Michelle Miles may have just graduated from college in May, but her career in the arts is already off to a bright start. Miles was recognized with the Grand Prize for the 2019-2020 VSA Emerging Young Artists Program. Her work hand model will be featured in the exhibition Connected, which will tour the United States over the coming year. Here, Miles offers insight into her artistic practice, her experience with the Emerging Young Artists Program, and what emerging artists with disabilities can do to support one another.
VSA and Accessibility: Congratulations on your Grand Prize Award! Tell us about hand model, your award-winning work.
Michelle Miles: Thank you! I’m still a little in disbelief about it. It’s an incredible and very special honor to have my work recognized in this way—and the award itself is life changing. The work that is recognized in the exhibition, hand model, was a collision of ideas and experiences I had collected. The piece truly manifested as an exploration of those thoughts, and I think that’s true about a lot of my work—I learn what the piece is about by making it.
VSA and Accessibility: The 2019-2020 VSA Emerging Young Artists Program exhibition is titled Connected. What about that theme sparked your interest and felt like the right fit for your work?
Michelle Miles: The work that I was making around the time of the submission deadline was the first work that really addressed or explored my identity as a disabled woman. I think that it fits the theme “Connected,” because although my peers at school who were making art didn’t share that identity, I realized that we were really all exploring our individual identities through our work, and that’s what connected us.
VSA and Accessibility: You and the other 14 artists of Connected just visited Washington, D.C., for the opening of the exhibition and professional development workshops. How was that experience? Were there any moments you especially enjoyed or found valuable?
Michelle Miles: It was an absolute dream. Honestly, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When else do 15 disabled artists from around the country have the chance to congregate in a room (the Kennedy Center, to be precise!) and share our stories and our work with each other? I know now that I have 14 new friends in a group that will support each other forever and are invested in each other’s success. That’s a really special opportunity that not everyone is fortunate enough to experience—disabled, artist, or otherwise.
VSA and Accessibility: You recently graduated from college. What are you working on now?
Michelle Miles: I’m currently working as the 12-month Access and Inclusive Education Intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, which has so far been one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had.
VSA and Accessibility: How does disability influence your work?
Michelle Miles: Disability is a part of my identity that I embrace, and I think that all of my work is a self-portrait in some way. Whether or not I’m making work in response to my experience specifically as a disabled person, all of my life experiences are informed by being disabled, and by being a woman, and growing up in the United States, etc. So disability is constantly influencing my work in ways that I’m not always aware of.
VSA and Accessibility: What advice would you give other emerging artists with disabilities?
Michelle Miles: I really suggest learning about disability arts communities, disability studies, and offering support to the peers you encounter. We really need to amplify each other’s voices, and the stronger our network of care for one another is, the stronger we all will be. I’m fortunate to live in New York where there is a strong and thriving disability arts community that has warmly welcomed me, but I’ve connected with folks from all over the world through social media and simply sending emails. Everyone I’ve spoken to in this realm has unanimously echoed that meeting others with shared experiences and learning a little bit about disability theory has always had profoundly positive effects on them, their work, and their understanding of their relationship with their identity as a disabled artist.