Allie Miller, an art enthusiast since childhood, has a particular fondness for functional pottery and realistic embroidery. Miller’s piece in the Student Art Exhibition, Emma, is a hyper-realistic embroidered portrait of her childhood pet chicken, created as a tribute to the beloved animal.

To create this portrait, Miller began with an up-close photograph of Emma’s head and used a software program to break the image down into several colors. She then matched these colors with a collection of vintage, discontinued thread as well as some newer, readily available threads. Miller’s technique involves working from the outside of the piece inward. She shared that the most challenging aspect of the portrait—created over the course of her freshman to junior years in college—was capturing the texture of the wrinkled skin in the featherless area around the chicken’s eye. To achieve this intricate texture, she carefully revisited this area multiple times, often adding a single thread at a time to perfect the details.

Miller’s dedication to detail and patience in creating this deeply personal and highly detailed work showcases her skill and passion for embroidery as an art form.