Hamlin homebody: Ceramic artist Z Miles returns to West Texas to create his art

Miles Mayfield has gone many miles from where he grew up, though his ceramic creations show how far he has come since he discovered art while taking an elective at McMurry University.

Mayfield, 34, currently is exhibiting with his former teacher, Kathie Walker-Miller, in an exhibit humorously titled "Two Pyromaniacs Elbow to Elbow" at the Center for Contemporary Arts. Their work can be viewed through Feb. 4.

Miles lives in Hamlin, where he grew up. He ventured to East Texas for graduate study at the University of Texas-Tyler. But he admits to being a homebody, someone who appreciates West Texas. Especially the horizons. He didn't realize how much until he was in Tyler and saw trees when he looked west.

"I've always been from Hamlin. Best guess, my family was the fourth or fifth in town," he said by phone from his home, his cockatiel joining the conversation.

The bird was a gift from his late grandparents, given about 25 years ago.

"Every time she hears me on the phone," he said, "she has to get a word in."

His day job

Well-known Abilene artist Anthony Brown's day job, until he retired, was a house painter.

So, painting on a canvas rather than a wall wasn't much of a change at day's end.

Mayfield is a probation officer. That's more night and day.

He has done that for the past 7½ years in Jones and Shackelford counties. The job anchors him, giving him time for family and his art ventures.

"My ancestors were the first pharmacists here. It was always home," he said. Hamlin was incorporated into a township in 1907. "I live in my grandparents' house, and my parents both live here."

The outsider in the immediate family is his sister, who lives far away - 42 miles to the southeast in Abilene.

He graduated from Hamlin High in 2007 and journeyed to Abilene to enroll at McMurry with pre-med and math intentions.

"I decided to take an art class as my elective and I took a ceramics class. The rest is history," he said. "I changed my major that semester."

His entered into the art world as outreach coordinator at The Grace Museum for a short time under Jana Bailey, he said,

He graduated from McMurry in 2010.

Mayfield made the trip east to study under Gary Hatcher at UTT. Professor of studio art there, Hatcher, who studied in England, France and Greece before settling in East Texas, is well known across Texas for his ceramic pieces and as an instructor.

He and his wife, Daphne, operate Pine Mills Studio near Mineola.

"It's wonderful out there. I like to go visit them because it's so beautiful," he said.

Getting his MFA in 2014, Mayfield returned to Hamlin to assist a grandparent in declining health, and to find work. A county job opened, one that was flexible enough to let him focus on his grandparent if needed.

"Odd jobs. I wasn't sure if I wanted to teach or not," he said. But he kept making his ceramics, and his work was in galleries.

"I paint, too, but ceramics is my thing," he said.

He did get into teaching, returning to McMurry. He still is there, teaching a beginning ceramics class and an advanced techniques and wheel-throwing class. Though he began teaching at 21 and now is xx, he considers himself still new to instruction.

Studio? No. Gathering place? Yes

Upon his return to Hamlin, he bought the former Reynold's drugstore, which had been closed for about 10 years. He knew the history of the building because of his family's history in town.

"I am a big family history person," he said.

He said some of the oldest items in the drugstore once belonged to his family. There is a long history between the two families, Mayfield said.

"I wanted to buy it and use it as ..., I don't really know, actually. I thought it was going to be more of a working studio for myself. It turns out, it's really a hangout after the football games on Friday nights for the kids and families" he said. "A family friendly place that we sometimes open on the weekend, but definitely after football games.

"It's not really a work space for me. I currently work out of my house and also through a studio provided to me at McMurry while I'm teaching there."

In his spare time, he's co-president of the chamber of commerce in Hamlin and vice president of the local alumni association.

"I don't have kids so I'm involved in other things," Mayfield said.

Changing his perspective on horizons

Mayfield's exhibit at CCA is a mix of more artistic pieces and those that are functional.

"I think something that has always been the underlying and prevalence of my work is that I am inspired by communities, groups and colonies," he said. "Both microscopic and macroscopic in the course of all time. Also, horizon lines have always been prevalent in my work.

When I moved to East Texas, the horizons that I was used to out here in West Texas went up about 30 feet because of the trees. It really changed my work. It made me look more at the world in front of me. It went from seeing this large-scale horizon to focusing on the smaller things in the work in front of me because I couldn't get that full horizon. Here, I can walk out in the street and see the edge of town and on for miles.

"I couldn't do that in East Texas."

Thus, in 2012, his sculpture style became more defined.

A couple of pieces on display are tubular.

"I kind of use those as a building mechanism," he said. It's a tool to him but people viewing his piece may interpret the piece as coral."

For Mayfield, those remind him of cells he viewed in science classes, both human and plant.

"That's what I mean by microscopic and macroscopic," he said. He saw that in East Texas, viewing a large area of trees that form a community but also picking out individual trees.

"I've connected it in a lot of ways," he said, mentioning, too, his connection to the past through his family. "Weird artist things.

"Stacking memories, too, is in my work."

Functional means ... functional

Mayfield enjoyed the opportunity to exhibit with Walker-Millar, who was his instructor "back in the beginning," he said.

There was an opening for Gallery 4 - a smaller exhibit space - and it was her idea to do a show.

He has exhibited at CCA before, though he is not yet an artist member.

"We had talked about having some ceramics shows affiliated with the university. This just came about," he said. "Let's do a full ceramic show together. Of course, we share a studio together, so it was nice to exhibit generationally, too. She was a teacher of mine. (Now) we're colleagues. Where are we moving?

"We are inspired by one another and pushed by one another."

Her work includes functional pieces. There a teapot with a cat lid in the exhibit, already purchased.

"But functional things I really learned from Gary Hatcher. If it's functional, have it be functional. A good, functional pot doesn't have tricks. It's very different from sculpture even though they have the same medium," Mayfield said. "So if it's going to be a pitcher, it needs to function as a pitcher.

"You have to think about, someone can buy those and they can last a lifetime."

As for the Z ...

If you've read this far but still want to know what the Z stands for, it's Zachary. Mayfield's first name.

"I've never gone by it," he said. "But in the art world, I do go by Z Miles."