I don’t remember the first time I encountered Tom Miller’s work. His early 1990s murals on North Avenue and Harford Road have always been a few miles away from where I lived. In my optimistic recollection, I imagine they are among the first art pieces I saw, perhaps just after I was born, as I was being driven home from the hospital.
But I distinctly remember the day when I stopped at the red light on North Avenue and got truly lost in one of his murals. I sat with the giant Black figure holding the book and read the words inside: “However far the stream flows, it never forgets its source.” Behind the figure was a tropical environment that resembled a beach on the West African coast. A palm tree snaked along the chimney of the building while birds sat reading the book like a familiar spirit. The sun setting behind the building helped to echo and emphasize the pink and blue sky in the mural. Suddenly, I was snapped out of my immersion in the work by the beeping sounds of cars behind me. The light was green and it was time for me to keep driving.
That day, I promised to spend a little more time with this mural every time I passed by. To me, Miller is a quintessential Baltimore artist. His use of bright colors, mythical motifs, and inventive techniques feel like something that can only come from an artist from this city. He references arabbers and crab feasts, and is influenced by Dahomey textiles and the sounds of the city. When I look at the work that I have made in the past and continue to make, there is a clear influence from Miller. And I’m far from being the only one that feels that way.
In 1995, Mayor Kurt Schmoke declared February 18, “Tom Miller Day,” and in 2021, Deyane Moses of the Maryland Institute Black Archive, expanded Schmoke’s concept to “Tom Miller Week,” archiving his history and importance.
“Everyone knows his murals on North Avenue and Harford Road and on the Cherry Hill library, but not enough people know him and his story,” she says.
Miller attended George Washington Carver Vocational-Technical High School, and, after graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art, taught art in Baltimore City Public Schools for 20 years. Then Leslie King-Hammond told Miller about a graduate scholarship at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He took a huge risk and went back to school to become a full-time artist. “It involved a lot of sacrifice, but I knew what I wanted to do,” he told John Dorsey for The Baltimore Sun in 1995. “I was really scared.”
Around the same time, Joyce J. Scott asked Miller to be a part of a show she was curating of objects that artists had made for themselves. He worked on a tea cart for his dining room for the exhibition and began to hone his signature style of objects and furniture from there.
In 1995, eight years after receiving a graduate degree from MICA, Miller became the first African American painter from Baltimore to have a solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The show, “A Tom Miller Retrospective: Decorated Furniture,” curated by King-Hammond and Lowery Stokes Sims, led to even more acclaim on a local and national level.
Like the murals that most Baltimoreans know him for today, Miller’s furniture is colorful, satirical, enigmatic, joyful, and dense. As seen from the title of the show, “Decorated Furniture,” it was really his furniture that caught the eye of many viewers in the ’90s. For example, “Sea Nymphs (Wanda and Towanda)” (1995), a brightly acrylic-painted recycled chair, toes the line between mysticism, Black mythology, and history. The two Black sea creatures are rendered fluid and organic, staring at each other as their bodies move throughout the chair from the arms to the legs. Although typically discussed in terms of Art Deco — Miller coined the term Afro-Deco — in the catalogue, Sims points to the African and folk influence in his work, noting that Miller’s work is influenced by Dahomey textiles, 18th century French furniture makers, and 19th century African Americans “who successfully created a synthesis of African decoration and European cabinetry.” “Sea Nymphs” is in the same creative ecosystem as Wangechi Mutu’s “Water Woman” (2017) and Beyte Saar’s “Black Girl’s Window” (1969).
“Mama’s Little Rock and Roll Baby” (1991), a piece Miller made out of a child’s rocking chair bells, patent leather shoes, and cotton socks, shows the more satirical side of his work. The piece rocks and rolls as the bells jingle to the tune of the chair, which becomes humanized with the shoes and socks. The bitten watermelon at the top of the chair is a gesture of Black visual satire and critique. “I think if you take a stereotype and make it larger than life and familiarize people with it, it loses its stereotypical power and becomes something else,” Miller said in regards to his work.
On the Tom Miller Week website, Moses outlines one of his most vulnerable pieces, “Rockin’ at Heaven’s Gate” (1994), which “explicitly represents the final chapter of Miller’s battle with AIDS.”
“The single wooden rocking chair orients the viewer upward looking towards the heavens. The chair’s seat depicts an evening sky with fluffy, white, and blue clouds–partially obstructed by a green tree with pink flowers. The rocker and chair-back reference pearly white gates of heaven shining brightly. The arms are painted bright yellow with small red polka dots. The black, yellow, white, and red ribbed segments, as well as the checkerboard pattern, represent the state flag of his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland; but more significantly the artist’s final resting place.”
Although he was frequently written about in the ’90s, few of the articles explicitly mention Miller’s sexuality except in regards to his death by AIDS. Articles with headlines like “Baltimore artist Tom Miller succumbs to AIDS” mark the artist’s legacy without the proper visual analysis of the queerness displayed in his work.
Even in this confrontation with a life-ending condition and overwhelming stigma, Miller imbued a serious topic with his hopeful Afro-Deco visual vocabulary. Although he was frequently written about in the ’90s, few of the articles explicitly mention Miller’s sexuality except in regards to his death by AIDS. Articles with headlines like “Baltimore artist Tom Miller succumbs to AIDS” mark the artist’s legacy without the proper visual analysis of the queerness displayed in his work. To go back to the early ’90s mural “However far the stream flows, it never forgets its source,” you can see the queerness in the way the figure is articulated, the femininity in the pose alongside the towering masculine figure. We can even go as far to think about the figure being on a queer beach, waiting for his friends before they drink and blast music while looking at the sunset. Miller’s technique is also queer in the use of recycled or abandoned furniture and its use of color to convey dense and dark concepts, the boldness and willingness to use what is left behind.
Five years after his successful and historical retrospective, Baltimore lost one of its most important artists. It was another reminder of the failure of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the healthcare system, and the American public to provide support to queer and trans folks during the AIDS epidemic. In his final years, Miller left his home studio and proceeds from further screenprints to the LGBTQ clinic Chase Brexton. The queer politics shown in the gestures, techniques, and advocacy only made the work richer. Although he’s no longer with us, his contributions and undeniable influence bleeds through a lot of Baltimore artists, a true testament to his artistic talent and the power of public art.
“Tom Miller is like a godfather to us all, I saw his spirit come through other people’s work” said artist and curator Ky Vassor, whose 2021 exhibition “The Coal Scuttle Legacy” is inspired by Miller’s book with Camay Calloway Murphy, “Can a Coal Scuttle Fly?”
In 2025, Tom Miller Week culminated with the exhibition “Out of the Woodwork! Bringing Tom Miller’s Legacy to Light.” The show included furniture, prints, videos, archival documents, and videos that hadn’t been exhibited or shown in decades. Moses spent five years researching and meeting with museums and collectors as well as Miller’s family and friends to create a show that was, she says, “her heart and soul.”
Tom Miller Week has a long list of goals, including starting a scholarship for Carver Vocational-Tech students, showcasing rare works, promoting Black arts, inspiring young artists, and starting a nonprofit called Friends of Tom Miller with the goal of preserving his murals. This year’s Tom Miller Week is centered around an online call to action on February 18 at 6 p.m. to preserve “However far the stream flows, it never forgets its source.”
“Just like how Tom Miller took discarded things and made sure it was beautiful, now we have to do the same for him,” Moses says. There is still a lot of important cultural remembrance to keep his legacy alive, not just for Moses and Tom Miller Week, but for all of us. He is a vital part of Black history, queer history, art history, and Baltimore history. And the most exciting thing about Moses’ projects is that, like the artist they are inspired by, at the core they are dedicated to joy and community.
Miller asks us to be hopeful in the darkest times, to take risks, prioritize play, and be a good community member. He pushes us to romanticize our daily lives. He encourages us to be a fierce advocate, give back, and pay it forward.
It has been more than 30 years since Miller’s groundbreaking exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art and 26 years since his passing. With the constant stream and reality of bad news and dread, it is easy to fall into overwhelm, learned helplessness, and despair today. Times like this are when the work and politics of Miller are most important. Although Miller stopped teaching in Baltimore, we are still learning from him today. Miller asks us to be hopeful in the darkest times, to take risks, prioritize play, and be a good community member. He pushes us to romanticize our daily lives. He encourages us to be a fierce advocate, give back, and pay it forward. His commissioned piece for Chase Brexton puts it the best: “Hope Lives Here.” There is a reason why February 18 was named Tom Miller Day in 1995 and why there is a Tom Miller Week in the 2020s.
There is a reason why his work still resonates and inspires projects and exhibitions today. To echo the Yoruba proverb referenced in Miller’s work, he has now become a “source” of inspiration and hope for Baltimore.
Correction: In an earlier version, this story erroneously credited Miller as the first Black artist from Baltimore to have a solo show at the BMA; he was the first Black painter from Baltimore to do so. We regret the error.