Initially influenced by her grandmother, an oil painter of Southern California and then living in West Germany as a military child, Chattanooga artist, Lora Miller describes herself as creatively scattered. Exposed to so much art and culture, yet uprooted so often, had lifelong effects. Her work seeks out simple and uncomplicated subjects; seeing color, light, movement and pattern dispersed in the familiar places of life.

She enjoys painting encounters from her camera gathering subjects of inspiration to paint. Painting out in the open air using watercolor paint and paper allow her to capture the depth of nature and realism when that is what she chooses. Many of these paintings become larger canvas works painted with acrylics, collage and/or mixed media.

She has lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee for her teen and adult life; so often her artwork depicts characteristics of the Southeastern United States in nature or landscape. And creatively scattered is her excuse to take creative adventure whenever she feels like it!

She describes her work as impressionism inspired from real life. After sketching a subject she enjoys interjecting mark making that gives an intriguing feel to the subject when completed. Using this method can turn the subject abstract, or into a collage or mixed media. She allows the process to direct her work with expression, color, technic, and design.

Lora attended her community college, CSTCC 1978/79 majoring in Advertising Arts Technology for one year before being hired by the local newspaper, Chattanooga News Free Press in the pasteup & layout department. In 1985 she became a Creative Home consultant in order to work from home after the birth of her second child. She learned to do wall stenciling from working with this company and soon started an interior wall stenciling business until she began homeschooling her daughter. While homeschooling she taught various children, teens and adults watercolor as well as art technics. As her children became teens, Lora took several classes from local artists. In the late 1990s/early 2000s she tried her hand at portraiture and pet portraits and begin commissions. Then in 2003/2004 she went back to CSTCC to take color, black/white photography and darkroom as well as business coursework. In 2006 she joined the Civic Arts League and served on the board as well as President for two years. She found employment with a framing shop for two years to learn framing. In 2011 she was hired by Reflections Gallery in Chattanooga as a gallery assistant and later became their official artist liaison till 2019. In May 2019 she resigned her position with the Reflections to pursue her work with a greater intensity. At the same time she began exhibiting with public markets in Chattanooga till Covid-19 shut the markets temporarily. The shut down presented large amounts of creative time especially with YouTube art tutorials. It was then that the scale of her work grew from small and medium watercolor originals to large scale canvas’. She joined an art mentorship program with Matt Tommey of Created to Thrive. It was then that she not only did four years of coarse work in one year, but also launched her online store LoraArtworks.com. Needless to say the mentorship was well worth it.

Lora’s focus is primarily on original work and offers open edition prints from her website and some venues. She paints commissioned work upon her review and acceptance. Lora sells her work in her online shop here on LoraArtworks.com. Presently she is developing a new series of artwork to be released either this Fall or early 2027.

August 4, 2026 she will be at Two Mountains Fine Art & Craft Show with works of Southern Vibe.

From September-Thanksgiving 2026, she will be taking part in the Chattanooga Public Markets on varying weekends. She will announce those dates by email and social media.

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• Plum Nelly Shop & Gallery, 330 Frazier Ave # 104, Chattanooga., TN 37405. (Easy Parking in Rear) 423-266-0585