Dan's Cover Artist Ben Miller Paints with a Fly Fishing Rod at Hamptons Fine Art Fair

The July 5, 2024 cover of Dan’s Papers features the artwork of esteemed painter Ben Miller, who is a Spotlight Artist at the 2024 Hamptons Fine Art Fair (HFAF) on July 11–14. Here, HFAF Executive Director Rick Friedman discusses Miller’s “Accabonac Creek” cover art, his upcoming live “action painting” and more exciting happenings at this year’s Hamptons Fine Art Fair.

Hamptons Fine Art Fair Director Talks Ben Miller

How is this week’s cover art, “Accabonac Creek” by Ben Miller, representative of the artistic voice and style seen in Miller’s portfolio?

In short, Ben the Fly-Cast Painter meets Jack the Dripper on this cover.

Shortly after Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner moved to their East Hampton property in The Springs, in fall 1945, Pollock began his famed Accabonac Creek series of paintings. Pollock, an outdoorsman from Cody, Wyoming, loved nature and often explored the Accabonac Creek, marsh and harbor that neighbored his property.

For six years, I have followed the career of Montana based artist Ben Miller, who is also pioneering another innovative method of applying paint to plexiglass — using his fly-casting technique to cast hand-made fly brushes laden with paint onto transparent plexiglass. Miller has been traveling the nation, painting endangered waterways in efforts to bring public and private attention to this important issue. He has worked with the Friends of the Chicago River, Hudson Riverkeepers, Environmental Defense Club and others. Accabonac Harbor, one of the East End’s most scenic and diverse tidal marsh systems and bird watchers’ paradise, has been tested and monitored for excess levels of enterococcus bacteria.

Now, 78 years later, Miller, a Spotlight Artist at HFAF, with his amazing fly-casting technique, reinterprets Pollock’s “Accabonac Creek” series for this July 5 Dan’s Papers cover (detail), as he paints the creek behind Pollock’s house in efforts to bring awareness to this local issue. It takes careful thinking and training to turn his fly rod into a paint brush. The result is a complex abstraction — mystical, ethereal, with a 3D effect of looking into flowing and undulating waves of water.

What sets a Spotlight Artist like Ben Miller apart from other artists exhibiting at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair?

Miller’s work will be represented and displayed by the legendary art dealer Gary Snyder Fine Art (oxbowgallery.com) at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair, alongside eye-opening works from other blue-chip artists Snyder pioneered in his 40-year career: Vivian Springford, Janet Sobel, Thomas Dowling and Milton Resnick.

In addition, Ben Miller will be painting another major interpretation of Accabonac Creek, in a majestic, mural-like 5-by-7-foot format in a separate tent next to the fair entrance, on July 11, 12 and 13, exhibiting his amazing fly-cast painting prowess to the public. Since he paints the work from the back of the plexiglass, this extraordinary “action painting” piece will then be finalized and revealed at the fair on Saturday, July 13, at 3 p.m.

This dramatic work will then be available for sale to our attendees for $30,000, and a portion of proceeds to be donated to the SoFo Museum (South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center) in Bridgehampton.

What efforts are being made to make the 2024 Hamptons Fine Art Fair more diverse in terms of minority artists featured, and in what ways does exhibiting at HFAF benefit artists?

As such, HFAF offers emerging and mid-career artists from a wide-ranging 20 countries and a record 142 galleries an important platform for impactful exposure. The news of the Hamptons is the news of the world. In addition to our 10,000 art fair guests, our HFAF website gets 180,000 viewers so that these artists and galleries are now being seen on a worldwide basis. We are pleased to present on July 11–14 a broad and diverse selection of women artists, artists of color, LGBTQ+ artists — many new voices and perspectives from all corners of the world alongside our usual post-war blue-chip names.

Would you like to share any closing thoughts or info about the Hamptons Fine Art Fair?

With 600-plus respected artists on display, and a rich educational programming schedule, there is a lot to see and experience.

Also worth noting, the world-renowned contemporary dance company Parsons Dance will perform, dancing in the aisle on July 11 at the VIP Opening Preview Sessions at 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.

And I invite readers to attend our Hamptons Artists Hall of Fame induction on July 13 at 11:30 a.m., our Young Collectors Party on July 12 from 5–8 p.m. (including the MoMA and Frick Young Collector members)and our trendy event on July 13 from 5–8 p.m., “The White Party,” featuring a performance by dancer/artist Annika Rhea in white leotard, using her entire body to create a complex abstraction.

The Hamptons Fine Art Fair takes place on July 11–14 at the Southampton Fairgrounds, 605 County Road 39, Southampton. For tickets and more information, visit hamptonsfineartfair.com.

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