The summer of June 2018 I attended the teacher workshop week. The week included a tour of Alexander Hall and I saw this painting. Meeting Melinda tonight and hearing her speak about her work was incredible! She shared her first painting of a pile of shoes that she found in her parents garage and then a painting by Robert Motherwell that struck her heart as ”I want to do that too.”
Melinda’s work includes abstraction and she shared that while she is focusing on realism with a tinge of abstraction, she feels compelled for others to know that she believes in all art forms. The recent gallery where she is showing work in Barcelona gave her the impression that the gallery/community mostly supports realistic work. In that same line of sharing she also pointed out to ’seize opportunity without being an ass’ to speak up if a juried show is mostly men or selection of artists is mostly men in that women make a tremendous contribution to the arts. Learning that she was ready to be a painter as her main profession and become comfortable with instability was admirable. She’s not moving to NYC anytime soon, but painting makes her happy, so she is happy.
Elegy to the Spanish Republic, Robert Motherwell
Paige P. Byrne 