- [Host] The San Diego region is home to many artists who work in an assortment of media.

As a curator and educator, I want to know what inspires these creatives.

This is "Insights Into Art."

(upbeat jazzy music) Hey.

- Hey, welcome, welcome.

- Today we are in North Park meeting with artist Michelle Montjoy.

- So welcome to The Garden.

- [Host] This is so beautiful.

- Isn't it amazing?

- And look at the strawberries.

- [Michelle] Look at that.

- Oh, I want one.

- Oh, you can have it.

- [Host] Michelle works out of a studio at Art Produce, a nonprofit space for artists founded by Lynn Susholtz.

Art Produce is also a garden, gallery, and a community space.

- There's so much of this just welcoming, embracing, inclusive atmosphere about this place.

It's just gorgeous, and I think the garden kind of embodies that ethos that she has here and her generosity to let me have a studio here, which is great too.

- Well, I want to try this strawberry.

It looks amazing.

- Yeah.

- And then maybe we'll go to your studio, check out what you're working on.

Mm, very good.

This is such a cool place to work.

- It's pretty amazing.

I'm really, really honored to have it.

- Embroidery is Montjoy's current medium of choice, where she stitches thoughtful and contemporary messages and questions on handkerchiefs.

I wanted to talk to you a little bit about this whole series of works that you did with the handkerchiefs and how that idea came about.

- Yeah, it's interesting.

I was thinking about it was actually right after my dad had passed, and I thought about how he had four daughters and would always, when we would cry or, you know, be upset about something, he would pull out this handkerchief as sort of an attempt.

I mean, it was his best attempt at consoling us.

Of course, he's pulled out this handkerchief that he's actually used and we were all completely grossed out by it, but honoring those gestures and honoring that gesture of understanding someone else's feelings, which I think a hanky kind of contained that idea.

For me, it kind of started as an Instagram world.

That was back when Instagram was just squares and those hankies were squares, and I thought a lot about asking those questions that we don't have answers to very often, and a lot of them are that, and they were kind of a communication or reaching out.

I would take time and this very labor-intensive action to think about, and, you know, a lot of what I believe as an artist is what are we paying attention to and what are we honoring by paying attention to?

There's also all that beautiful language around stitch, and mend, and thread and all that that goes with it.

So it's always like a back and forth between who might be seeing it and what I'm thinking about, what it's made of, what I'm making it with, the process of making it.

All of those pieces go into the work itself.

It may not ever be evident, but it definitely is part of it.

- And then more specifically, I wanted to focus on one of them, and it's the one that's here kind of at the center that says we all belong, vote.

- Definitely one of the political posters, you know, the poster kind of feel.

That one came about in 2018, the midterm elections after Trump was elected, and we started feeling very powerless, and especially I have three daughters.

There's a lot of investment in voting for me.

My mom was always very active in League of Women Voters and things like that.

So there's always been a responsibility in our family to vote, and I would find out people didn't and just be like, how can you not be part of this?

I know it's a flawed system.

It may not always be what you want in outcome, but this is how we can effect change.

- The other thing that I noticed in some of them is this tension between the beautifully embroidered parts, and then sometimes you do text that is kinda wonky to kind of contrast.

- [Michelle] Yeah.

- No?

- Yeah.

I really love juxtaposition of all sorts of things, but yes, very much so.

I pay particular attention to the type.

I'm very entranced with typography.

It's always been.

I got my undergrad in graphic design so I really have a relationship to that, and what will amplify the other thing.

When you go too sweet, I'm not a too sweet person so sometimes I have to add a little sour and salt in there, either in material, or color, or type, or even the fact that many of these have holes and are stained.

That's really important to me.

- Well, I have to tell you, I was really bad when I had to take home economics and I had to do the embroidery.

Will you show me a little bit how to?

- Of course.

- Come to work on this.

- I would love to have you join me.

It would be great.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a great project.

So go ahead and bring that up under you.

- Okay.

- One hand goes underneath, one's on top.

- And then this is?

- So this is a project that I've been working on for the past few months.

It's called "Evidence."

This is a giant piece of cloth, and I invite friends and family members to come on and join me and we embroider hash marks, numbers of anything that might be important to you.

It's a very simple process.

I usually start underneath like this.

I tied a knot at the end and then we just it's four across, four straight ones, and then one that goes across and there's no rules.

You do it however you want.

- It's a very meditative process, and I'm also thinking of the idea of mending, right?

- Mending is such a beautiful word, isn't it?

I mean, it's such a powerful action.

It takes what we're given, what might be torn up, what might be out of sorts and pulls it together, and very often the mending shows and it doesn't matter.

It's all about pulling threads together, you know, mending spiritually, emotionally, all that.

I love the meditative part like I say of this and if I can offer that to people, that's really lovely.

Or we're just fixing your clothes.

All of that.

I love big juicy words like that, like mend, stitch, knit, all of those really ways we hold it together, yeah.

- Well, mine has a lot to desire, you know, it's not perfect.

It's not perfect.

- There is no perfect.

There is no perfect.

- Despite embroidery being a meditative process, Michelle has a story of how she ended up in the ER because of a stitching mishap.

- I had one of these pins in my mouth, which I'm only gonna like this, holding it just like this quilting pin with the pearl on the end.

Yep, and my teenage daughter was in the other room and her boyfriend told this joke, and I laughed and the pin went down my throat.

- [Host] Oh my God.

- And so I run over to the sink and I'm trying to like cough it up and I can't cough it up, and she's freaking out and she calls 911, and next thing I know there's like five paramedics standing around my kitchen and I'm like, "Uh."

And they're like, "You sure you did?"

I'm like, "Yeah, it's nowhere else.

It's definitely, it felt a little scratchy."

Go to the emergency room, they take x-rays, and all of a sudden they're like, "Oh no, we gotta move fast 'cause it's starting to like..." It could have ended up in my intestine, which would've been really bad.

So anyway, and this is December by the way.

So went to an emergency bronchoscopy and they yanked the pin out.

They gave it to me and I have it in a test tube.

It hangs on my Christmas tree every year.

- Oh my God.

- As a reminder to me.

- A reminder.

- Don't put pins in your mouth.

- [Host] A memento to tell you not to put pins in your mouth.

- Totally.

And I tell everybody now, "Do not put pins in your mouth."

- [Host] So look, look what I did.

I sewed it into the fabric.

- It's fine.

We can fix that.

Not a problem at all.

- Oh, just like in life, most things can be fixed.

- Most things can be mended.

- Mended, right?

- Yes, exactly.

Repair.

- Or we can figure it out.

Problem solving.

- There you go.

Exactly.

- That's an essential thing.

I want to thank Michelle Montjoy for inviting us into her studio at Art Produce.

Taking a simple, often worn and discarded item, like a handkerchief, and turning it into an artist statement is fascinating.

I hope that you enjoyed learning about her process and her practice.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you, it was really lovely.

Can I give you a hug?

- Yes.

- Oh.