguished by the depiction of everyday objects in strong, bright colors, often using color schemes associated with Mexico. She began her career in 1986 in Cancun doing etching, but moved to Mexico City and into painting by 1991. Most of her work is acrylics on canvas but she is also noted for her work with painting ceramics with Uriarte Talavera. She has also done painting on wood, created ceramics, collages and even shoe decoration and has been exhibited both individually and collectively in Mexico, Europe and the United States.

Andrea Gómez y Mendoza was a Mexican graphic artist and muralist, a member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museo Mural Diego Rivera</span> Museum in Mexico City

Museo Mural Diego Rivera is a museum in Mexico City where Diego Rivera's 1946–47 mural Sueño de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central is located.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angélica Carrasco</span> Mexican artist (born 1967)

Angelica Carrasco is a Mexican graphic artist who is a pioneer of large scale printmaking in the country. Her work often is related to violence and classified as “abstract neo-expressionism.” Much of her career has been dedicated to teaching and the promotion of the arts, especially the graphic arts and has been recognized with membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana and the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte.

Rosa Lie Johansson was a Swedish-Mexican painter whose work was recognized with membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.

Flor Minor is a Mexican sculptor and graphic artist, known for bronze sculptures and graphic work that generally depict the male form. Her works often are based on the concept of balance or lack thereof. Minor has had individual exhibitions in notable venues in Mexico and abroad, and her work can be found in a number of public and private collections. She has been recognized in Mexico with membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.

References

  1. Date information sourced from Library of Congress Authorities data, via corresponding WorldCat Identities  linked authority file (LAF) .
  2. 200 Mexicanos que nos Heredó el Mundo, published by the Centro de estudios migratorios. Editor: Paralelo. ISBN   978-607-7891-02-4
  3. 1 2 3 "Carol Miller frente al espejo mexicano". El Universal. Retrieved 17 March 2015.