Artist Michelle Montjoy is Guest Speaker at November 7 Guild Meeting
Knitting. Together. A Community That’s the provocative presentation title of Michelle Montjoy, our Guest Speaker at the November 7 Guild meeting. Michelle is an Oceanside-based visual artist who uses knitting, crochet and needlework as both sculptural medium and action. She will discuss her recent projects River (a Creative Catalyst grant at Oceanside Museum of Art) and DomesticACTion (a California Arts Council grant at Art Produce Gallery, San Diego). Michelle’s art installations are all about where art and community collide, a process whereby the community participates in creating the art.
In these recent projects Michelle used oversized knitting looms and thrift store 
t-shirts to connect communities while making room-sized knitted art installations together. In her presentation, she will discuss how she arrived at these concepts and the functions of domestic craft and creativity as agents for uniting communities.
Michelle will be collecting t-shirts at the Guild meeting. Your used t-shirts will become fabric that Michelle will use in her amazing community fiber sculptures. If you have t-shirts that you’re willing to give up, please bring them to the November meeting for future recycle into art. Shirts can be ready for the rag-bag, have stains, holes, patterns and colors…all are acceptable. Let your old shirts find a new home.
Michelle Montjoy is a multi-disciplinary artist whose recent work encompasses social practice and textile based art. Using familiar techniques and materials, Michelle’s objects, installations and images employ absurdity, obsessiveness and 
whimsy. A 2016 recipient of San Diego Foundation’s Creative Catalyst grant, Michelle’s project, River, brought oversized table top looms to 32 communities, engaging over 1000 people in knitting material made from used T-shirts into yards-long forms. Michelle spent many years teaching art in public schools. Michelle also knits up the occasional sweater or scarf.
Learn more about Michelle’s art and projects on her website.
