Melanie Blood

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While my mom and I were out cruising around Jamaica Plain this weekend we also stopped by The Hallway Gallery, owned by one of the founders of Room 68. The gallery had a show up of paperclip watercolors, literally watercolors of paperclips by Dan Golden, which were amazing. I went on their blog though, when I came home, and came upon another local artist whose work blew me away, Melanie Blood.

This piece, Stasis, is wood, wire, ceramic slip, and string. It’s hard to tell how big it is – or how it’s suspended but I love that it looks like a chunk of beehive.

This piece is made of yarn, wood and paper. I like the web like quality of this – it reminds me of a fallen ship mast (or many).

I’ve put fibers in clay and fired it before but the fibers all burned out but the clay was strong. I wonder if this isn’t fired and the clay is just on the exterior to help it hold its shape better. Melanie talks about her work being delicate, perhaps that’s what she means.

Melanie just got her BFA from MassArt and is now getting her MFA at Tufts / the MFA School here in Boston – I love that she’s local and young. She seems to be teaching a lot of art as well – I’d let her teach my future kids!

She explains in her artist statement that her work focuses on, “time, aging, and impermanence.” These pieces look to me like rings of a tree or wrinkles / smile lines or saggy, greying skin – perhaps this is all those three elements rolled into one.

This piece is explained as soda fired porcelain (my favorite) – I just Googled to learn more of what soda firing is all about. From what I read soda firing is a way to get great colors onto your pieces but I really love that these are monochromatic.

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