howdy, here’s a bit
more about me
i go by mel (they/she) and i’m a midwesterner (chicago & kansas city, mo) now living and making art in northern california.
i’m most alive when i’m on the trail or working with paint, hearing birdsong and observing light. as an educator, i want to support the journey to cultivate this aliveness within you.
why art as wellness?
I’ve spent the last 14 years working as an art educator at institutions like Apple, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and DIY artist-run galleries to support creative humans at all levels of their practice. There I taught painting, drawing, writing, photography, video, collage, and music production. During that time I came to a foundational belief that creativity is a human right and not enough folks have access to creative education.
during a lot of my experience, the goal of teaching was always to help students produce an end product, to build something that looked good. I find this approach stifles play and curiosity — two vital aspects of what keeps me coming back to art.
Art wobbles in and out of phases of production, learning, reflection, and integration. I have seen my students struggle over and over with maintaining persistence so I started writing a newsletter. In these dispatches I create exercises for my subscribers that keeps people coming back to the practice of art and integrating it in their lives.
Grinding and focusing on product divorces us from how art can heal us. That is why it’s a wellness practice for me. Making with our hands helps us to see aspects of ourselves that we are disconnected from. It helps us root and tend to our soul and craft simultaneously. When I work with students in Craft Tutoring sessions, we build assignments that adapt to your lifestyle, that integrate balance.
adventure art,
what’s that?
the term adventure art encompasses a variety of practices - painting, drawing, photography, music, and writing that i do while i am out in nature
In my classes, videos, and writing I talk about the need to get out in nature as a direct balm for overwhelm of modern life. My goal with the art I make is to seduce people into loving the earth we live on. Before you say, I could never, I haven’t always been outdoorsy! I started hiking in 2018. I’m a city kid who turned feral & found their true center in the forest.
nature slows us down and tests our resilience.
making us more compassionate people — to ourselves and to others.
what is your
teaching philosophy?
the heart of making art as a working class person with a busy life is finding balance between making and maintenance.
i love helping folks connect to their craft, refine their work, and uncover the why that keeps them making long term.
alongside that, i like to investigate my students’ systems and technologies that worked to support us before — things like apps, social media, or devices— but have become more thieves than partners.
I am a practicing artist, which means the knowledge I share with you comes from doing the work. I spend several days a week in my studio, painting in nature, and showing my art regularly online and off.
I also believe that artistic practice flourishes best in an active community, one where folks are willing to give and receive feedback openly. Communities where we can be invested in one another showing up to make something instead of focusing on perfection or stats. This is how I hold space and steer the conversation in the Persistent Bloom Discord Server, consider joining us!
why should I trust you?
Look the internet is full of a wide breadth of grifters and podcast bros trying to sell you drop shipped crap and courses they built with ChatGPT. I get being skeptical of a person who makes money online selling classes of any kind. But I’ve been out here doing this shit for a loooong time.
From 2009-2021 I lived in Kansas City, MO and worked in the art scene there as an art writer, curator, community organizer and Fine Artist™.
Right out of college I founded and ran Informality Blog, an online platform for documenting the conversation about Kansas City contemporary art and culture through writing and photojournalism while I was teaching art to teens, kids, and young adults at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
While Informality was going, I worked full time at Nordstrom, selling shoes to pay my rent while running Subterranean Gallery out of my apartment. Later on I was a Co-Director/Curator at a PLUG Projects and a five year resident at The Drugstore, an artist-run studio collective that was in midtown KC. You can see the full loooong list of my art world adventures on my CV, here.
what else should i know?
i am totally AI sober,
Meaning I don’t interact with any chatbots for any part or my work. This is because, I used to use them and found the tools addictive and not in alignment with my values. You can read my full AI Policy here!
studio time comes first
I only now work with folks on Sunday mornings, and Tuesday-Thursday, which allows me to prioritize time in the studio. The exception to this is my live classes, which tend to happen on Saturdays. You can see my current availability to work with you here.
i have long-covid
This means if you see me teach in person, I’ll likely be in a mask. I simply ask that you stay respectful about it. I’d really like to keep on with my life and avoid getting sick!
one last thing to know about me is that i am nonbinary and queer!
What does that mean for you? Well, here’s two things:
Much of what I do is going to come through the perspective of a queer person who grew up in the midwest. Meaning, I had to hide myself for a large portion of my life, and didnt “come out” until i was 26.
I prefer if you use they/them when describing me, but I also speak Spanish (un poco!) which means she/her is fine too. When I have discussed this shift in language with my queer elders, terms like Butch or Tomboy from the past have evolved for my generation. I want to be compassionate as folks adapt to changes in our society but love it when people see me and try. Language is evolving and with that, so are the ways that we talk about ourselves.
did you read this whole page? email me, let’s have a coffee i’d like to get to know you. send an email to hello@melmitchelljackson.com
