Michael Montella

My name’s Michael. I grew up in beau­ti­ful Still­wa­ter, NJ. I’ve neither formally trained in art or craft, nor have I ever consid­ered myself an ​“artist,” though I certainly love craft­ing furni­ture and décor for my home, beau­ti­fy­ing my parents’ gardens, and creat­ing settings where friends and family can relax, exhale, and take joy in their surroundings. 

Every­thing I’ve ever created happens to use repur­posed mate­ri­als or pieces, though this is less out of an inten­tional, envi­ron­men­tal state­ment and more so out of my natural fond­ness for such forgot­ten or left-behind objects; to me, these objects are espe­cially compelling at this moment where homo­gene­ity and mini­mal­ism prepon­der­ate. Invari­ably linked to these aged mate­ri­als I work with is their history, and I often delight in the end-use juxta­po­si­tions achieved, for instance the ​“Table” made of early-19th-century barn wood topped by piles of contem­po­rary art books. 

More­over, though not tech­ni­cally a ​“craft,” the most natural arena for my work is the garden, hence the perhaps-conspic­u­ous choice of sharing two garden photos in my port­fo­lio. To me, the garden is a fasci­nat­ing artis­tic medium, given its suscep­ti­bil­ity to the natural elements, the vari­abil­ity of its color, heights and texture through time, and its rela­tion­ship to the ever-atten­tive, ever-adapting gardener.