My Syracuse University BFA during the mash-up of the 1960s-70s reflects the confluence of all we learned from the old masters, merging with the fast flowing stream of modern movements and sub-movements. An additional 30 years of broad interests and experience find me now with a free-ranging style- representational, abstract, impressionist. I paint and photograph what pleases me. I hope it pleases you too.

Mixed Media Constructions

Having worked as an artist for 3 decades, Melissa Shanley's history spans many mediums; however, recent years and recent works bring her to focus on various forms of fiber art sculpture.  Images have also been finding their way to her again through photography. 

Melissa was exposed to the shape, feel and grains of fine wood at a young age by her parents who were restorers of fine antique furniture and worked from their apartment.  This influenced Melissa’s need to create tactile, fiber art and sculptures: work which can be felt even when it is not being touched.  As a child before a Van Gogh painting in a museum in Paris, Melissa told her mother she wanted to make art which made others feel the way this painting made her feel.

Throughout her life, she experimented with various standard and unconventional materials.  At Scripps College, she was exposed to fiber art and the process of wet felting.  She was also immediately drawn to copper wire and has been working with both ever since.  

At the Claremont Colleges, Melissa was also greatly influenced by the artist and Pomona College figural art professor, Charles Daugherty.  He taught her to not merely see and draw the figure, but to explore the line which came off the figure and out of her charcoal-- to follow the line, not the image.  This sense dramatically altered her perception of what she was seeing and how it was translated to the medium in front of her. 

The concept of "nest" emerged for her in the 1990s.  It was at that point that she began to incorporate egg shells and other found objects into her fiber sculptures.  Again, natural texture-- which the viewer can feel without actually touching-- holds importance in her work.  

That texture, however, often has its own natural limitations of size.  Fiber and objects which can produce that exquisite texture and line are of limited (and often tiny) size.  To increase the size of her “canvas”, Melissa is currently exploring the use of 5' to 15' eucalyptus bark with its intense natural undulations and color variations in an effort to surpass the size limitations of most natural fibers and textures.

Until the natural problem of intense texture in small quantities can be solved, however, Melissa endeavors to find other ways to bring the viewer in closer and to spend time with that texture.  One of the ways she has found to do that is to photograph the fiber sculptures.  The images of the fiber sculptures-- capturing light not found in all settings-- magnify and highlight the sensual texture which Melissa strains to bring to the viewer.

It was in this process of photographing her own work that Melissa returned to the use of photography in its own right.  Over time, she began to use the camera in daily life as her "sketchbook".   Thousands of images later, the world of texture, fiber and structural sculpture, as well as the importance of the line, re-emerge for Melissa in two dimensional format in her photography.  She also found that her early exposure to wood, grains and structure came out in her photographic images.  The beauty of line and of texture are magnified and concentrated, again bringing the viewer closer to question what they are seeing.

A new style of image also became prominent in her work at this time of photographic exploration.  Because she often had her sketchbook/camera with her, Melissa found she was capturing colorful, unusual, sometimes fun and often odd anomalies of daily life.  The resulting images often stop the viewer, producing emotional responses-- which is ultimately the goal of all her work.  

Most impressions are captured in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Europe, where she spends most of her time.  She ultimately feels successful with her photography when she hears a viewer laugh or question what they are looking at.  Knowing they are trying to decipher a sensual, tactile state they are inspecting and, ultimately feeling, she feels she has succeeded in bringing the viewer in close enough to interact with the subject.

Although her photographic images will not be mounted for viewing at SF Open Studios 2013, the images will be available in digital format for review and can be ordered, purchased and scheduled for free delivery within the San Francisco Bay Area.

Born to a father, a political refugee, imprisoned for his nationality, shot through the chest, saved by a stranger who subsequently bore me. As an infant, homeless, perplexed by the thud of bombs exploding. At puberty, found that I was closest to foreigners, refugees and subversives. Married someone from a different continent, who had suffered at the hands of bigots. Taunted as an enemy alien, arrested for possession of recorded music, separated by authorities from my family, crossing borders illicitly, mounted police trampling me underfoot. My relatives persecuted by the secret police simply because of their relationship to me, and dying at the hands of the regime. Is it any wonder that I discovered release in an engagement with art and pure aesthetics. Is it any wonder that I find myself creating works concerned with politics and social issues.

For more than 30 years I’ve considered myself a weaver. Weaving requires structure, order and balance interlaced with texture and color.

In the last few years I’ve expanded my artistry to include collage, mixed media and assemblage, incorporating weaving into the collage work. Collage and assemblage represent the unknown to me. That is to say, I don’t necessarily know what the piece will look like when I start. which is in contrast to weaving where I have to know what the end result will be before I start.

Creating collage and assemblage offers me the opportunity to explore the not so visible parts of life, the subtle messages woven into and between the unsaid and to express myself in new and creative ways.

Weaving and collage are very different and that is what’s fun about each of the processes.

This year I'm showing two new series I've been working on - a group of black and white prints on wood from our beautiful coastline, and a new set of film prints on anodized aluminum, shot in Mexico. I continue to explore the boundaries of photography as a painterly medium, and the different materials I use to print and present my images on as a way to enhance their overall message and feel. There will also be some prints on paper and canvas.

My work is about the marriage of disparate elements: paint and paper, wood and hardware, yarn and rusted metal. I search for points of connection between the differences and weave them together to form a new, cohesive whole.

Work begins with a hint of structure: a scrap of sewing pattern, the shadow of a line, a paint drip, texture in a weathered piece of wood, something that creates a hazy road map, destination unknown. The materials set a direction as much as my will. Traveling with a piece becomes a cerebral journey as I weave in an out of an almost meditative state.

Discovering useful elements is surprisingly easy. A walk in the neighborhood, a visit to the market, and beachcombing are wide-open scavenger hunts. Most days offer up something, a fragment of the urban environment. What I decide to cart home will hold physical interest along with an innate sense of place and purpose. This rich combination of both material and meaning is amplified or transformed when interlaced with other items into a new piece.

The process is both ordered and chaotic. At various points a message or story will surface and then evolve until a clear, even obvious direction comes to light. At that point, making visual and perceptual connections through composition become the goal. Letting the work come as it will through the limitation and integrity of material is critical to the endeavor and ultimately to the finished piece.

The “Backyard” paintings speak about the interconnectedness and fragility of life. Throughout history flowers have been used to represent fertility and birth while moths have been associated with death. In Latin American folklore the noctuid moth or "mariposa de la muerte” is considered a harbinger of death. So I combine flowers with moths to represent the cycle of life where birth, aging and death are all intertwined and nothing remains constant. My San Francisco backyard is the inspiration and guide for the paintings. I am fascinated by urban green spaces; how they fit into and change the cities around them; how they sustain the native birds and bugs. By magnifying that which is small and temporary I hope to focus attention on the beauty and mystery found in the everyday nature that surrounds us. The loose and spontaneous painting process I use has roots in Abstract Expressionism. When I start a painting, I put down brushstrokes that become a flower or a moth and let the painting evolve as it will. Watercolor is my favorite medium for this improvisational style because it is lush and fluid and changes as the water evaporates from the paint.

My work is a reflection of the time in which I am living. History, geography and folklore gathered in my travels are motivating factors. The human condition is described throughout my work. I see artistic value in the abandoned and beauty in the broken whether people or objects. I consciously use cast away items to invent the time and tone in each piece. A variety of artistic means are the vehicle that allows the work to reflect my vision. I think of my work in literary terms as visual poetry. Each piece is self-contained. My intentions are both emotive and personal.

Lucky Rapp is a San Francisco based visual artist with a background in both fashion and art. Her self-taught style is often characterized as being text-based. Her methodology incorporates layers of resin, paint and acrylic forms that create texture and depth within the dialogue of her work. Lucky’s approach is process-oriented and physical. The end result, combines inquisitive statements that play with both language and the potency of graphical communication, while the three-dimensional nature of the layered resin fosters a sculptural reflective quality. Lucky’s work has been collected and exhibited across the United States and Europe, and has been featured in solo and group shows in Antwerp, Belgium and Mannheim, Germany, as well as in the United States at Andrea Schwartz Gallery, ArtZone 461 Gallery, Houston Art Fair, Los Angeles Affordable Art Fair, Campfire Gallery, and ARC Gallery. Lucky’s work can frequently be found in the Roche Bobois San Francisco showroom and as an active member of the San Francisco art community she donates select works to the annual Art for Aids Auction, the Hospitality House Auction, and the ArtSpan Auction.