Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Newman.
Hi melissa, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am a painter and mixed media artist and educator originally from Chattanooga, TN. I currently I live in Donelson with my husband and thirteen year old daughter.
I grew up much better at doing things than saying things and have always found comfort in making. I feel like I really found my people and my place when I attended the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga to pursue my BFA in Painting and Drawing. I later attended the University of Iowa where I earned my MA and MFA degrees, also in Painting. I had art teachers who meant so much to me in high school and beyond, who literally changed my life, that I knew that I too wanted to pursue teaching as a career.
I was lucky enough to be hired to teach full time at Middle Tennessee State University in 2008, and even luckier to still be there today.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I love teaching, especially in a public university. It can be a challenge to have a student body with such diverse backgrounds and levels of experience, but there is such joy in fostering a love of art in students who never had previous access to any level of art education.
Being a mother and a teacher means that a lot of my energy goes outward. I have always had a studio practice and have shown my work when and where I could, but if something had to be put on the back burner, it was always that commitment and focus that suffered. During the pandemic, I comforted myself and filled my time by making daily works of art, reviving a collage practice that had fallen out of my regular practice. This happened to coincide with my daughter being of an age where she was a bit more self sufficient and caring for her wasn’t as all consuming. In short, I had space in my brain to recommit to my art practice.
Having a full time teaching job means that the steps you make as an artist may be smaller than someone who is able to dedicate all of their time. One thing I have learned is that the comparison game will kill you and it’s best just to keep walking forward in your own lane, even if it feels like you are taking baby steps.
The past several years, I have challenged myself to say yes more often and put myself out of my comfort zone. The most exciting result of this has been that this summer, I received word that I had been selected as a resident artist in the third cohort of the Arcade Arts program. The twelve artists selected annually receive studio space for ten months in the upstairs of the newly revitalized Arcade building in downtown Nashville. We participate in the DADA (Downtown Arts District Alliance) Second Saturday Art crawls as well as community programming and other opportunities.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Much of my work begins with a collage process. I find a parallel between the collage process and how I process the world because it allows multiple ideas to exist simultaneously Emotions and experiences rarely stand alone; nostalgia is tinged with sadness, and grief is coupled with celebration. The disparate elements existing together, reflect my lived experience as a mother, teacher and citizen. I make connections to my own experiences of motherhood, femininity and the falseness of nostalgia from these recontextualizations.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I have been so lucky in my life to have peers, colleagues, friends and family who have supported me, even when I was resistant to it. Besides my family and friends, I am currently so grateful to the directors of Arcade Arts, Mollye Brown and Sai Clayton who effortlessly make sure that we all have everything we need. We have only had two crawls at the time I am writing this, but I am also so thankful to those people who have come to the crawls to see what we are up to. I have already had so many meaningful conversations with incredibly supportive people and artists.
Pricing:
- I have work priced from $20 and up. It is important to me to keep my art affordable for anyone who may want to collect it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://melissanewmanart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissa.newman.art/
