Guelph jewellery maker Michelle Miller takes great satisfaction in designing pieces that help people express themselves and connect with their community.
“If somebody wears something that you’ve made by your hands on their chest it is very meaningful,” said Miller. “So, I love how it brings strangers together. That really is the truth. It sounds really shmarmy but it’s true.”
Miller operates her studio and showroom out of the second floor of her family home on Arthur Street where she lives with her husband of 25 years, Tim Middleton, and their twin daughters Isabelle and Sadye.
"I've been doing this on and off for 13 years since the girls were two,” she said. “I make everything myself. I don’t have machines. I don’t have jigs.”
Miller was born in Vancouver and grew up in Oakville. She moved to Guelph in 1984 to study theatre at the University of Guelph.
Making jewellery has been a decades long passion for her even when she was working as a designer for a silk scarf company and operating her own glass blowing studio.
“I was a glass blower for 10 years,” said Miller. “We built a studio in Glen Williams, a little hamlet north of Georgetown. I was doing jewellery while I was doing glass and I used to sell it in my studio. I’d do custom work for people’s weddings. Then I had twin girls and the glass wasn’t going to work any more. I couldn’t bring the kids there and I needed to work out of my home.”
Her primary medium is wire.
“It’s mostly wire, not everything, but mostly wire,” she said. “I am fascinated by lots of different materials so, I am constantly looking for new ways to use it in my work. I’m not a metal smith or a precious jeweller.”
The pliability of the wire allows her to customize the designs for a wide variety of clients.
“My work is kind of specific but truly my girls’ friends have bought things for themselves,” said Miller. “Their mothers have bought things so I love that I can be multigenerational.”
Miller is active in the Guelph arts community in a variety of ways including through the Guelph Studio Tour and as president of the board of directors for Guelph Dance, formerly The Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival.
Her theatre background and passion for artistic expression are reflected in the jewellery pieces she designs.
“Craft is so great that way,” she said. “It’s not this lofty idea, though art can be lofty, but I love the use of an everyday object that can connect people and help them create their own idea of who they think they are.”
What’s a better metaphor for connection than wire?
“I find inspiration everywhere but I believe in connection,” said Miller. “Jewellery is my conduit to my community.”