Mychaelyn Michalec’s work uses textiles to address themes of gender, labor, stereotypes, feminism, sexuality, and art history. She creates large-scale tufted tapestries which are often embellished with embroidery, hand knitting, found objects, and vintage sewing notions. Textiles are historically a language of creation and storytelling assigned to women, and Michalec uses these processes as part of a historical continuum and critique of our cultural heritage. While Michalec recognizes that her generation was the first to be told by Second-Wave Feminists that we could, “be anything we wanted to be,'' that reality is far from true for many Gen X women. Her work examines notions of the feminine using sentimentality and materiality to define and redefine cultural norms. Her work is held in the collections of Beth Rudin DeWoody/The Bunker, The Collection of Sarah and Michelle Vance Waddell, Cincinnati, OH; and Carla Shen, Brooklyn, NY, among others. She was awarded residencies at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska, The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts in New York, and The Vermont Studio Center. Michalec was recently selected as an Ohio Woman to Watch by the Ohio Advisory Group for the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and is a recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award Winner in Craft. Michalec studied painting, drawing, and art history at The Ohio State University and received her Master's in Library and Information Science from the University of Southern Mississippi. Recent solo exhibitions include shows at K Contemporary, Denver, CO; The Weston Gallery in Cincinnati, OH; The Contemporary Dayton, OH; and Roy G. Biv in Columbus, OH. Michalec has been included in group exhibitions at The Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, OH; The Bunker Art Space in West Palm Beach, FL; Marquee Projects in Bellport, New York; The Longwood Museum of Art in Longwood VA; and Untitled Space Gallery in New York, NY, among others.