Artist Statement: Micki Spiller

Though my background is in sculpture I’ve become more interdisciplinary and look for opportunities to collaborate with non-visual artists to bring works to life.  I have a deep reverence for books as tactile vessels of knowledge, memory, and connection and my studio practice is informed equally by reading, writing, and making—treating the book not only as a physical structure but as a conceptual framework for community, storytelling, and exchange. Drawing on years of literary immersion, I construct embroidered garments and sculptural forms that reimagine texts as wearable, intimate architectures. My process often begins with book selection and journaling, evolving into sewn forms embedded with language, narrative themes, and layered imagery. These works propose alternative modes of communication—public and private, solitary and communal—where garments become sites of intellectual and emotional engagement. 

I accidentally became a storyteller due to receiving a grant from an organization called the Laundromat Project, where I created an intervention at a local laundromat in the form of a mobile library.  Along with my studio practice I facilitate pre-literacy storytelling programs at the Brooklyn and Queens Public library, which keeps my hand in that world.  As an only child growing up, I always retreated into books and still do to this day…