CLAIRE MILES
Button Down Gown
found dress, upcycled buttons
54” x 16” x 16”
DESCRIPTION
Button Down Gown is a second-hand woman’s dress with delicately
sewn in, light colored buttons all along the structure of the dress.
Extending across the dress vertically and horizontally, the buttons are an
embellishment to the dress, adding a shiny and opalescent texture. The
buttons of varying sizes and colors have been collected by the artist’s
family over the past few decades. They have been thoughtfully arranged,
to highlight the individuality of each button, giving them a new purpose
to exhibit the importance, and laborious difficulty of upcycling a garment.
Claire Miles is a Michigan-born artist currently studying at the Cleveland Institute of Art, pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Drawing with a focus on Creative Writing. Her works center on the theme of self-reflection through depictions of nature, self-portraiture, and skeletal forms, with her journaling and poetry often being a source of artistic inspiration. Miles works with a variety of mediums but is often drawn to the expressive qualities of charcoal and chalk pastels. Claire Miles has had her art featured in the Purdue Fort Wayne Juried Student Art Exhibition, the Transformer Station in association with the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Reinberger Gallery during the 78th Student Independent Exhibition, where she was awarded the Christopher Gentner Creativity Award. Claire Miles currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio.