Michelle Hill, Emlee Handmade
PARACHUTE GALLERY CORE ARTIST
Michelle Hill, Emlee Handmade · St. Petersburg, FL
Michelle Hill, owner of Emlee Handmade, identifies as a New Englander in Florida and currently lives and works in St. Petersburg, FL. Always interested in the arts and being crafty, Michelle earned a BFA in Fashion Design from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston sometime in the mid 1990’s. When her love for serving her community overpowered her love for the high fashion world, Michelle went back to school and came out as an early childhood educator, which she has done for the past 25 years.
Emlee Handmade was first inspired by Michelle’s grandmother’s own DIY craftiness (Emlee’s namesake). From a young age, Michelle remembers visiting her Babci and listening to her drop her thrifty knowledge of how to get by in the big city. She created knitted garments for a young Michelle and was an old school pioneer of sewn cloth shopping bags. Michelle’s hand printed motifs are inspired from her years of working with young children and are thoughtfully married with her love of reusing vintage materials mixed with new. Taking inspiration from Japanese sashiko mending and Indian block printing, Michelle collages it all together to create her own one-of-a-kind pieces.
[Updated September 2023]
Michelle’s work:
