craftzine.com/09/mcallister

_PORT^I _RA^IT_U ^{STUD ES} _I^N _RE

CRAFTER

B Y JULIE JACKSON

Attention to detail takes on new meaning in the work of Michael Aaron McAllister.

Dig through his extensive portfolio, and you’ll see Michael Aaron McAllister’s wicked sense of humor in his portraits of Nancy Reagan, Jerry Falwell, Truman Capote, and the Brontë Sisters, just to name a few.

At first glance, the medium and intricacy of his work provoke some confused reactions among the uninitiated. “I don’t think people as of yet ‘get it,’” he says. “They wonder why they’re looking at embroidery in a gallery, because they don’t comprehend embroidery as art. That’s what’s so appealing to me. I want to hold to traditional embroidery but stand it on its head with a change in style, content, context, and conversation.”

Some people don’t quite comprehend the fact that the work is all done by hand, and that each piece has tens of thousands of stitches. “I’m often asked, ‘What computer program do you use?’”

A professional quilter and artist, McAllister creates amazingly intricate miniature quilts and embroidered portraits that don’t miss a single detail. He exhibits nationally, both in art arenas and quilting shows, and has won numerous awards for his portraits. His fine arts training includes two degrees in ceramics: Parsons undergrad, and an MFA from Washington University School of Fine Art.

McAllister’s addiction to embroidery started as an antidote to the fear of flying. “I wasn’t able to get to my physician for a sleeping pill [for a flight] and decided to rough it — staying awake, assuaging

my fear of flying by keeping idle hands busy. I had drawn the torso of the Jolly Green Giant and took a needle to filling in his green sinews with thousands of stitches. It was love at first stitch. I was hooked.”

Using color palettes inspired by animated Disney movies, which he calls “symphonic and Olympic in the feelings they project,” McAllister populates his portraits with luminaries who have captured the imagination of the world.

“I’m inspired by the people whose lives have changed the world,” he says. “Researching their lives and taking them to cloth and stitching them — poring again over the details while constructing each portrait. I’ve reflected over their life for hundreds of hours. This is why commissions are impossible. I have a relationship with my subjects. Rodin and Sargent and Ingres and Warhol created portraits in paint or clay to glorify the greatness of the famous. I hope to pick up, in a much smaller way, where these fine artists left off.”

In his tiny St. Louis studio, McAllister makes room for embroidery floss racks that include every color DMC, the manufacturer, has to offer — more than 300. Although his studio is an enclosed balcony about the size of two closets, his great organizational abilities make it work — and quite stylishly.

How did this artistic embroiderer get to be such a neatnik?

“My serial organization comes from the early need to ‘make do,’” he explains. “I’m the sort of

Photography by David Torrence