EARTH VISIONS

Copyright 2010, Melissa C. Reardon, on all text and images, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

As a professional artist, I enjoy the texture and hands on technique of woodcarving, the freedom of creating mandalas, the intellectual challenge of writing and the solitude of the digital darkroom. My art is greatly influenced by the ‘Dharma Art’ concept created by Chogyam Trungpa—creating art that reflects what is…not manipulating the medium or environment for the sake of meeting a specific agenda.

Photoshop has significantly changed my process when comes to creating photographic images. I am able to create the images that sit in my mind, the ones I could never re-create in the darkroom. My photographs are influenced by Christopher Burkett, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston. My images have been included in several art collections, purchased by well known art collectors, and have been exhibited in New York and Slovenia.

There was a time that I dreamt of designing buildings, but instead I became a fine art photographer who loved shooting images of them, particularly historical buildings. In an historical building there is a rich past, where the details of a time are integrated into the brick, wood, plaster and other available building materials. The building speaks of the influences upon society, it tells a story of what mattered to the people of that community and it stands as a direct connection to those who walked before us.

I am a nature photographer as well, who cheers inwardly when a building site integrates itself into the natural environment rather than laying the site clean of any sign of what once stood there. My work is inspired by the patterns of nature, as in the spirals of a center of a sunflower, and I find a close kinship with an architect who feels the same and translates that into a building’s design.

I have always felt that my best images are those that blend nature and the built environment. That is where my artistic nature quickens and becomes fully involved…where I feel a solid connection to the relationship between humanity and nature.

Since the day I sold my first image professionally in 1997, my work has become an integration of words and images. Sometimes they sit together on the paper and other times, one medium simply influences the other. Bringing these two mediums together makes me feel more complete and inspired as an artist.

The three greatest poets in my life right now are William Stafford, Rainer Maria Rilke and Margaret Atwood. My fiction writing has been influenced by many authors including John Irving, C.S. Lewis, E.B. White, Charles De Lint, J.D. Salinger, Louise Erdrich and Ivan Doig. When it comes to children’s literature there are so many favorites: Dragon Keeper, The Little Prince, The Wind in the Willows, Where the Wild Things Are, A Wrinkle in Time and all of the Paddington the Bear adventures.

And as artists often do, I tend to find myself in the middle of the current of social change. I suppose it comes from living as a fulltime observer of the dance between humanity and nature. Even though there are so many causes to fight for, I only have so many hours in the day. So I spend my spare time fighting for peace in the heart and mind through spiritual evolution, cultivating mutual respect and supportive partnerships, promoting sustainability and speaking on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves but share the world with us—birds, insects, fish, plants and animals—who are directly affected by the day-to-day actions of humanity.

Please look through my fine art photography collections, review my artist’s resume, purchase my marketing workbook and read my published writing.

Thanks for visiting my website!