@mutuallyassureddeconstruction
Currently working in the medium of embroidery, Michelle Morgan is finding a style that fits her, learning the boundaries and versatility of thread and cloth. Embroidery allows a combination of figurative and abstract images in unexpected ways.
Her pieces highlight the idea of the craft of embroidery as being seen as “female” and highlight the question of what is considered art. As a queer female artist Michelle insists that textile arts have to be taken seriously.
“As a white woman I am very conscious of not appropriating embroidery traditions that are not my own, while still trying to honor that connection. I’m conscious of the fact that despite being broke, I still manage to find the time to embroider, and want to remind myself and my audiences of the untold millions of skilled artists who toil in sweatshops under slavery conditions.
My daily project is a stitch-a-day piece. It’s very much a piece about excess, and being told repeatedly over my life that I’m “too much.” It has been a way for me to celebrate my excessiveness—to externalize something that, as a queer woman, I’m supposed to internalize as “bad”—and to share that with other people who might worry that they, too, exceed the bounds of propriety or taste. Eff that noise.”
