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Biography
Michelle Knox is originally a New Jersey native. She relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1997 where she attended and graduated from The California College of the Arts in 2000 with a Bachelors of Fine Art: emphasizing in glass arts.
Michelle has won numerous awards and scholarships, including the Saxe Family Scholarship, the Richard Ritter Scholarship, the William Morris Scholarship for Pilchuck and the Jury’s Choice Award at the Bay Area Glass Institute’s Annual Gala in April 2009.
Over the past several years she has attended internationally recognized glass institutes such as Public Glass, Urban Glass, Bullseye Glass, Penland School of Crafts and the world-renowned Pilchuck Glass School. In 2008, She won her first Public Art grant with the Richmond Art Center to produce a permanent public art piece in the City of Richmond CA with local community youths.
Michelle was the Executive Director at Public Glass in San Francisco from 2007-2009. Most recently, she received a full scholarship from Tulane University in New Orleans, where she completed her Masters of Fine Art in 2011.
Michelle is rapidly emerging into her career and shows regularly throughout the country. Some of her venues have included the Oakland Museum, The Museum of Craft and Design and the National Liberty Museum, along with numerous other fine art galleries. Trained as a glass blower, Michelle is also well versed in glass casting, kiln forming, cold working, metal fabrication and woodworking. She has several different bodies of work that have multiple ranges of topics. She currently lives and works in the Bay Area.
Curriculum Vitae
Selected Exhibitions
2011 "Spatial Relations", Carroll Gallery: Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA
2011 Duane Reed Gallery, Millville, NJ
2011 Graphite Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2011 Micalea's Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 a new leaf gallery | sculpturesite, Sonoma, CA
2010 "Sculpture in the Garden", Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino, CA
2010 Sculpturesite Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Graphite Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2010 "Glass by the Block", YMCA in conjunction with the G.A.S. Conference, New Albany, IN
2009 Pacinni Lubel Gallery, Seattle, WA
2008-2009 "Winter Salon: A Glass Exhibition", Micaela's Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008-2009 "Bay Area Glass Sculpture", Sculpturesite Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008 "Heat and Light", Arts94124 Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008 Varnish Galley, San Francisco, CA
2008 The Public Glass Gallery, Solo Show, San Francisco, CA
2007 "CCA: A Legacy in Studio Glass", The San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA
2006 "Made in California: Glass Exhibition", The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
2006 "Glass Now: 2006 Auction Event", National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2005 Deep Gallery, Sacramento, CA
2005 "Guilty by Association: Group Show", Melting Point Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2005 Imagery Partners, Portland OR
Selected Private Collections
Richard Pi: San Jose, CA
Michael Himes: Fort Wayne, IN
Dan Rosen: Kirkland, WA
Merle Hofman: Wynnewood, PA
Sharlin and Mel Galpin: Los Angles, CA
Scholarships and Awards
2008 Public Art Grant, City of Richmond, CA
Project designed to build an exterior mosaic glass mural in the City Of Richmond
2008 Green-Haven Pocket Library: Art in Public Places Project, Finalist, City Of Sacramento, CA
2007 The Corning Award nomination, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA
2004 Richard Ritter Scholarship to attend Penland School of Crafts, Penland< NC
2000 Honorable Mention: All College Honors for Creative writing CCA, Oakland, CA
1999 Saxe Family Scholarship for Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA
1995-1997 Dean’s List: Franklin Pierce College, Rindge, NH
Professional Experience
2011-Present Instructor at The Crucible, Oakland, CA
2006-Present Business owner of The Knox Resource Group
2008 Director of Public Glass: San Francisco’s Center for Art Glass, Non-profit, San Francisco, CA
2002-2005 Lighting and Glass Technician and Designer for Lightspann Illumination Design, Emeryville, CA
Education
2009-2011 Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, MFA/Glass Major, Full Scholarship
1997-2000 California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA, BFA/Glass Major
1995-1997 Franklin Pierce College, Rindge, NH, Environmental Science/Glass Minor
Additional Education
2007 Artist Assistant: Arthur Gonzales, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA
2004 Glass and Metal Combination Class, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
2004 Drawing for Sculpture, The Crucible, Oakland, CA
2003 Independent Extended Travel, Southeast Asia
2000 Pilchuck Glass School summer staff, Stanwood, WA
1999 Hot Sculpting with Deborah Czersko, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA
1998 Goblet workshop with Alan Goldfarb, Urban Glass, Brooklyn, NY
Statement
The motivation behind making my artwork comes from a deep-rooted desire to affect my world and create a positive sense of self. I completely enjoy the feeling that creating something unique brings to me. I chose glass as a medium because it is so alluring, so fragile and so representational of the human condition. The combination of materials in my work allows me to play on the tension and fragility of glass as a metaphor, and the rigidness of metal as a foundation to balance that fragility.
The current state of modern life is so busy, so full with tasks and needs. My work is a reaction to that white noise, that static pace of life and the over load of information. My work represents something simple, something quiet and something almost forgotten in the American way of life. My work is not over done, over engineered or loaded with connotation, but remains simple, pure and quiet. The process and the products reconnect me with a lost sense of spirituality in my own life and heightens my awareness of the lack of it in the world around me. The loss of precious things, ancestral traces and meaningful talisman is concerning to me. In the objects I create, I bring those moments of reflection; I reintroduce preciousness into an object and spark a memory of history.
The Protean Series is an example of that. Protean is a word that is used to describe the nature of change and variations; the ability to readily assume different shapes and forms. The series represents the concept of taking multiple similar shapes and re-structuring them to create pieces of different emotion and meaning. Through this process, transforming and varying the structure allows me to reveal the object's relevance and preciousness. To set it outside of the realm of modernism and to limit commentary on a current issue or state. Meanwhile, allowing the object to create a historical connection with repetition, prayer and ritual.
The next major series for me right now is the Chorten Series. This series lies in close proximity to the Komboloi Series. These series have roots in spiritual artifacts that have affected my life. Chortens are stuppas, or reliquaries, and the word "Komboloi" comes from the Greek language and means “worry beads”. Each body of work utilizes simple blown forms accompanied with minimal metal parts to recreate or refresh the concept of “special and sacred”. Simultaneously, these pieces are representing ritualistic objects and process.
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