Kestrel Michaud grew up in a creative home, encouraged to follow her passion. In high school, she discovered fabric as a medium and then studied fine arts in college. It took her some time before she realized that there was a community of people creating art quilts using similar techniques. Her work is fantasy and steampunk inspired, creating stories for the viewer.
How did you find yourself on an artist’s path? Always there? Lightbulb moment? Dragged kicking and screaming? Evolving?
I have been making art for my entire life. My mom had a crayon in my hand before I could even walk. By the time I’d graduated from high school, I’d won more than 50 local, regional, and national awards for artwork. So being creative is an intrinsic part of who I am and it goes all the way back to when I was a toddler.
My parents have always encouraged us (my sister and me) to follow our passion, and that has led us both in to creative careers. My sister is a graphic designer in the TV/film industry (most recently she has been working on Apple’s Severance). I worked as a graphic designer after college before transitioning back into fabric, which is where my heart is. Mom is herself a fine artist and my dad is a photographer and woodworker. He’s built most of the furniture in my studio.
Why textiles? How does that medium best express what you want to communicate through your art?
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I discovered fabric as an artistic medium back in high school. I was going into my Junior year and my mom took me to our local art league to see a presentation given by a fiber artist. That one presentation inspired me to try using fabric to make pictures, and I totally fell in love.
It’s interesting, in hindsight, that it took me 13 years to make the connection between what I was doing with fabric and quilting. Before being introduced to the quilt community, I had no idea that the “fabric pictures” I was making used a recognized quilting technique called raw-edge appliqué, nor that there was an entire community of artists making pictures out of fabric and adding stitches to turn them into quilts. That was a serious revelation.
Where do you find your inspiration for your designs?
I’ve always had a passion for fantasy. Back in high school, I was that weird kid who carried around a sketchbook and drew pictures of dragons at the lunch table. I played DnD and Magic: The Gathering and WarCraft and Neverwinter Nights. I loved using my imagination to create creatures and scenarios and events that only existed within my head.
I went to Ringling College of Art and Design where I majored in Illustration, which is where I learned how to bring my daydreams to life through art. Even though I got away from my own art for several years after school while working as a graphic designer, I never lost my passion for fabric and fantasy. Today, I’m so fortunate to have built a career that combines those two passions.
Do you do series work? How does that affect your approach?
I don’t intentionally work in a series, but my work does all share similarities that make it fit together.
The subjects for all of my large quilts are scenes/characters/events that exist in an imaginary steampunk world, so they tie together narratively. I use the same style and process to create my quilts, so they all look stylistically the same. Lastly, I intentionally finish my quilts with a 1/2” black binding because I want my works to all be finished in the same way. The result is that my work all looks good when displayed together.
Does your work have stories to tell?
Absolutely, although I think it’s more accurate to say my work tells the stories I want to share. A big part of what I learned in college is how to communicate through visual imagery, and I leverage that knowledge in every design I create. My goal with every picture is to allow a viewer to understand the story — often accompanied by an emotional reaction such as happiness and laughter — without needing to read a written statement explaining what’s going on.
As for what the stories are…every story is different, and the only thing that unifies them is that they are from my imaginary steampunk world. One story is about a girl who gets her kicks from bungee-jumping off the side of her airship. Another is about a man on his way to work. A third is about two “meatheads” — my dad’s term for anyone with more muscles than brains — who thought it’d be a good idea to turn their dog into a drone by attaching a steam-powered, propeller-driven backpack to him.
The kinds of stories I gravitate to are generally about the working class. The bungee-jumping girl is a rigging monkey — someone responsible for working the rigging of the sails. The man on his way to work is a factory or dock worker who rented the kite he’s flying on; he’s not wealthy enough to own a personal conveyance. The two guys who turned their dog into a drone are factory workers; they scavenged parts and built the device themselves to have a bit of fun. All of these people are regular, ordinary folk, albeit living in a fantastical world.
What do you do differently? What is your signature that makes your work stand out as yours?
I think the emphasis on storytelling illustration makes my work unique. I don’t know of any other quilter creating imaginative realism quilts. But I also have a distinctive style that makes my quilts look like mine.
What plays in the background while you work? Silence? Music, audiobooks, podcasts, movies? If so, what kind?
Usually, I like listening to music that’s got a good beat. I like rock music, like Fleetwood Mac, Daughtry, Foo Fighters, and Earth Wind and Fire. When I need something more intense, I go for gothic metal or power metal, like Nightwish, Avantasia, Beast in Black, or Cain’s Offering. And if I need something without lyrics, I turn on a video game soundtrack, such as Overcooked, Plants vs Zombies, Chrono Trigger, or Age of Empires.
How often do you start a new project? Do you work actively on more than one project at a time?
I try not to work on more than one project at a time, haha. Frankly, I don’t compartmentalize well, and it’s tough for me to switch between active projects. Having said that, though, I generally do have two going at a time. One project is always my latest show quilt, which is usually fairly large and detailed.
The other project is an ongoing quilt along project that I make for my Patrons on Patreon. The Patreon project is generally much smaller and less complex than my show quilts — because it’s intended for students to learn — and I record every second I spend working on it so my Patrons can see how the process works.
Which part of the design process is your favorite? Which part is a challenge for you?
My favorite part of my design process is actually the part that happens the fastest. That part is the assembly phase, which is when I iron all of my cut pieces of fusible-backed fabric together. This is the phase where I get to see my design come to life in fabric, and it’s never failed to look so much more awesome in fabric than it did on my computer. I love it. But this part of the process takes about 5% of the total time I spend working on a quilt, so it doesn’t last long.
How does your formal art education help your work develop? Does it ever get in the way?
My formal education (BFA in Illustration from the Ringling College of Art and Design) is absolutely an asset in my work. In particular, my Illustration and character design classes taught me how to visually communicate with viewers. Today, the lessons I learned back then enable me to illustrate stories from my imagination through my quilts.
How has your work changed over time?
My work has gone through three phases. When I first got started, I was recreating photos in fabric. There wasn’t a lot of depth to my early work because I was just starting to get acquainted with the medium and I was young; I didn’t have a lot of design experience, yet.
In college, my work got bigger and much more complex. I was learning about good composition and visual communication, and I started incorporating that newfound knowledge into my designs. As a result, the work I created in college is a noticeable step up from what I had been making in high school.
Finally in 2017, I discovered cutting machines and made an effort to adapt my formerly analog design process to be entirely digital. With the computer now keeping track of all the fused appliqué pieces and the different fabrics for me, the last limitation was lifted from what I could possibly create. Although I think the work I’m making now was “in me” all along, there’s no way I could work as big or as complex without the assistance of a computer.
Tell us more about balancing time in the studio to make time for your own projects.
A side effect of turning my passion into my career is that I’ve had to stop myself from automatically thinking that every minute I spend in my studio has to be in pursuit of a career goal (ie. making a new show quilt, designing a new workshop, making a new listing on my online shop, etc.)
It’s a struggle to remember that it’s okay to work on a sewing project that is just for me and has no purpose other than personal enjoyment. To that end, I made my very first jelly roll rug the other day for no other reason than I thought it sounded fun. And I had a blast!
It’s okay to have fun doing the thing you love; even if the thing you love is your job, it doesn’t always have to be your job.
Do you think that creativity is part of human nature or is it something that must be nurtured and learned?
I absolutely feel that creativity is part of human nature, but I also believe that the form that creativity takes is very individualized. Someone who writes computer code is just as creative as a painter, musician, or quilter; the creativity is just in a different form or outlet. The simple act of creating is what makes us human.
Do you enter juried shows? Do you approach your work differently for these venues?
Entering shows is an important part of my career. Exhibitions — both juried and judged — allows my work to be seen. They also lead to prize money and quilt sales, which are an important source of income for me that allow me to continue working as a full-time quilt artist.
Having said that, however, I do have a different mindset when working on something that I intend to show. When one of my quilts goes to a judged show, I’m asking for it to be scrutinized and critiqued, and I want it to do well. I hold myself to a higher standard of perfection when working on a show quilt as a result, and those quilts take longer to make.
Where can people see your work?
My website: KestrelMichaud.com
Instagram: @KestrelMichaud
I teach primarily on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/KestrelMichaud
Interview posted November 2023
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