2002 Lifetime Achievement Award: Charlotte Miller

Charlotte Miller has a BA in Art History from Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, with independent study in historical embroidery. She did graduate study at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and has studied at Massachusetts College of Art, and at the Lesage School, Paris, France. She began her teaching career more than three decades ago as a volunteer art teacher for Fairfax County, Virginia, public schools, and has taught sewing, embroidery, quilting, and craft classes for Air Force Officers' Wives Clubs across the U.S.

Click here to see some pictures of Charlotte's work.

She joined the Embroiderers' Guild of America in 1975 and began teaching classes for chapters at that time. In the early 80s, she completed EGA Teacher Certification in Embroidery as Contemporary Expression (Multi-technique), and remains one of only two teachers certified in that category. She has taught for countless regional seminars for more than twenty years, at many EGA national seminars since 1987, for NAN, and for several years at the State of West Virginia's Quilt Retreat. She has also taught and lectured for various art, quilting and fiber arts organizations nationwide.

Education has always been Charlotte's primary focus. To that end, her volunteer efforts have included serving as EGA Educational Advancement Administrator, Chairman of EGA's Teacher Certification Program and Certified Teacher Graduate Program, and Evaluator for both programs for many years. She has twice served as Chairman of EGA's Challenge Program. She is a former Director and National Secretary of the Council of American Embroiderers, and has written articles for Flying Needle, Needlearts and Apprize magazines.

Charlotte's classes have always focused on the theory of creativity and developing students' abilities to produce original works. Her specialties are art-to-wear, design theory, fabric painting, hand and machine embroidery, collage, and combining varied techniques and materials into mixed media works. One of her quilted garments was juried into the first American Quilter's Society Fashion Show in Paducah, Kentucky, and she won first place in AQS's Card Contest in 1998. Her framed pieces and garments have been in invitational shows in several states, and her works are in corporate and private collections, as well as EGA's permanent collection.