The strength and power of softness
- Michelle’s textile practice spans functional objects and sculptural forms
- Her focus is on material transformation through textiles and found domestic objects
- Her soft material sculptures ask big questions about perspective and the environment
Michelle Sirois Silver creates hand hooked rugs and textile sculptures with a sense of legacy and a link to the environment. Growing up, crafting and making things by hand were part of daily life, and a practical necessity. Michelle initially approached crafting as a hobby, in parallel with a career in broadcasting. “My shift to a professional artistic textile practice came from a need to transform materials into objects,” she says. Using her cultural heritage as a tool for enquiry about personal topics, Michelle began creating functional rugs from reclaimed textiles. Her practice has since expanded to include hand stitching, felting, deconstructed screen printing and the creation of soft 3D forms and sculptures, made with diverse objects and materials such as scales, plates and concrete.
Interview
- How did making become central to your life?
- I grew up around people who made things, so working with my hands always felt normal. The shift came later, in my mid-thirties, when making moved from something I did alongside other work to something that became central and non-negotiable.
- What attracted you to rug hooking at the beginning?
- Rug hooking drew me in instinctively. I began making hand hooked rugs using thrifted materials on linen and creating one-of-a-kind designs. Over time, as I developed technical confidence, the practice expanded.
- To what extent are your pieces focused on time and family history?
- There are two dimensions at play for me. The family continuum of makers and people making functional things, whether it is a bed quilt or knitting a sweater, is about legacy. The historical continuum is knowing that a technique has been in use for thousands of years and I am only a moment in time.
- When did your practice move to include sculpture and found objects?
- As my technical confidence grew, I became interested in physicality and space. Found objects entered the work as carriers of domestic, utilitarian and familiar meaning, and textiles became a way to transform and reinterpret them.
Michelle Sirois Silver is a master artisan: she began her career in 1999 and she started teaching in 1999
Where
Michelle Sirois Silver
