The Treasury
Installation at Open Studios, Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam, The Netherlands
June 2024
The Treasury is a body of work that tells a story of Peg Miller, an American artist who lived in a bank building in Spring Green, Wisconsin for the last thirty years of her life. This neoclassical revival building was registered as a national historic site after her death, which I speculate would not have been possible without Peg’s occupancy. She used the bank as a home, a studio, and sometimes, a place to help other women maintain sobriety. Peg was a recovered alcoholic.
The Treasury includes a 12-minute video work that uses puppets to tell anecdotes shared in interviews, alongside footage from inside the bank – which has been repurposed into a restaurant. Often historically used to share dissident stories, puppetry is used here to perform a collective recollection of an artist who survived addiction and made her own economy. A small history becomes a portrait of both an artists’ life and the disturbance of a financial institution’s transition. This is a memorial for a joyful misuse of space.
An annotated script, a large painted quilt made from found and gifted fabric, and a welded steel work the size of my bedroom window are also works included in The Treasury.
Peg Miller is my mother’s aunt. I might have met her once. my only memories are black walls and patterned, or frightening, paintings.
- -Lili Huston-Herterich
