“We Are the Harvest” (detail), hand-crafted medicine bag featuring natural dyes, pressed flowers, seeds, embroidery, beads, and fabric markers, approximately 4 × 5 in. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Michelle Glass
Teaching Artist Cohort
,
2026
Michelle Glass is a Chicana artist with Indigenous Yaqui and Hopi roots whose community and earth-based art practice centers healing, land stewardship, and cultural reclamation. Rooted on the Chumash homelands in Ventura, California, her work emerges from a lifelong relationship with the land, shaped by her upbringing between urban East Los Angeles and the rural landscapes of Moorpark. This dual geography informs her commitment to ecological awareness, intergenerational memory, and community-rooted creative practice.
Her work integrates natural dyes, ancestral pigment traditions, plant-based storytelling, and culturally grounded facilitation to rebuild relationships between people and place. Through site-specific installations, community gatherings, and arts education, Glass reintroduces Indigenous knowledge systems—such as dye-yielding plants, solar-based color processes, and traditional folk arts—as tools for resilience, remembrance, and collective care. Her practice often centers women, gender-expansive participants, and diasporic communities, creating spaces where cultural memory, ecological justice, and healing can coexist.
Glass’s work is deeply collaborative, frequently developed alongside social scientists, environmentalists, filmmakers, youth organizers, elders, and community organizations. Her projects highlight the interconnectedness of land and water, uplift community narratives, and honor ancestral technologies that have sustained Indigenous peoples for generations.
Michelle holds a BA in Art Education from California State University, Los Angeles, and an MFA in Public Practice from Otis College of Art and Design. She continues to build community-rooted projects that bridge art, ecology, and cultural stewardship, offering pathways toward healing and renewed belonging.
Selected works
“Interwoven Stories Project,” community-created quilted mural developed in partnership with the Armory Center for the Arts, the NAACP, and NDLON/Pasadena Community Job Center. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“We Are the Harvest,” participatory tapestry composed of more than 200 hand-crafted medicine bags, approx. 10 × 5 ft. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“We Are Here / Estamos Aquí,” installation featuring three 13-ft vertical tapestry panels. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“We Are the Harvest,” installation view featuring a participatory seed-sharing event, California African American Museum. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“We Are Here / Estamos Aquí,” collaborative participatory installation featuring a 2,500-ft tapestry of more than 410 community-created panels. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“We Are Here / Estamos Aquí” (detail), community-created canvas panel with natural dyes, embroidery, and hand-drawn imagery. Photo courtesy of the artist.
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