Michelle

Wilkie

Michelle Wilkie is a self-taught textile artist and designer of modern quilts. Quilting is a passion, driving her creativity. She works to have her quilts seen not just as quilts but as art. Many of her designs are inspired by the details she finds or experiences every day in the world around her. She transforms these into art through stitching, piecing, constructing, editing, and quilting. She experiments with a variety of modern techniques and aesthetics, though embraces Improvisation and Minimalist styles. Michelle recently was accepted and completed Penland School of Craft Winter Residency (2023). Her work has also exhibited in FRESH both the open and final curated show, and in a virtual exhibition with Hearth Studio. She has work juried into the international modern quilt conference, QuiltCon, every year from 2015 through 2022 and other quilt exhibitions (Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, International Quilt Festival). Her work is also included in the private collection of SAS. She has an upcoming solo exhibition (2023) at Page-Walker Center of Arts and History. Michelle enjoys teaching and has taught quilting classes since 2015. Community growth in the arts is something she that is important in her practice. As such, she volunteers in several community activities at Artspace, QuiltCon and for Social Justice Sewing Academy. She has also volunteered on the Board of the Modern Quilt Guild for 3 years (2019-2021). She participated in the NCMA Monster Drawing Rally (2019 and 2022) bringing textile art, quilts, to the public.

I typically work with textiles to create pieces that show others how I interpret what I see or what I experience in the world. Most of my work pre-COVID focused on creating designs and pieces related to the details I see in everyday objects. During COVID, to cope with the isolation and some of the events going on in the world, I started to explore emotions and topics that were important to me. This exploration started with “Isolation”, a quilt that explored what it was like to be an outcast, or a person isolated from a group or family. With the events of police violence and the general polarization of our communities, “One of These Things”, was all my hopes of people embracing differences, seeing them as a celebration not using them for hate and violence. While being in isolation, I found it difficult as our families are in Germany and New Zealand. “Home” uses my own favorite upcycled clothes, many given to me from my mother (who passed away shortly before COVID), to connect to my family so far away, who I didn’t know when I would see them again. I enjoy the process of exploring these emotions and topics that I have connection with, and hope others can tap into their emotions or help someone not feel alone or provoke a conversation. I plan to continue to explore different ways in how to bring my emotions and connections to life using textiles, and in future explore if quilting techniques can be used in more sculptural pieces.

Fiber Art, Photography

https://ideadesigncreatequilt.com/portfolio/

https://www.instagram.com/ml_wilkie/