A Creative Thread

Michelle Carlson Embraces Art, Teaching and A Life Well Made…

If you spend any time in the orbit of Michelle Carlson, there’s a high probability that you’ll find yourself with a grin from ear to ear. It will appear and you may not even be aware. It’s just what happens when you have proximity to someone committed to the joys of a creative life centered in community.

“After spending so many years working in places where job titles were so important, I’m really loving the idea of not having a job title,” the newly-minted 50-year-old says with a laugh. “My friend Kate called me her personal fairy godmother of creativity, and I really love that.”

Carlson is moving into her new decade developing thoughtful events to gather others around creativity. “I’m really embracing the exciting opportunity to go in any direction my heart takes me,” she says.  Watercolors, fiber art, pen and ink, you name it, Carlson enjoys it and is happy to share. 

Her offerings at Redding’s Turtle Bay Exploration Park and the Tehama County Arts Council Gallery in Red Bluff are attracting people ready to dive into creative making. She teaches skills, but more importantly, she cheerleads confidence into the most timid participant. She’ll never tell one what to make, but she’ll show what’s possible.

This month, with its emphasis on Valentine’s Day, she’s offering her popular Happy Mail classes, Love Edition. Participants will create small, mailable art. “I love teaching art,” Carlson says. “I love teaching anything, really. But I love teaching art. I love the idea of making something and sending it along.”

There’s a domino effect with mail, she says. “I love to make people happy. Then when you get a whole group of people making cards to make others happy, it just extends on,” she says. “It’s making something with your hands that’s mailable and sending it on to someone else to make them happy or show your appreciation. And it never gets old.”

She also has a recurring weekly Slow Stitching gathering in Red Bluff, where people work on hand stitching projects small and large, making everything from garlands to wall hangings or patching torn clothing, whatever strikes their fancy. “I start people with coasters because it’s really small and contained and gives people an introduction,” she says. 

“I started because I had this instinct to make space for community to come together,” she says. Hours and days were chosen by educators to accommodate a busy school schedule. “I was meaning for it to be a nourishing thing for educators because education is just so challenging. I started calling it the Thursday unwind.”

So, who should sign up for a class with Michelle Carlson? “I love having people in the room that are brave enough to show up even when they’re nervous and think they can’t do it,” she says. “They’re signing up for that feeling of freedom and play and fun and ‘I didn’t think I could do this and I did it!’”

If anyone has a can-do-it attitude, it’s Carlson. She and her husband, Jim, built their house in Red Bluff from the ground up and have restored a classic car and vintage travel trailer which they take on North State excursions. 

It’s a life built on values that she reflects on often. “A life where I get to be my full, true, authentic creative self and get to inspire others to do the same thing,” she says. “I choose health and happiness and quality time, to enjoy the natural world around me and the beautiful people around me.” She strives, she says, “to make a living as a creative human who also gets to inspire people.”

Carlson has had a creative bent as far back as she can remember. “It goes all the way to my teeny tiny self,” she says. “I was captivated by Garfield and Peanuts. I wanted to be an illustrator when I was a little kid and make cartoons.” In high school she began making her own clothes. “I like to be able to create something from nothing,” she says.

While she may seem to take to creativity effortlessly, she is motivated by a memory of struggling to learn watercolors and giving up on first attempt. The memory came back to her as she sought understanding with children who got frustrated with projects she was teaching. 

“I started painting to understand what my students were going through,” she says. “And I kept going because it helped me with something I didn’t think there was a solution to: monkey mind. Watercolors made my mind go quiet and focus, relax, drop into that blissful state of flow.”

Finding that flow is something Carlson is eager to help others find. Or to at least put a smile on their face. If they send it on to someone else, even better.

Michelle Carlson

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