Embroidery Artist Michelle Kingdom Writes Stories With Thread

When Los Angeles-based embroidery artist  Michelle Kingdom began her traditional fine art studies at UCLA during the early ’90s, her path took an unexpected turn. She reveals, “While studying I found the art world dominated by work that was oversized, highly conceptual, ironic and impossibly clever. It mostly left me cold and I never thought art was a viable career path.”

Kingdom decided to take an artistic road less traveled and began dabbling in textiles, she recounts, “I started creating these odd, tiny stories in thread and am self-taught. I didn’t show my embroideries to anyone and didn’t think anyone would even be interested.”

However, after her daughter was born, Kingdom began pursuing embroidery with a renewed sense of purpose and eventually shared her work on social media. She was happily surprised to find that others seemed interested too. “There was no turning back, and my private passion became a mounting obsession. I fell in love with figurative embroidery immediately. While it is inherently beautiful, there is also something primitive, awkward and fragile about it, which strikes me as both compelling and honest. Its effect is almost otherworldly.”

The Narrative Thread

Today, the embroidery the Los Angeles-based artist once felt, “no one would find interesting” is garnering serious attention. Upon first glance, several pieces of Kingdom’s work depict scenes of women surrounded by nature and animals; upon closer inspection, it is a far greater story—even more layered than the stitching itself. In Kingdom’s words, “I create tiny worlds in thread to capture elusive yet persistent inner voices. Literary snippets, memories, personal mythologies, and art historical references inform the imagery; fused together, these influences explore relationships, domesticity, and self-perception.”

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There is an unwavering dichotomy woven within her pieces highlighting topics such as truth and illusion, loss and expectation, belonging and alienation. Kingdom reveals her deeply personal connection to her craft. “Undeniably tactile in nature, embroidery touches not only the seamstress in me, but connects me to the memory of so many women with stories buried in thread that came before me. The medium seems the best way for me to express my private thoughts, and its results still surprise me after all these years.”

Kingdom’s Process and Challenges

Using long stitches of thread, Kingdom layers her work to create texture and volume. Each embroidery starts with the lengthy process of formulating and developing the concept. “Sometimes I begin with a clear concept from the beginning, but more often I have several vague images and ideas that I want to investigate. Ideas are laid out almost like a collage and after many sketches, a final drawing is refined for a pattern. From there it is transferred to fabric to serve merely as a skeletal framework.”

Her stitching is done with a dense, intuitive, fluid approach and each piece stays in flux until the very end, “I still prefer to draw with thread rather than plot technical, traditional embroidery stitches. Starting with a preliminary vision, I make room for experimentation and unexpected discovery along the way. Fulfilling a fixed idea in my head doesn’t interest me because it is the process that I find intriguing.”

Her greatest challenge when tackling work so small is the time and painstaking work involved in the process. “Stitching a simple line is like drawing in slow motion—extremely slow motion—not to mention the time involved in rendering shape and tone in a few strands of thread. The process is both frustrating and magical, and always a bit surprising.”

Kingdom goes on to discuss how portraying representational images has limitations in stitch, which is inherently rigid with a predetermined palette. “the result echoes my vision of capturing a nebulous inner dialogue we all have. I also am fascinated by the possibilities of pushing and experimenting beyond those limitations. More and more I move away from traditional stitch technique and prefer to play with intuitive ways to recreate the medium.”

The Future

With countless successful exhibits and solo shows behind her, she doesn’t know where her craft will lead her but is grateful for how far she has come. “I’m uncertain of where my future will take me in this medium, stitching remains an odd, private, even lonely world of strange visions. I have always approached the work from an intuitive place and am fairly certain that is where it will continually dwell. I do have lots of snippets and fragments of ideas, but only tackle the work seriously one at a time.”

View Kingdom’s work at michellekingdom.com or follow her on Instagram @michelle.kingdom.