Portfolio: Michelle Montjoy

As I enter Michelle Montjoy’s backyard art studio, the first thing I notice is the collection of giant fiber sculptures hanging at different lengths above our heads. Portals, trumpets, or a wizard’s magical hat? I imagine that one of the objects might transport me to another time or speak some secret knowing into my ear.

These sculptures have become a signature of Montjoy’s work. Attached at the ceiling, the buoyant, knitted tubes follow gravity downward, often ending with a circular hoop that creates their memorable shape. Their colors of white, gray, and blue remind me that the ocean is just blocks away. Montjoy honors her lineage of under-represented women’s voices in the craft of fiber by being purposeful with the organic way in which she knits her pieces. She aims not for the perfection of a machine, but the natural imperfection of the human hand. Individually, the works are stunning, and her installations are an abundant garden of hanging sculptures spread about the spaces in which they live. Montjoy pushes the works even further and knits a web that connects them together along the ceiling, just as tree roots connect underground.

The materials Montjoy uses to create her sculptures are as considered as the sculptures themselves. With the goal of being both environmentally sustainable and cost efficient, Montjoy knits using old t-shirts collected from her local thrift store. She shares with me her process of folding the shirts and then cutting each one to create a long ribbon of fabric that she rolls up like a ball of yarn. When the viewer looks at a completed piece, they notice the tags and remnants of screen printed designs, which add a moment of unexpected color and conceptual nuance. The ordinary material’s familiarity builds a bridge, inviting viewers to connect more intimately with the work.

*the pit bull licked the baby’s head and scented it with ham*, 2015, repurposed t-shirts, installation at the Athenaeum Arts and Music Library, La Jolla, CA. Photo: Jake Hesseltine
[Image description: A circular white room with a wood floor and five tall windows on the left. In the center stands a wood table and chairs, a vase of white flowers on the tabletop. Around the room hang nine white, woven sleeves, attached at the top of the walls and draping down onto the floor.]

These installations’ evolution began in 2015, when Montjoy presented to the Atheneum in La Jolla, CA the concept of long, empty sweater sleeves that would hang along the walls of a circular room. The ends of the sleeves would pool on the gallery floor, visibly missing the structure of a human arm. The concept for the work had grown out of Montjoy’s experience of motherhood, the installation a metaphor for the elusive desire to nurture when one doesn’t possess the power to mend the wound. When the Atheneum accepted her proposal, their timeline was short, so Montjoy turned to her community of friends and neighbors, and together they sat in her garage around enormous looms that she designed. They knit the sweater sleeves, enjoyed some wine, and shared stories as the hours passed.

*River*, 2016, community workshop at the Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA. Photo: Tisha Kawcak.
[Image description: Eighteen people congregate around tables in a gallery space. They work together on circular looms on the tabletops, talking and laughing while they weave.]

Community has since become as important to Montjoy’s process as the art itself. In her second installation project, RIVER, Montjoy enlisted thirty different communities and over one thousand knitters to create her collaboration with Oceanside Museum of Art. She brought her giant looms into schools, homeless shelters, and other community spaces where people from all walks of life could sit in a circle around the loom to knit and talk with one another. The kind of unfiltered conversation that come from the shared experience of “making” offer a richness far more personal than most first-time encounters. For Montjoy, RIVER became a collection of the DNA of those humans who gave their time and hands to create the work.

*Breathing Room*, 2022, installation at the New Children’s Museum, San Diego, CA
[Image description: A blue and white installation in a gray gallery space with a large window on the back wall. Large trumpet-like forms hang from the ceiling. Woven nests hang low to the ground. On the left wall is a mural with two large, woven sweaters affixed to it. A child sits in one of the nests, and another walks through the gallery space.]

With her most recent project, Montjoy’s practice has evolved to cultivate connection and wellbeing among those often excluded from the busy energy of community spaces. Breathing Room, a commission for the New Children’s Museum in San Diego, offers a carefully-crafted, supportive space for neurodivergent children and parents. In this gallery, Montjoy employs her artistic practice to help visitors regulate their nervous systems through the comfort of breath. In collaboration with engineers and a sensory specialist, Montjoy found a way to make the room physically breathe: the hanging sculptural pieces move up and down in an unhurried four-count, creating a natural opportunity to slow down and focus on one’s breath. Additionally, the room holds “rugs and hugs”: braided rugs to sit on and touch, and over-sized sweaters along the walls to lean into and wrap up in a hug. Breathing Room—with it’s slow cadence, tactile opportunities, and muted color palette—is both an art piece and a safe space for parents and children across the spectrum to find their calm.

Montjoy’s installations bring comfort and delight to viewers, but she makes it clear to me that her inspiration doesn’t necessarily come from her own inner harmony. “My need to make joyful experiences comes from needing joyful experiences for myself... to deal with the deep hum.” She describes that deep hum as a “stomach-ache of unease” that comes from sadness and worry about the state of the world we are leaving our children. She grieves for a nation that experiences horrific gun violence, constant struggles for women’s rights, exploitation of our planet’s natural resources, incessant racism and white supremacy... the list goes on. Montjoy recognizes that her work is not directly solving these problems, but when overwhelmed, Montjoy leans into these core questions: “What can I touch? Who is my community? What do I have agency in?”

*DomesticACTion*, 2017, community workshop at Art Produce Gallery, San Diego, CA
[Image description: A view from the street through a gallery window. Three people sit at a table, talking intently while they work on a circular loom on the tabletop. One has light skin and wears a leopard print top, while the others have brown skin and wear colorful shirts.]

As our conversation comes to a close, Montjoy points out to me that knitting is one continuous line. One line. Connected from start to finish. One singular voice. From her tone, I can tell that this feels like magic to her. It feels like magic to me. This metaphor holds the essence of why Montjoy makes her work: human connection.

— Alicia Peterson Baskel, artist and choreographer. Baskel was a participant in the 2022 HereIn Writers Workshop.

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