The art of living

Published 4:00 am Saturday, November 4, 2006

Another auction item is this ceramic and steel sculpture by Washington artist Barry Namm, who was represented by the Millers and their Sunbird Gallery.

Steve Miller plans to walk again.

He’s got places to go and things to do. He wants to visit kids and grandchildren – in Australia, Portland and San Diego – and he’d like to travel. He’d like to do the things that retirement affords.

But first, he’s got a ”bit of a detour” to navigate.

In April, just days after he and wife Sandra closed the doors of their Sunbird Gallery in downtown Bend – after more than 25 years – Steve flipped over the top of his mountain bike. He was on his way downtown from his west Bend home, commuting along a route he had taken hundreds of times. Somehow, while going over a small dirt berm on the side of Century Drive, he pitched forward and landed on his back.

It was an accident with horrific results. Steve, 66, was left partially paralyzed.

”I bruised my spinal cord, a contusion at (the C-3 vertebrae), which means I’m lucky to be breathing; I could be on a ventilator,” said Steve, who was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident. ”I have movement in my legs, trunk and one arm. I can usually feed myself when it’s not soup. All these things are pluses.”

Indeed, they are. But Steve’s movement is limited.

He’s making progress, but it’s slow coming. Initially, the Millers held out hope the paralyzation might be temporary, but as the days go by, the impact of Steve’s injury hits home.

”The realization sets in that this is going to be affecting us the rest of our lives,” said Steve.

The Millers’ lives are forever changed. Instead of a tandem-bike trip and converting their beloved 1990 Mercedes into a biodiesel car, the Millers have had to change plans. They sold the Mercedes and their camping van to buy a specialized vehicle to haul Steve and his wheelchair, and they are renovating their garage to turn it into a master bedroom, as the existing one is on their home’s second floor.

The new bedroom will also have a handicap-enabled shower and bathroom, as well as space to store his therapy equipment. ”It can even function as a bus stop,” Steve joked, ”because it will be ADA-approved.”

Steve is also looking forward to being reunited with Sandra. He currently sleeps on a slim hospital bed in their living room, and it’s not big enough for two.

A bigger bed, a new car and an addition to their house. In other circumstances, they sound extravagant. In this case, they are necessary. Add a full-time caregiver, and the Millers have a daunting pile of bills.

They also have an incredible number of friends. Artists whose careers they groomed and represented, longtime customers and employees, and myriad individuals the couple worked with during their many years promoting their business and supporting Bend’s many festivals and nonprofits.

The friends have banded together to do what they can. Sunday, a fundraising auction will take place at St. Charles Medical Center-Bend (see ”If You Go”), and it will feature hundreds of items donated by Central Oregonians whose lives have been touched by the Millers.

There are paintings by a who’s who-like list of area artists, including Rick Bartow, Lynn Rothan, Mary Ann Kruse, Tomasz Misztal, Judith Sparks, Kathy Deggendorfer, Judy Hoiness, Janice Druian, Joey Van Blokland, Vicki Shuck and Justyn Livingston.

There are sculptures by Danae Bennett-Miller, Cary Lathan Weigand, Barry Namm, Bill Rutherford and Hugh Townley; pottery and ceramics by Peter Meyer, Vance Perry, Dave and Bonny Deal, Pat Horsley and Natalie Warren; decorative masks by Lillian Pitt and Phillip Charette; and photography by Loren Irving, Charles Blakeslee, Roscoe Creed, Lynn Pizzo, Tom Merrow, Mary Alice Wilson and George Jolokai.

There are also pieces from internationally recognized artists, such as a signed, limited edition Picasso lithograph, and a signed print by Chagall.

There are a variety of trips, vacation packages and adventure items, as well. For instance, a two-week stay in Nambucca Heads, Australia, a weeklong stay in an apartment on the French Riviera, a tour of Tumalo’s chimpanzee sanctuary and a chance to fire the ”dragon kiln” with renowned Astoria artist Richard Rowland.

The list goes on.

”The response has been overwhelming,” said Steve.

Added Sandra: ”It’s very encouraging … we never thought we’d be in this situation. It was always the other way around, us donating to other things.”

One artist who donated to the auction is Bennett-Miller (no relation), a Tumalo-based sculptor who crafted the horse in the roundabout at Newport Avenue and Ninth Street. The Millers represented Bennett-Miller, and she said she feels honored to be a part of their life.

”I felt a great feeling of friendship and trust,” she said. ”I knew they always worked for me and had my interest in mind, too. You could feel they really cared about and loved art.”

The Millers do love art. Their house is full of paintings and sculpture. A former art teacher, Sandra, 64, was the public side of the gallery, talking with customers and consulting artists on how best to find success. Steve worked upstairs, in the gallery’s frame shop, where he built frames and managed the gallery’s business side.

Steve, who was raised on a ranch in California’s Gold Country, near the town of Pilot Hill, Calif., was a natural in the shop, Sandra said. Steve agrees, saying that framing was his life’s calling.

It might not have been, however. As a young man, Steve earned a Ph.D. in German from the University of California, Davis. When he met Sandra, he was teaching the language at The University of New England in Armidale, Australia.

Steve was having second thoughts about teaching, however. After five years at the school, he’d had enough, and he moved with a friend to Bend with the idea that the two would open a store and escape the rat race.

After a year in Bend, Steve was joined by Sandra. She took a job in a frame shop behind the Bend Color Center on Greenwood Avenue. When the framer left, Sandra took over, and when the owner of the business said he wanted to use the space, the Millers bought the business.

The following year, they moved their frame shop downtown. Rents were cheap in 1980: 25 cents a square foot, Steve said. Sandra started putting art on the walls, and it sold. Their business was born.

Those years were lean, when downtown Bend resembled a ghost town. The Millers and other business owners did what they could to make it a draw. Steve said they picked up trash, put on monthly art shows and did what they could to cross-promote the town’s various festivals. For many years, Steve said, a common sight in December was of him in a cherry picker, stringing up Christmas lights.

The Millers spent up to six days a week at the gallery. When they closed it on March 31, they had a long list of projects and vacation plans.

The accident has been hard on the Millers. Steve, obviously, but also Sandra, who has become a de facto nurse, on-call 24 hours a day. They have found support, however, from friends and family, and for the first time, Sandra said, ”I felt what it feels like to be supported by prayer.”

After the auction is over, the Millers’ next adventure will be winter. And in spring, they are hoping their remodel will be done. In the meantime, Steve continues his therapy. He spends most of his day doing it. No daytime TV at the Millers’ home, he said.

Steve also likes to read, but he’s limited to magazines. As he only has use of his right arm, he can only read items that can lie flat. The Millers are looking for some way to remedy that.

The Millers are learning lots these days about many things they thought they never would. Things like stem cell research, the regenerative properties of nerves and clinical trials. And Steve is hopeful he’ll learn to walk again.

”I’ll be walking for sure, whatever it looks like.”

If You Go

What: The Heart of Art, an auction to benefit Steve Miller

When: 2 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: St. Charles Medical Center-Bend, Conference Room at the Main Entrance, 2500 N.E. Neff Road, Bend

Cost: $35 per person or $60 per couple

Contact: 389-5693 or www.heartofart.org

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