ABOUT
To Do • A Mending Project
To Do · A Mending Project is a social practice created by artists Michelle Montjoy, Anna O’Cain, and Siobhán Arnold which taps into the restorative power of repair. Slightly quirky and homespun, To Do is grounded in art history, the legacy of domestic craft and the power of communal actions like barn raising and quilting bees. Projects include a series of workshops on topics ranging from traditional, domestic, and repair tasks to movement, breathing, and sound. While the act of repair is within their own artistic practices, they have also sought the support of their community, asking other artists, repairers, and activists to share their knowledge.
See a list of past workshops here.
Michelle Montjoy
Michelle Montjoy
Michelle Montjoy
Michelle Montjoy (she/her) is a maker of embroidered objects, large textile installations, domestic sized ceramics and socially engaged projects. Her work employs hundreds of small incremental actions that accrue into large forms- a metaphor for the many unrecognized everyday acts of resistance and care we take part in.
Michelle is a recipient of Creative Catalyst and California Art Council grants for her socially engaged projects River and Domesticaction. Her work has been shown at MCASD, Art Produce Gallery, OMA and others. Breathing Room at The New Children's Museum San Diego is her most recent project.
Michelle is based in Oceanside, California, the unceded land of the Luiseño/Payómkawichum.
Siobhán Arnold
Michelle Montjoy
Michelle Montjoy
Siobhán (she/her) is a visual artist, arts educator, and mother living in San Diego, California. She works with photography, textiles, painting, sculpture, and installation. Her work has been exhibited nationally in Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Portland, Albuquerque and more. Her work has been featured in several publications including View Camera, San Diego Magazine, Encaustic Arts Magazine, Detour, the Seattle Times, and The Stranger among others. She has been an artist in residence at Caldera in Oregon, the Ora Lehrman Trust Soaring Gardens in Pennsylvania, and Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, Co Cork, Ireland. She received a BA in Art and Design from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Art Studio from University of California Santa Barbara. Siobhán has been a member of SIEN Collective, an arts collaboration with Meagan Shein since 2015. She currently teaches at California State San Marcos in the Art, Media, and Design Department.
Anna O'Cain
Michelle Montjoy
Anna O'Cain
Anna is a San Diego based artist who was born on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. In the seventies she studied ceramics, photo, film, and conceptual art for two years at Oklahoma University, moved to Chicago to continue her studies in art and received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 1983 she received an MFA in Visual Art from the University of California San Diego. Anna is a recipient of a public art commission with artist Richard Keely for Aviara Community Park in Carlsbad, California. She has received grants from the California Arts Council and Art Matters in New York City, and held artist residencies at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming and the Djerassi Foundation near Palo Alto, California. Anna has developed installation projects with students in the art departments at Oberlin College in Ohio and Southern Oregon State College in Ashland, Oregon. She currently teaches in the Art Department at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, California.
Anna O'Cain