About

 

ART 

Michelle de la Vega is a multidisciplinary installation and community engagement artist based in Spring Valley, MN and Seattle, WA. Her creative ventures probe social and aesthetic boundaries through fostering dialogue, bridging divides, and investing in community on a wide scale. Michelle’s social practice model deeply integrates groups and individuals into the generative processes and exhibitions of her cross-disciplinary installations. Her conceptually driven projects include sculpture, immersive environmental design, video, collage, photography, choreography, text, and partnership building through project based community engagement.

Michelle’s work has been exhibited at Gallery 4Culture, Bridge Productions, The Center on Contemporary Art, Oxbow and more, and she is currently working on a monumental permanent outdoor sculpture for the Sound Transit Light Rail at the new Kent/Des Moines station in King County, WA. She is a former Artist Trust Fellow, and City Arts Magazine Artist of the Year recipient. She was honored to be a 2019 finalist for the MN Department of Transportation Artist in Residence position. Through her investment in women’s care Michelle co-founded the women’s King County Jail Art Program in partnership with The Organization for Prostitution Survivors where she has been an ally for 6 years. She is currently in the initial phase of a new project that focuses on land access for BIPOC communities, and specifically BIPOC women, in the context of agriculture and rural environments. Michelle is also a passionate beekeeper, and lives on a small farmstead in Southeastern Minnesota where she and her husband keep bees, hunt, fish, grow food, and run a boutique metal fabrication shop.

Michelle’s work has received support from Artist Trust, The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, King County 4Culture, the Institute of Emergent Technology + Intermedia (iET+I) at Cornish College of the Arts, The Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, The Seattle Foundation, The Millay Colony, The Center on Contemporary Art, Equinox Studios, Bootstrapper Studios, The Puffin Foundation and a consortium of private patrons. She has served on the 4Culture Public Art Advisory Committee, and as a program development consultant for the WA State Arts Commission, Artist Up and The Organization for Prostitution Survivors. As a teaching artist Michelle has worked with diverse and underserved communities, including folks in recovery from multiple traumas.

She received her education and training from Otis Parsons in Los Angeles, CA (visual art), Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA (dance), and the South Seattle Community College Welding and Metal Fabrication Program.

CONSULTING AND MENTORING

Michelle has worked as a program development consultant for the Washington State Arts Commission and Artist Up, creating a peer to peer artist mentoring program and state wide Arts WA Creative Districts Program. She has served on the King County Public Art Advisory Committee, and various social equity panels. She enjoys facilitating workshops about social practice in art, and speaking publicly about her work in diverse settings.

As a creative mentor and teacher Michelle’s forte is to assist people in discovering and articulating personally meaningful imagery through a process of dialogue, writing, reading, drawing, movement, collage and sculpture. She uses these creative techniques and intuitive insight to guide mentees through a non linear artistic process, cultivating an experience of seeing the world through a different lens. Tools developed through this process are trusting one’s instincts and inner voice, developing conceptual thinking in visual terms, and tangible art making skills. These tools can be used to bring artistry and original ingenuity into work environments, relationships, domestic environments and artistic practices, fostering inspiration and a satisfaction through manifesting stories and intuitive thought processes in artistically rewarding ways.

Aduen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DESIGN

In 2010 a 250 sq. ft. Mini House Michelle designed, built and lived in for 15 years was featured in a 3 page article on the cover of the New York Times Home and Garden section. The house has also been featured in MORE Magazine, Scoops Homes and Art in Western Australia, Houzz and Inhabitat design blogs, and London designer Terrence Conran’s book“How to Live in Small Spaces” . Three of Michelle’s house design projects are also featured in Joan Palmisano’s new design book, “Salvage Secrets, Design and Decor”. She has also been featured on the HGTV series “Home Strange Home”, and is featured in the pilot season of Tiny House Nation airing in August 2014.

As a welder Michelle makes sculpture, and designs and fabricates metal furniture and architectural elements.

 

 

 

 

Comments (6)

6 Responses to “About”

  1. John E Swanson says:

    what is the name of the grey paint did you use on the shed. trim too

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