Washington jewelry artist leaps into new creative project
Michelle Sabol works on etching hundreds of pieces of plexiglass that will make up the dress she is working on at her studio in Washington.
Michelle Sabol, who goes by the professional name Memphis George, works on etching hundreds of pieces of plexiglass that will make up the dress she is working on at her studio in Washington.
Michelle Sabol holds a piece of plexiglass that she etched at her studio in Washington.
Michelle Sabol works on etching hundreds of pieces of plexiglass that will make up the dress she is working on at her studio in Washington.
For the past 19 years, Michelle Sabol has enjoyed a career in jewelry design.
Last fall, however, while attending a talk at Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh about Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, she was inspired to tackle a new artistic endeavor.
So taken by van Herpen’s work, Sabol decided to apply for inclusion in a special fashion show at the Ace Hotel in East Liberty scheduled for March 24. Organized by the CMOA as an auxiliary event to the van Herpen exhibit of 45 dresses now at the Carnegie through May 1, the one day Modern Worlds Fashion Show at the hotel is billed as high fashion meets high tech.
Daring to venture into new forms of artistic endeavors is nothing new to the Washington jewelry artist. Her resume lists a spectrum of creative spin-offs that include writing poetry, playwriting, acting, film-making and directing. She’s also studied sculpture, drawing and painting at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Going by the professional name of Memphis George, Sabol was one of 40 artists who applied for admission to the Ace Hotel show and one of just 10 selected by a committee at the Carnegie to create two dresses based on the concepts developed by van Herpen.
“All of the applicants were very good, and you could see they put a lot of thought into their submissions,” said Jonathan Gaugler, media relations manager for the CMOA. “Memphis, however, sent in a really great proposal based around the idea of Plexiglas.”
Like the other chosen artists, Sabol was granted access to the TechShop, a community-based workshop in Pittsburgh equipped with world-class tools, equipment and computers loaded with design software.
“As a jewelry artist, I had no experience using high-tech equipment,” she said. “But I was especially happy to be able to use TechShop’s laser cutter for my Plexiglas dress. Without it, I’d have been cutting by hand for hours on hours.”
Even though the Plexiglas panels are now cut, Sabol still plans to etch them by hand. She’ll then heat-form them to make them soft and flexible before attaching them to the dress she’s titling “Crick,” an allusion to the way many area residents pronounce the word creek.
“The panels on the short, corsetted dress give it a watery, stream-like feel” she said.
Sabol’s second dress gets its inspiration from the work of local artist Malcolm Parcell, for whom she has a high regard. Titled “Moon Lorn” after the now-deceased painter’s home and studio near Prosperity, the dress sports epoxy resin panels covered by tiny micro-filament wires that give it a subtle extension – like an aura.
Sabol said the dress has a Parcell-like character and comes with a headpiece that resembles the cowls he painted on some of his subjects. “The dress has a painterly feel and is meant to be ethereal,” Sabol said.
At the Ace Hotel fashion show, the dresses will be worn by models Tori Mistic, a modeling fashionista blogger from Pittsburgh and Madeline Gradle, a student ballerina with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School. They will wear them as they walk down the runway in front of patrons at the Ace Hotel.
“The fashion show changes the paradigm of how people interact with art because the art, in this case, is mobile, and the person wearing the dress becomes, in effect, the art gallery,” Sabol said.
“These are haute couture pieces that are actually wearable art, not something you’d wear to The Meadows or Crown Center mall,” Sabol continued. “They are of interest to people who consume art and who consider the dresses as wearable art.”
While she continues to sell her jewelry at shows and galleries and as commissioned work, Sabol said she’s recalibrating her life, placing more emphasis on becoming a teaching artist. For the past year, she’s been leading spiral jewelry-making classes through Pittsburgh Citiparks at public schools like Langley in Sheridan. Recently, she also received grants to teach at the LeMoyne Center and the Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania, both in Washington.
Laura McDermot, manager of social experiences for the CMOA, said she looked at Sabol’s designs for the fashion show and was impressed with her abilities to take her skills as a jewelry designer and artist to create dresses with a high level of craftsmanship, calling it “quite a leap.”
“As a jewelry designer, Memphis has a keen eye for intricate detail, and her use of materials and execution reflect the aesthetic and ideals of van Herpen, which is the intention of the (Modern Worlds Fashion Show) experience,” McDermot said.s