Biography

Michael Gill came to print making as a writer. He has a BA in English (Hiram College, Ohio, 1986) and an MFA in Creative Writing (Eastern Washington University, Cheney / Spokane, Washington, 1988). He lived, worked, and studied in Washington DC, England, Wales, and Ecuador before returning to Cleveland. His poetry has been published in dozens of literary and other magazines, including Rolling Stone, and several chapbooks, which include The Atheist at Prayer (March Street Press, Greensboro, North Carolina) and The Solution to the Crisis is Revolution: Graffiti of Ecuador, collected and translated (Ox Head Press, Browerville, Minnesota).

He began making books as a way to give stories to his children. He prints in the letterpress studios at the Morgan Conservatory and at Zygote Press.  He has exhibited in solo shows at Massillon Museum, William Busta Gallery, BAYarts Sullivan Gallery, and Tregoning & Co. and internationally at the Alte Feuerwasche Loschwitz Gallery during a residency at the Grafikwerkstatt in Dresden, Germany. He has also exhibited in multiple group shows, including The Printed Page (Denver, CO).

His books are held in the Cleveland Public Library Special Collections, as well as in artist book collections of Baylor University, Columbus College of Art and Design, Otis College of Art and Design, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Graffikwerkstatt Dresden (Germany) and Ediciones Vigia (Matanzas, Cuba), and in private collectons in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.

Individual prints of the woodcut images from those books are in the collections of the Cleveland Clinic, Baker and Hostetler, Cuyahoga County Administration Building. A complete collection of the prints from A Pocket Full of Change is on view at the MetroHealth Glick Center, in Cleveland. 

He is founder of Collective Arts Network, a nonprofit organization of galleries that publishes CAN Journal.