Picking up where we left off last time with me telling you about Doug Miller, the artist, photographer, musician, husband, father and all-around amazing dude from Laguna Beach. We talked about his background in the Navy and about his photography last time. Let’s jump into his art.
Like with his photography skills, Doug’s painting skills were honed while in the Navy. As I did last time, I am letting Doug tell you the story in his own words from an online interview I did with him a couple of weeks ago.
“As for painting, I liked drawing as a kid. But I like to draw phone poles, electric towers, oil derricks and mountains,” he said. “Didn’t like school assignments and I couldn’t stay within the lines – drew a mural of the LA Basin in the fourth grade. Loved art in grade school, but I was just ordinary – took art at Long Beach City College. And music, a year of each.
“Aboard the Bennington, I had painted a couple small murals on the bulkhead of our compartment – cowboys and Indians and covered wagons for the fun of it. And later a much larger mural by the chief’s quarters,” he said. “They made a big impression on some of the guys. After being transferred to the Ticonderoga, CVS 14, which was coming into dry dock in Long Beach for an overhaul, I was back to just doing scullery duty and later on I was on fire watch by the Admiral’s quarters, where you sit with a fire bottle by a welder and see that he doesn’t start a fire.
“Admiral came by followed by a very ebullient woman, an interior decorator who looked at the nearby bulkhead and said, ‘A painting would look good here,’ and I chirped, ‘I paint murals!’ And she replied cheerily, ‘You do?’ almost like it was some kind of Buster Keaton movie script,” Doug said. “I explained I took art at Long Beach City College and I’d painted aboard the Bennington. “
Doug said three weeks later he was called to see the executive officer. But instead of being in trouble,…
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