Michele Heather Pollock
she/her
Michele Pollock
Moss IV, 2020
Inkjet print of original photograph, cotton embroidery thread, beads 8" x 10" framed
Hand-embroidered original photograph, featuring French knots, satin stitch and hand beading.
Michele Pollock
Forest Reliquary II, 2020
Paper, cotton thread, embroidery thread, found metal tin 4" x 3" x 2"
What would it mean to bring the forest into the studio and gallery? A literal re-framing of nature, or a recontextualization into man-made vessels. Think terrariums. Think museum specimens. One in a series of forest artworks housed in antique boxes, canning jars, bell jars, old books, and antique frames.
Michele Pollock
Forest Reliquary III, 2020
Paper, cotton thread, archival board, antique cigar box 8" x 6" x 3" (closed)
What would it mean to bring the forest into the studio and gallery? A literal re-framing of nature, or a recontextualization into man-made vessels. Think terrariums. Think museum specimens. One in a series of forest artworks housed in antique boxes, canning jars, bell jars, old books, and antique frames.
Michele Pollock
The Tuesday Project, 2020-2021
Paper, acrylics, watercolors, cotton thread, beads, eco-dyed fabric, wire, image transfer, wood blocks 46" x 40"
On my 49th birthday, which was Tuesday, December 29 in 2020, I decided to create one piece of artwork each week until my 50th birthday, as a sort of celebration for myself. I chose 4" x 4" wood panels, for consistency, and because the small format increased the chances that I would have time to complete one piece per week. Otherwise, I had no idea what would emerge. I am a dedicated woods-walker, photographing the small treasures I find in the forest, and using those photographs as inspiration for my artwork. Therefore, I would base each work on something I saw and photographed in the woods or my garden during that week, and I would take notes on both what I saw and what I created. I called it "The Tuesday Project" when describing it to people, since I started it on a Tuesday. I didn't miss a week (though sometimes I didn't get the piece done on Tuesday). The final 52 pieces are presented here in the order in which I made them, and you can see when it was generally snowy, and when it greened up in Spring, and when it turned back toward oranges and browns in the Fall. You can see my obsession with mushrooms and wildflowers, trees and moths, slime molds and moss. This period was filled with the strangeness of Covid-19 and all its subsequent closures and delays. I was also suffering from, and trying to get diagnosed with, what I now know is the rare autoimmune disease Scleroderma. These two things meant that my schedule was more free than normal (no art fairs or other events) and my studio time was both limited and changing (the symptoms of Scleroderma limit my ability to machine sew, for instance). Because of Covid-19, many in-person workshops and classes went online, and that meant I had access to fiber art workshops with teachers around the world. You can see in these pieces that new techniques and materials are being absorbed into my practice as the year progresses. I pushed myself to try new things (abstraction and beading and gelli plate printed papers, for example) and gave myself permission to explore. Most of the pieces are made from some type of paper and include either machine or hand stitching, but there is also eco-dyed fabric and beads and paperclay and paint. Each piece was created flat as an 8” x 8” square, and then wrapped around the wood panel using archival PVA glue and bookbinding techniques. As the year progressed, I noticed connections forming between pieces. Shapes repeat themselves, both in nature and in my work, colors and patterns reappear, and favorite stitches (French knots!) emerge. The Tuesday Project was both fun and rewarding, and daily or weekly practice will now be a new and hopefully permanent part of my artistic journey.
Michele Pollock
Forest Floor, 2021
Handmade and commercial papers, cotton thread, wire, paper clay, acrylic paint, yarn, cotton embroidery thread, beads, found stick 14" x 14"
Moss and lichen are created from couched yarns and embroidery, and a variety of mushrooms are sculpted from papers, wire and paper clay, to recreate the fecundity of the forest floor.
Michele Pollock
Against Forgetting What Has Been Lost, 2021
Eco-dyed cotton fabric, yarn, hardware cloth, wire, cotton embroidery thread, interfacing, acrylic paint 24" x 8"
I've developed a rare autoimmune disease which has made it very difficult for me to hike in my woods any longer, and this piece was creeach eleated as a way for me to memorialize, for myself, the experience of being in the forest. The fabrics were eco-dyed with fallen leaves from the forest floor, and ment is based on something that I have actually observed, and photographed, in the woods.
Michele Pollock
Forest Sampler, 2020
Paper, cotton thread, beads, wire, paper clay, embroidery thread 15" x 28"
"Forest Sampler" is a three dimensional sampler (think of the samplers embroiderers make) featuring things I've seen over the last few years in my woods in Brown County, Indiana. Made with machine quilted paper, hand embroidery, beading, and paper sculpture. Displayed in an antique printer's tray. It was an adventure trying to engineer a way to re-create each forest finding in three-dimensions in paper. There are common things, like acorns and oak leaves and Virginia Creeper. But there is also the single Ginseng plant I found in my woods, and Fairy Sparkler fungus, and parasitic Ghost Plant. And of course Turkey Tail mushrooms, lots of moss, a couple slime molds and a moth.
Michele Pollock
Promethea Moth, 2021
Original inkjet photograph, fine art paper, cotton thread 19" x 23"
Hand-embroidered original photograph, featuring French knots, satin stitch and couching
