‘Where the experimental can blossom’: Performance space renamed in honor of beloved late local artist and musician, Charlie Miller

The performance space at NEVAmuseum/Anchor House of Artists, a local art gallery and studio space in Northampton for neurodiverse artists, was recently renamed in honor of late local artist and musician Charlie Miller, who was a longtime supporter of the gallery and showed work there for years.

The space is now called the Charles Miller Experimental Performance Arena, billed as “a noncommercial, sober, open space performance opportunity for emerging and professional musicians, poets, and theater to conduct polished and experimental works in the making.”

NEVAmuseum Founding Director Michael Tillyer described the space as “intimate, noncommercial, organic, where the experimental can blossom into something” and “a venue where seasoned professionals can perform without pressure,” opening “a path to healing and career advancement for many.”

Still, the space isn’t particularly big – why the word “arena?”

An arena, Tillyer said, is “a place to hear; it’s a place to experience.”

“A lot of musicians have to play in bars and they’re there to sell drinks, it’s not about the music,” he said. “We want to be totally about the music, about the performance, about the poetry, about the theater.” 

Miller, who died last summer at the age of 92, was a painter and a conga drummer. His paintings featured subjects like deep space, fellow musicians, and human-made disasters like oil spills and the 9/11 attacks.

“His music enhanced his painting, and his painting enhanced his music,” said Judith Fine, who was married to Miller for 30 years before they divorced, but remained close after their separation. Last November, Fine organized a celebration of life and retrospective art show at the museum in Miller’s honor.

The museum inaugurated the Arena last week on Friday, Oct. 3, with an event that featured a performance by the group Band of Brothers, all of whose members knew Miller personally. Some of them, in fact, became subjects in his paintings. 

One of those musicians was flautist and saxophonist Jon Weeks, who met Miller in Northampton in the 1970s. It wasn’t long before the two became part of a band they called The Northampton Street Musicians, which performed at places like the Northampton State Hospital and a local jail – “anywhere we could play,” Weeks said.

“We weren’t really making any money,” Weeks said, “but we were playing together and having fun.”

To Weeks, Miller was “almost like a father figure,” he said. When Weeks needed a place to stay when he was home from school in Boston, he’d stay in Miller’s studio in downtown Northampton, which was filled with black and white paintings.

Trudy Hooks, who was friends with Miller since the 1970s, was part of the committee that organized the inaugural event. She remembered Miller as “a good guy” who was “one-of-a-kind,” “a sweet man and a complicated guy at the same time, and very, very much devoted to Judith.”

“Charlie was a really deep thinker,” she added. “He was a quirky guy, as so many artists are. He had a keen sense of humor; he really got a chuckle out of a lot of things. He was so devoted to his work.” 

Fine brought a unique piece of music to the event: a recording of Miller performing conga music made 15 to 20 years ago.

“It was transporting,” Tillyer said. “It brought in all the complexity of life.” Even though the machine playing the music wasn’t very loud, he said, “You didn’t need the volume to receive the beauty of the piece.”

That event was also a fundraiser for the museum’s new Emerging Artist Fund, which will provide honoraria to artists who perform at the space. Applying to it is an informal process: “That looks like a discussion,” Tillyer said, in which the gallery and the artist talk about “what they want to do, what they need, what they have. We’re trying to make it possible for new artists [who] there isn’t a venue for.”

A previous performance, for example, involved a harpist who played with dissonance as a way of venting her frustration with the mental healthcare system. It was unconventional, but, Tillyer said, “It needs to be listened to by people who know what they’re getting into.”

Another past performance involved a local theater group doing a production of “King Lear” set in 1936 Portugal, which Tillyer said was “a brilliant piece.”

“We want to keep that spirit going,” Tillyer said. “We want to remain different.”

The next performance there will be on Friday, Oct. 10, as part of Arts Night Out. Artist Tasha Robbins will showcase a collection of street portraits on cardboard starting at 5 p.m., followed by piano music and spoken word from Eliot Cardinaux, then poetry by Shana Bulham and Niamh Timmons, at 8 p.m.

Now that the performance space has opened with its new name, Fine’s next step in honoring Miller’s legacy is to finish setting up a website showcasing his work.

“My push right now since Charlie’s passing is to keep his legacy alive, and to name a space after him is certainly one fabulous way to do it,” Fine said. “I’ve got several hands in the fire just working to keep his art and his name in the hearts and the minds of people that love art and good music.”

The NEVAmuseum is open Wednesday through Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m. and has public receptions on the second Friday of each month from 5 to 8 p.m. Admission is $10, suggested donation. For more information, visit neva-museum.org.

Carolyn Brown can be reached at cbrown@gazettenet.com.