Michelle Post is a true artist. She is fearless with any material, any technique and any genre. Training under master wood engraver Stefan Martin, and as a porcelain decorator in the studio of Edward Marshall Boehm. Post was the longtime Director of Museum Display and Installation with the Seward Johnson Atelier before her recent retirement.
You create in so many different directions. What is the main idea you are communicating with your art?
I create with one creed in mind: It’s not so much a communication of an idea, but the conveyance of art for art’s sake. My middle school art teacher wrote in my yearbook a line from Keats: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”; it’s stuck with me, and I guess I’ve followed its message when pursuing my joys in creating art.
We artists have a secret, a secret that is not offered to the normal man on the street. A little part of the universe was implanted in our brain at birth that allows us to see our world in different ways, alternative realities, to celebrate and bear witness to an otherworldly procession; and all we artists do is to try to express these in a way that others can relate.
Or, maybe not. It is a necessity for me to continue to learn and apply the new knowledge to my art. New techniques, new mediums, new outcomes, broaden and enriches my views, concepts, and direction where my art goes.
Where did you train in the arts?
Training in the classical sense was not part of my becoming an artist. At an early age, I knew I had a propensity to create. Not being able to afford higher education, I sought out those who was doing what I wanted to learn and I picked their brains. I approach my art organically.
I go directly to the canvas, paper, porcelain, Styrofoam block, with no sketches that were labored over for hours and days until just the right composition. Working organically, I work out all those ‘bugs’ as they arise, and celebrating the occasional happy accident, which is really no accident at all but the natural outcome of the all the ‘door to door’ progression of creation to complete the work. Ah, but what is completion? When are we really done?
Who are your inspirations?
For my current sculptural direction, I’ve been inspired by Jean Dubuffet, Marisol, and Van Gogh. Dubuffet for his outlining of the hard edges of his sculpture, Marisol for her boxy approach to her subject’s bodies as well as her combining painting and sculpture, and finally Van Gogh for his color sense and also outlining in black.
Which media are your favorites?
I never met a medium I didn’t like. Except welding, but that will change in the future.
What art are you working right now?
I’m already on my next “one thing leads to another” series of non-objective subject matter. My new no-objective sculpture, “Howling,” embodies this shift and it’s quite exciting to see where it all goes.
Tell us about the Vermont studio and gallery.
About 14 years ago, Dave Carrow and I purchased a building in Southern Vermont. The 1910 Building is a destination for Contemporary Art featuring artists from the NE region. The debut show in 2023 was “Master and Apprentice” and featured the works of Stefan Martin and myself. The 2024 exhibition, “Metal, Paper, Glass”, showcases the paintings of Philadelphia artist Dolores Poacelli and glass artist Hank Murta Adams.
What is most difficult about being an artist?
I don’t think it’s difficult to be an artist, but to make a living as an artist presents a conundrum.Creating art for the love of creating art is a powerful moment born in spontaneity and wonder, but if one has to depend on the selling of that art to survive, it becomes a job and the artist is compromised, the work diluted and the wonderful spontaneity is sacrificed. I have been fortunate to have had a full career that involved the creation and exhibiting of J. Seward Johnson’s work. Now retired, I am back to devoting my talents to my own creations.
What is on the horizon?
Travel, knocking off items on my bucket list. I just got back from an extended European trip. I also have on my list to see the Northern Lights and the Southern Cross. And making art for art’s sake.
“The Oligarchs” sculpture by Michelle Post at Grounds for Sculpture.,
