I’ve had some great offers for the Red Devil of R.A. Miller. I was offered a car, a mobile home (without land), 3 months free room and board in Indiana, a set of rare german beer glasses, a sparkly pen, a couple of old computers, and lots of other stuff. The thing is, I really like the Red Devil. It has a great story behind it. It has value and it looks good. So, I knew that whatever I ended up trading it for would have to be very special. I knew the devil would be leaving me when I got the following offer from Susan Johnson in Alaska.
I have a very exstensive collection of Pez. They are all unopened in the packages. Many full sets.(ie: simpsons, pooh, superfriends,tec.) I have so many I don’t even want to try and count. 4 med size moving boxes, to be exact. I am a 36 year old single mom, who has been collecting since the mid 80’s. I would like to give this a try…making the “red devil” my first trade. Hope to hear from you soon.
I thought about it. I considered waiting to see what other offers would come for the devil, but I knew instantly that this was the trade I was waiting for. Susan and I have approved the trade! Now we simply have to wait for the U.S. mail which is notoriously slow to and from both Alaska and Hawaii and I will post a picture of Susan’s Pez Collection.
For those of you following my quest to trade my old veriflex skateboard for a house, the trade for four medium size moving boxes full of unopened Pez has fallen through…. so to sum up….I traded my old veraflex skateboard
….to Bryan Dodd, an artist living in Georgia who is using the skateboard in his art for this incredible piece of folk art by the famous American Folk Artist R.A. Miller. I have included a short biography of this American Icon below the piece of art I have for trade.
I was going to trade this piece for a huge collection of Pez dispensers but details of the trade changed which caused us to mutually cancel this trade. The upshot is that this incredible piece of art was not ready to leave me. So the question is…what will you give me for the Red Devil?
R. A. Miller (1911 – 2006) – Biography                            Â
             Considered              to be one of the prominent “Elder” American              Folk Artists his work can be found in the Museum of American Folk              Art in New York.               R.A. Miller lived on the same property he was born on although              not in the same house. The original family house was destroyed              by the tornado of 1936 that              killed many              people.              He later married and found religion and started preaching at Revivals            all over Northwest Georgia.
He started to create art while in his late ’60’s after experiencing                  problems with his eyesight. He is best known for his tin cut                  out figures. His subjects include  flags, devils, roosters, and Uncle Sam. His paintings on wood or masonite                   often include dinosaurs along with a religious message. Some                  of his artwork has also been used in the music videos of the                  group R.E.M.
R.A. used a hammer to flatten discarded gutters and cuts out pieces of tin  roofing to make his cut-outs. His unique contribution to American art is well  covered  in the books Light Of The Spirit, portraits of Southern Outsider Artists (1998)  Goekjian/Leacock and Fine Folk: Art’n’Facts From The Rural South (1990) Perryman/Smith.
Miller’s work has been included in such exhibitions as Outside the Mainstream: Folk Art in Our Time at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (1988) and Passionate Visions of the American South at the New Orleans Museum of Art in Louisiana (October 1993-January 1994). Further exhibitions, the inclusion of his work      in museums’ permanent collections, and articles in such international publications as Raw Vision have contributed to Miller’s status as an elder statesman among Georgia’s self-taught artists.