Wednesday
Mar182009
Southern Creatives: Melanie Eberhardt, Painter
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 12:00AM This is the first episode of "Southern Creatives", my new digital documentary series exploring the lives of right-brain thinkers and creators found deep in the South. Hear their stories. See their spaces. Get inside their minds. (And then tell me what you think.)
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Melanie Eberhardt is an artist living on an ample plot of land in Canton, Georgia with her dog Lucky, twelve cats, four horses, Pony Joe, a pot-belly pig, and a cockatiel. Likened to a Matisse paper cutout style, she crafts clever, story-based compositions in a bold palette of gouache paint. She is represented by Georgia galleries including AB Gallery in Marietta owned by well-known folk artist, AB the Flagman, The Seen Gallery in Decatur and The Raiford Gallery in Roswell.
Reader Comments (7)
I like this Stephanie...love hearing the voice of the artist telling her own story..."wretched trailer"...has such strong resonance and the animals bring a sense of who Melanie is to the forefront (really like the dog and his constant watching)....I like how you present her art in its natural habitat of files and not hanging under a perfect light. Thanks for the introduction.
Wow, Stephanie good video. I like the format of the author telling her story, zooming in on the pictures (and the artist talking over the pics) and showing her creation process. The video kept me interested to watch to the end. I look forward to seeing more.
Very impressive! Me likes! Keep going!
I LOVE to hear how people create and especially enjoyed the part relating her college work to where she is now. It was also encouraging to hear her talk about how many paintings it takes to get to one she really likes. As a writer, I edit, edit, and edit some more and I'm completely comfortable with the process and don't even think about what I discard. As a beginning artist, though, I struggle with what doesn't work, the projects that need to be let go and discarded. So much easier to hit delete on a computer keyboard than to admit you've wasted a sheet of that precious water color paper and your favorite pigments on something that turned to mud. I need to be freer in my approach and allow myself to experiment, knowing that even if I don't come up with a finished project, the PROCESS is worth the materials.
And I enjoyed Melanie's honesty and balance in describing her home, the way it works and doesn't work for her, the way she bonds with it even as she wishes for something else. Yes, seeing her animals, her space, the things she loves stacked into a cupboard, you get a sense of someone who is at home in their own skin, in their own life, recognizing that yeah, maybe things could be better, but the things aren't so bad in the big scheme of things.
Alex would be proud!
This is a wonderful documentary, so sincerely and also originally produced. I too look forward to seeing more.
I LOVE this documentary! Its so fascinating to hear her talk about her work, and I love getting to look at the pictures. Of course, all those images that are in the flat file that she's now painting on the back of? I'm like, "I'll take those! Send them to me!!" They're beautiful! I love this idea of seeing how artists live and work! Thank you so much.