Photo courtesy of Graceful Willows Photography Mobile artist SammyJo Miller works with a child at BoxCar Days in Tracy in 2023.

For the past four years, professional artist SammyJo Miller has been following her dream. Actually it’s probably two dreams.

Both dreams led Miller and her husband, Eric, to move their family from the St. Cloud area to southwest Minnesota.

“It’s been a long-time dream to publish a children’s book,” Miller said. “The dream is actually to visit schools and to talk to children about illustration and writing and literature and why that stuff is still important. Having seen an author do this when I was very young — like third, fourth grade — it’s been something I’ve wanted to do ever since.”

The book is called “I have a plan” and it’s written for kindergartners through third grade, according to Miller.

“It’s a story about a little girl who is making a plan and her plan doesn’t always work out the first time,” she said. “And it’s a book that is about making a plan, not following through on the plan, just the process of making a plan and having to rewrite that plan several times. So it’s about perseverance.”

And perseverance is something that has paid off for Miller as she takes her mobile artist services throughout southwest Minnesota since 2022.

But her story started in the St. Cloud area where her father operated two restaurants.

“I’m a third-generation artist. My grandpa was an artist — practicing artist. My dad started art school and never finished,” Miller said. “I went to art school as well. So I have been doing it (art) my whole life. I worked in a big studio in the St. Cloud area.”

But she decided she wanted to bring art opportunities to rural areas. Research led to the decision for her family to move to Walnut Grove. She said they liked that Walnut Grove was centrally located and affordable. The family eventually moved to Marshall.

“That’s what I’m doing here. I go to the rural communities and bring them our program that they didn’t have to begin with,” Miller said. “I do a lot of driving. Half my job is driving.”

According to her website, sjmillerarts.com, Miller is a mixed-media visual artist and educator based in southwest Minnesota. While she is totally mobile, Miller maintains a storage site in Walnut Grove.

“She creates public art, collaborative installations and studio works that invite curiosity and connection,” the website states.

She spreads her mission by creating partnerships with cities, libraries and art organizations across the region.

“I call myself an art entrepreneur,” Miller said. “Actually, a lot of our work is through nonprofit organizations and with government organizations. We use a lot of grant funding.”

Hendricks was the first library she worked with. Since then, she has worked with a number of libraries in the region.

“Hendricks is a pretty small library, if you can imagine. They’re kind of a small town and it was a good place to test the water. She (librarian) has a very involved youth program. So the kids come out, like we got 25 kids. And for a town that small, normally I get like 10 or 12. So it was a good turnout for the event. And I thought it was a good community to launch anything,” Miller said.

She likes to incorporate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) into her art activities.

“You are getting them interested in the science and the engineering,” Miller said. “And for me, it’s how art incorporates into the science and engineering. They go hand in hand. So be able to start their brains in kindergarten through third grade thinking about making a plan is part of what I do in my outreach.”

Miller says she will travel anywhere in southwest Minnesota to help young students with art activities. She has already driven as far as Worthington and New Ulm. She also provides art opportunities for adults at bars and wineries. Working with older students may also be in the future.

“I like to work with teenagers and that starts with doing summer art camps. So I have this program, over time, helps the community and the kids develop into making art,” she said. “So it starts with the kids in summer camps and then they become teenagers. And you have them in like a sketchbook program and you help show them how those skills actually relate to and transfer to a career. Because you have a lot of kids that love to do art. They have to figure out how to monetize it in order to do it. My goal is to help educate more kids on how they can incorporate art int their careers in the long-term.”

Miller said some of the schools have art programs using Youtube videos for instruction.

“I’m coming in to supplement that. And being mobile, I’m able to do that for a lot of communities,” she said.

Meanwhile, Miller is slowly launching the promotion of her children’s book.

“The idea was, in a world where kids are so over stimulated with all those graphics and stuff all the time, I wanted the book to be simpler than that. Easy to read, so that kids could read it on their own and be relatable. Something that they could draw even on their own.

She’s only sold 12 so far, but she’s just now getting the word out.

“I think once I start doing library visits and book signings and some summer festivals, I’m going to have books for sale. So I’m hoping we’ll get a little more then. It’s been kind of a quiet launch,” she said.