Welcome back to the Flylords original series: Artist Spotlight, exploring the space where art and fly fishing meet. In this installment, I sat down with Ben Miller—an artist whose work might represent one of the most literal and compelling fusions of the two we’ve ever seen.
Ben Miller is a Montana-based artist known for his Fly-Cast Paintings of rivers, created using a fly rod instead of a traditional brush. Working on clear plexiglass, Ben casts thousands of paint-loaded marks, building each piece in reverse and capturing the surface, movement, and depth of living waterways. His work draws equally from fly fishing, performance, and abstraction. Best known for his Endangered Rivers Project, Miller’s art highlights rivers as vital, vulnerable systems. His studio is in Whitehall, Montana, where he continues to develop new fly brushes and river-based projects.
On top of being an accomplished artist, Ben’s also a humble, easy-going dude. It was a pleasure chatting with him and diving deeper into his passion. Enjoy the interview below.
FLYLORDS: Can you tell us a little about your background and how you found your way into both art and fly fishing?
MILLER: I grew up on the west side of Washington in a tiny town called Darrington. My parents had a small creek flowing behind the house, and as kids we’d cut little sticks, tie on some line and a hook, and spend all day catching whatever we could.
As I got older, my mom would let me ride my bike about a mile away to a slightly bigger stream. I’d fish as far upstream as I could with friends. The rule was that for every minute I was late getting home, I’d be grounded for a day. So usually right when the fishing got good, you’d suddenly realize you had to sprint back down the riverbanks, which probably wasn’t the safest thing, but it was a blast.
My grandfather gave me my first fly rod sometime in the late ’80s: a slow, fiberglass seven-weight. I absolutely loved that rod. Around that same time, I started tying flies and giving them to people I fished with. There was nothing better than catching a fish or seeing someone else catch a fish on a fly that I tied.
That was my upbringing, exploring creeks, catching cutthroat, rainbows, and the occasional salmon parr. In winter, my dad would take us steelhead fishing, using bait and lures, but other than that, it was all fly fishing.
Art came alongside that. In high school, art was always my favorite class. When I went to college, I did a bit of soul-searching and realized I just loved thinking creatively, so I pursued an art degree – even though I didn’t know what I’d do with it. After graduating, I became an art teacher and taught for about twelve years, and I painted rivers and fished whenever I could.
FLYLORDS: What came first – a love for art or a love for fishing? And at what point did the two begin to overlap?
MILLER: Fishing definitely came first. It was part of my childhood and something I did almost every day in the summer. Art came later, but once I began painting seriously, the two became very intertwined.
At the time, I was living in a small house on the same creek I grew up fishing. I was painting trout from above – looking down into the water, painting the stream first, then the trout, then the shadow. It really made the fish pop into three dimensions.
One day, I was talking with my brother and half-jokingly said, “What if I painted with a fly rod?” I found an old sock that was missing its partner, went outside, loaded it with paint, and tried casting at a canvas. I missed the first few times, but when it finally hit, I realized I had unlocked something special.
Everything started to click. A fly rod and a paintbrush serve the same purpose: you take color from one place and move it to another. Fly fishermen use fur and feathers to imitate insects, while painters use brushes to create color and form. The process felt incredibly connected.
FLYLORDS: For someone seeing your work for the first time, how would you describe your artistic style and process?
MILLER: My work is about capturing the experience of standing in a river—the color, the movement, the rhythm. When you look at a rock under moving water, you don’t really see the rock; you see a smear of color. That smear is essentially what paint on a canvas is.
I’m trying to capture the composition that a fly fisherman sees throughout the day. You’re standing there, looking at the water, reading the current, studying the movement. That’s the visual language I aim to communicate.
There’s also a performance aspect to it. I’m casting paint onto plexiglass using custom fly brushes, trying to capture that moment and energy in a single mark. The process becomes a direct extension of fly fishing – choosing the color, choosing the brush, and executing the cast.
FLYLORDS: Your Fly-Cast Paintings are built using thousands of casts. What does a typical painting session look like, and how long does a piece usually take?
MILLER: There are definitely thousands of casts, but you get lost in it, just like fishing.
Casting itself is such a joy. Loading the rod, the line unrolling—that’s part of the pleasure. The repetition also mirrors nature. Think about watching riffles on a river—there’s a certain rhythm to it.
For a typical three-by-four-foot painting—which is one of the smaller sizes I work with—it usually takes around five to six hours.
There’s also anticipation involved, similar to fishing. You wake up, head to the river, and don’t know what to expect. Every painting session is different, just like every day on the water.
FLYLORDS: How do you decide which rivers to paint, and what draws you to a particular system?
MILLER: Every river has a story. Some are pristine, some are threatened, and some have incredible histories. That’s often what draws me in.
For example, I painted along the Chicago River, which has an unbelievable history—from reversing the river’s flow to divert sewage away from Lake Michigan, to industrial pollution from slaughterhouses, and now the restoration efforts to clean it up.
The Colorado is another. The Colorado River used to be a freaking Leviathan; it used to be huge. There’s a town called Parker, and the Spanish could take their ships for miles inland, going up the Colorado River.
The Dolores River has a similar story. It used to be one of the biggest rafting rivers, going through epic canyons, and now it is a pathetic trickle you could literally jump across.
Even rivers that appear untouched still have stories—maybe they were protected early, or development was limited. Those stories matter, too.
Ultimately, I’m drawn to rivers where art can become a catalyst—where painting the river helps bring people together to talk about it.
FLYLORDS: The fly brushes you tie to deliver paint are fascinating. What goes into developing new brush styles?
MILLER: Developing brushes is a lot like choosing flies. Different water types—still water versus fast current—require different tools.
I design brushes to capture the specific textures present in rivers. I’ve gone through a lot of experimentation—different materials, shapes, and weights—trying to find brushes that best emulate the movement of water.
It’s similar to how a fisherman considers the size and profile of different flies.
FLYLORDS: You’re making thousands of casts for each piece. Has that repetition influenced your casting on the water?
MILLER: When I hit a mark perfectly in a painting, it’s the same feeling as making the perfect cast to a rising trout. I absolutely love it.
That connection reinforces the joy of casting itself. Fishing has always come first in my life, but painting has deepened my appreciation for the mechanics and beauty of casting.
FLYLORDS: A lot of your work puts conservation at the forefront. How does conservation shape your creative decisions?
MILLER: That’s a great question. I believe every river is vulnerable in some way. Clean water is something everyone values, and rivers tell the story of a society’s health.
The Endangered Rivers Project is about using art as a catalyst to bring people together to talk about their rivers and what threatens them.
Each river has its own challenges: dams, development, pollution, and access issues. By painting these places, I become a visitor to those communities and help share their stories.
Even the most pristine rivers have something to teach us. Conservation is really about awareness, and art is a powerful way to create that awareness.
FLYLORDS: How do you know when a painting is finished?
MILLER: I paint in reverse. The first marks are usually the brightest—like foam on the water. Then I layer in color, switching brushes and adjusting as I observe the river.
I start with surface water, then move into the streambed, working back and forth between those elements. Eventually, I add darker values underneath to create depth and contrast.
At the very end, I add warmer, brighter colors to create excitement and energy in the piece.
FLYLORDS: How do you deal with lighting changes during long painting sessions?
MILLER: For smaller paintings, I can usually finish in a single five- or six-hour session. For larger pieces, I’ll take studies and reference photos.
I try to choose an “average” moment—a composition that captures the overall character of the river—rather than chasing constantly changing light.
FLYLORDS: What similarities do you see between refining your craft as an artist and honing your skills as an angler?
MILLER: Both require observation, repetition, and refinement. Just like improving your casting or reading water, painting requires constant adjustment and learning.
There’s also a shared appreciation for tools—fly rods, brushes, and materials—and an understanding that small adjustments can make a big difference in performance. Just as anglers obsess over line weight or leader length, painters learn how subtle changes can completely alter the outcome, too.
Dealing with the elements is another parallel I experience when painting and fishing, especially wind and cold, which are my main enemies. In extreme temperatures, you have to get creative. A fun trick: adding a bit of hand sanitizer to paint can help keep it from freezing, thanks to the alcohol content.
One time that trick backfired, though. While shamelessly promoting my work, I set up to paint in front of the Simms factory in Bozeman. It was bitterly cold, so I used a heater to keep the paint workable. Before I knew it, I had a twelve-foot inferno in front of me, the painting fully engulfed in flames! I can only imagine the folks inside the Simms store wondering what in the world was going on outside.
FLYLORDS: What do you hope people feel – or take away – when they experience your work?
MILLER: One person told me, “I’ll never look at a body of water the same again.” That meant a lot.
If people start seeing rivers as compositions, then I’ve accomplished something.
I hope people feel excitement about color, movement, and water. Maybe nostalgia, maybe curiosity. Ultimately, I hope the work changes how they see rivers, even just a little.
Even negative reactions are meaningful. If the work makes someone stop and think, that’s success.
What stands out most about Ben’s work isn’t just the technique, though casting paint thousands of times onto plexiglass is certainly compelling; it’s the intention behind it. Each river he paints carries a story, and each piece becomes a conversation about the places we fish, the waters we value, and the responsibility that comes with both.
Like fly fishing itself, Miller’s art invites you to slow down and look closer. To notice the shifting light across a riffle, the subtle color beneath moving current, or the way a river changes from hour to hour. At the end of the day, Ben Miller isn’t just painting rivers. He’s bringing attention to them – one cast at a time.
Check out Ben’s work on his website and following along on Instagram.
Article by Flylords Food Editor Kirk Marks, an angler, photographer, and culinary aficionado based in Kent Island, Maryland. Give him a follow at @kirkymarks.
