Home for the holidays
Herman Miller collaborated with artist Michael McGregor, who works from his studio in São Paolo and visits family in New York during the holidays. His candid, hand-drawn scenes offer a contemporary interpretation of classic holiday stories you know and love, placing you smack dab in the middle of a festive party, beginning to end.
“I'm not a big host because my space is usually half-studio and it's a mess,” McGregor says.
“But my house in São Paulo is larger and nicer and we've been hosting more. We cook, everyone comes over, we're chilling.” McGregor said that it was similar to the scene he drew representing the end of the party, its last call. “We're listening to records, finishing this wine, and it’s late,” he says. “The candles are burning out at this point. I was kind of imagining welcoming people into your house. I thought about late-night quiet moments, people have left and you already cleaned up, but you're still awake.”
How did you become an artist?
I didn’t go to art school. I quit my job in New York and moved to Mexico City. At that time, I had gotten rid of a lot of preconceived notions about what I thought art was supposed to be, particularly in a Manhattan way—being outside of the city and that bubble. I realized the world is a lot bigger than this nine-mile island. And it's also not just shades of gray, which is, to me, New York.
How did your environment inform your art?
When I moved to Mexico City, I lived in this Barragán building, the first one that he built. We were on the third floor, the same height as the palm fronds. And so immediately you have this crazy shade of green and yellow in front of you. And then through that, there was a park and outdoor market. And on the other side of the park, there were these houses. One was pink, one blue, one yellow, one lime green. And that was my view every morning. It was trading the chaos of a subway commute for the chaos of an extremely colorful, sensory-oriented city. So it shifted my perspective a lot, visually, moving to a city that embraced color and its full possibilities.
I feel like I had a lot of freedom to experiment. I found that by reverting to a drawing and painting style of a younger age and embracing a child’s view of color all felt really natural.
“Thinking that you’re supposed to do or think something is very dangerous for an artist. It’s more about embracing yourself rather than anybody’s expectations or ideas of what you’re supposed to be doing.”
What is your approach to your artwork as a regular traveler? How does that inform your ideas, your work?
Location is a huge part of my work, but it's more about being an observer. From a material standpoint, there's always the question of, “Can it fit in my bag flat?” I work with paper a lot because it’s easy. I’ve been traveling with an entire suitcase full of paper. It’s the heaviest bag that I have. But I try to be less dogmatic about materials. I have paper, pencils, pastels ... That's easy. And even running out, it’s pretty easy to get them. If I don’t have canvas with me, I’ll use cardboard if there’s nothing there. I’ll use this detritus. Sometimes I’ll find an old piece of wood. I think the only thing that really changes when traveling, besides material access, is size and elaborate things like paint—I’m not going to make something that’s still wet when I need to move in three days. Sometimes I’ll leave pieces with people and pick them up later. I almost try not to change too much because it really impacts things, to be able to do everything everywhere.
