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About The Artist - Melissa Harris (short version)
She teaches private classes combining drawing, painting, and meditation, and has held workshops at the Omega Institute, The New York Open Center, the Foundation des Etats-Unis, and the Phoenicia Pathwork Center. Melissa's work has appeared on numerous magazine and book covers, several cassette and CDs, and both "We Moon" and "Celebrating Women's Spirituality" calendars. Quite prolific, she has shown at nearly two dozen solo exhibitions, and many dozen more group exhibitions, in both the US and France. A desire to re-connect with nature after many years of life in New York and Paris prompted a move to the Woodstock, NY area in 1993. Melissa Harris lives on 9 acres with her partner Kent and their 4 cats, Timmy, Sashi, Monkey, and Lucy.
About The Artist - Melissa Harris (long version) EVER SINCE I CAN REMEMBER MY MOTHER WAS TELLING ME "YOU'RE TOO SENSITIVE" . I have had clairvoyant experiences all my life. When we were young we'd be riding along on a trip somewhere new and I would shout out that I had seen the scenery the nite before in my dreams. I couldn't understand why others didn't "know" the same things that I automatically did. Therefore I began to feel different than others. I was also always drawing and painting. My parents fed me a constant supply of paints, crayons and paper to keep me quiet. My stories of clairvoyance are far too numerous to mention. I continue to experience them constantly. My parents urged me to go to college for something i could make money at. In my first year of college I was most passionate about my art class, but discouraged by my parents. I decided to major in fashion design but every time the elevator went by the 3rd floor and i smelled the oil paint, I felt drawn. I got a BFA from Syracuse University in Painting and an MFA in painting from Queens College in the New York City area. During my years as a graduate student I was put on probation by the all male graduate committee. I was having a spiritual awakening and trying to paint the images that were coming through in my visions and dreams. The graduate faculty committee was unhappy with my constant change of format and thought the images "hokey or corney". The only one who understood was a woman on the faculty that was a practicing astrologer. We decided that I had to do what I had to do to graduate. I knew I could paint a portrait that would knock them out so I did. Problem was that I was really yearning to experiment more with "unknown" territory but that would have to be put on hold. I had blown away the faculty at the school i had attended before that with a life-size portrait of a friend so i did it again and finished grad school with a body of life size portraits. When I did the portraits I went into trance-like states and channeled the subject's essence. The results were very powerful life size expressive portraits. I had applied for a Fulbright grant to Paris and got my grant to go and paint in 1985. Right before I left i had an experience that was about to change my life forever. In about 1980 I had begun to learn to meditate and that had become part of my life as well as some astrological studies. I was having a massage at the local YMCA and when the woman was working around my throat area I felt an incredibly loving feeling of peace and sweetness. Indescribably beautiful. I felt as if i needed to express something but couldn't speak. After the massage, the masseuse told me that she had massaged hundreds of people and had never had an experience like that. For her, she said it was like a feeling of pure love. We were both amazed. I was waitressing at the time and discovered that one of the waitresses was working with a group that was channeling and healing. I went to one of the groups, then I was off to Paris and on my own to continue to learn and experiment with this new expanded form of consciousness. (The experience of getting the grant and the events around it are another magical story, not so important here). To sum it up, I was able to manifest very quickly places to live. I was supposed to have a person or school that I was affiliated with to study painting in Paris but i didn't . I know that my grant was a "cosmic gift" and that it , like most things was divinely guided. Only 2 painters received Fulbrights in Painting for Paris that year and I was lucky enough to be one of them. It was an awesome experience for me to sit at a reception table at the American Embassy in Paris as part of a select group of Fulbright Scholars in all areas of expertise. When I got to Paris I was anxious to take up where I left off . I was living in a sort of dorm like situation on a floor with other musicians and artist with grants. I began practicing my readings with the other artists and musicians on the floor. They soon turned into healings where I was being shown/told where to make healing sounds or place my hands on different parts of people's bodies. Much of my time in Paris for those 2 years was spent meditating, practicing yoga and doing readings/healings. I don't know what the Fulbright committee would have thought.... When I returned to the states I went to live for a few months at the Pathwork center in upstate NY. The Pathwork is a spiritual path for growth that is based on a series of over 250 lectures channeled by Eva Pierrokas in the 60's and 70's. It is very much a path of self responsibility. During this time I decided to enter Barbara Brennan's hands-on healing school because my readings had transitioned from guidance I received audibly to being instructed to place "hands on" or form various "soundings" over individual's bodies. After becoming immersed in the program I missed doing my artwork. I didn't have the time, energy and money to do it all. It was necessary to come to a decision about where to focus my energies. During these few years I had incredible, magical experiences. For example, once when I visited a psychic, he told me that I had a native American guide who "appeared" to be young/mid aged that was working with me in my healings. He said his name was "3 Black Feathers". Soon after that I was working with a friend, practicing my healing school homework. I was doing a healing on her and afterward she said that she had "seen" a native man around 40 years of age standing behind me and that he had a black bird on his shoulder. This was a friend who was not geared toward believing this sort of thing, mind you. And I had not mentioned my reading to her. A few days later I had a chiropractor apt with a chiropractor that was involved in alternative ways of healing. When he was standing behind me he said he saw a native man with a black bird on his shoulder. I had not mentioned anything to him either. I felt the presences of many beings during these years but never saw any of them. During my readings i spoke in other languages. After my return to the states and entering the healing school i decided to focus less on the "beings in other realms" and more on the healings. As I said, I came to a point where I couldn't do it all and my intention was to find a way to combine my artistic interests with my interest in healing and the metaphysical. I decided not to return to the Brennan school for the next year and to focus on my painting, which I did for the next couple of years, continuing to support myself mainly through waitressing. I had decided at that point that I didn't want to be in the "counselor" position, for awhile, whether that be the channeling or astrological readings. I had played out that role in the family I grew up in as well as in my friendships, and I felt a need to step back from that position. Soon after my decision not to continue in the Brennan school, I decided to begin my company, CREATRIX and publish my artwork as cards and messages to accompany them. It has been a long road with a lot of learning curves and without going into depth on my personal issues, I can see clearly how many aspects of myself have needed to learn from this entity I have created. The business has brought everything together for me and taught me good business skills. It is extremely fulfilling to listen to folks' feedback on how the images or and writings have touched their lives. For many years I was also teaching classes that combined painting with meditation. Basically, we focused on learning to access one's own personal visions and find a language in which to express them. I taught at the Open Center in New York City, Omega Institute in Upstate New York and privately. Teaching was also fulfilling to me. I loved sharing in my students processes. At this point it is time to step back and make more time for some image ideas that I have been carrying in my head and take a break from teaching. I was fortunate enough to find the perfect partner in The Left Side to take care of my wholesale business. I live in gratitude each day for the wonders of my life. On a personal level, I share my life and home with a wonderful man and four cats on 9 acres in the Catskill mountains of New York. Our land has wonderful meadows and a magical forest that back up to a reservoir. My partner has just finished building me my dream studio complete with a French door overlooking the meadow and forest as well as huge windows and skylights. I have had this dream for many years and it feels like a miracle to have manifested it after years of struggle in different areas. I feel it is an absolute MUST to know what our dreams are so that we can manifest them (as I say on my card "Spinning Your Dreams". I feel strongly about the lack of respect for the earths' resources that seems rampant at this time. For myself, I feel an obligation to live as simply as I can with an awareness of how each action is related to the next both in terms of how we can be as waste efficient as possible and also in terms of how we relate to others. It is my continuing practice to try and live fully in each moment, keeping in mind the desire for the best for all concerned.
Q and A with Melissa Harris:Q. Can you talk about your style and how it came to develop? How do you get the feelings of movement and emotion into your work? Q. "Do you paint on a regular schedule?" Q. What is your preferred medium? Q. Who are some of your favorite artists?
Melissa comments on where she gets her inspiration:
"My passion for life is continually renewed by the joy & magic I experience as a result of my intention to open to the Goddess & Spirit. A connection to Mother Earth fuels my being & inspires imagery. My relationship to others also teaches me to keep my heart open to all I come in contact with. These connections and relationships are a catalyst for much of my recent artwork. "For the 15 years that I was doing portraits, it was inevitable that anyone important in my life became a painting! I tend to paint in series. My interest changes more frequently as of the past 5 years, and has included portraits, landscapes, a sensual "intimacy" series, and more fantasy-oriented images out of my head, revolving around the above mentioned themes."
Melissa on her creative process:
"I always play music when I am painting. When I look back to a particular piece of artwork I often remember the time I painted it by remembering the music I was listening to. I used to prefer working from life rather than photos and that is shifting."
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Melissa Harris is a Fulbright Scholar who studied in Paris for 2 years on her grant for painting. She received her BFA in painting from Syracuse University in NY, and her MFA in painting from Queens College, in Flushing, NY. Melissa also studied at the University of Virginia, the Brooklyn Museum Art School, and The New York Studio School.