Portrait of a chair

Grand Rapids artist Michele Bosak reveals her method for a well-lived home

By Heather Blaha
Published: October 17th, 2008 | 11:20am

Michele Bosak recently returned to Grand Rapids, Michigan, after three years in DeKalb, Illinois. The artist’s time in DeKalb was structured by graduate school, organized by intellectual and institutional categories, and inspired by the spaces in between. Those very structures, organization, and inspiration that give us Bosak’s paintings and drawings also help to define the artist’s vision.

The Space Between Us, Bosak’s 2008 MFA thesis work, builds upon a consistent springboard that the artist finds comforting and essential: “My approach is very methodical,” she says. “I always start with a photograph, which allows me the distance to really cherish an object. I guess you could say I’m an image hoarder.” The images for this series stem from a two-fold inspiration: living with “stuff” — beloved vintage objects discovered (and rescued, as a conscious consumer) from thrift shops — and the meaning of that stuff, both personally and historically.

On a personal level, Bosak’s vintage finds represent her home, which is a constantly shifting place (the artist has logged 17 moves so far). Relocation gives Bosak the dual desire to both cherish a home that is constantly being built, as well as to simplify that home and connect it to her work, much to the tune of Charles Eames: “Eventually everything connects — people, ideas, objects. The quality of these connections is the key to a well-lived life.”

From a $15 rocker chair to a set of $3 damask curtains, a teak telephone table to an Eames shell chair, Bosak depicts these pieces almost as beings. Portraits of the static, mute objects offer only beauty and the reminder of a living home — a home in flux. While lived with and used on a daily basis, the vintage items take on the charm of individual identity and personality. It seems safe to say that Bosak memorializes these objects which have already been discarded, then later rescued, and may someday be discarded again. But their likeness, thanks to Bosak, lives on.

In addition to Eames, Bosak cites Josef Albers and other Bauhaus artists as constant inspiration. The idea of a well-lived life overlaps with well-lived art, complimenting Bosak’s belief that separations should not be imposed upon fine art and object design: “As I work, there’s a really lovely cycle that develops between materials, objects, and ideas,” she says.

Beyond The Space Between Us, Bosak creates encaustic paintings — by mixing heated beeswax and oil paint, then applying that onto paper — and mixed media pieces on veneer. No matter the medium, we can be sure that the subject will come full circle: a haunting exploration of the life of objects and the beauty of engagement. Bosak believes that “the idea of home is really sacred and cherished,” and we know that her well-lived vintage rocker is, too.

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Check out more of Bosak’s work online at michelebosak.com and her Etsy shop, mimidoodles.etsy.com.