Top of the morning to you! It’s Thanksgiving week and I have a lot to be grateful for. This year, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be grateful in a season of growth rather than a season of abundance–when you are working toward the harvest. To frame it in another way, how does one handle it when life pushes you so far in one direction that you have no choice but to lean in and roll with whatever that entails? In the last 5 years, this has happened to me. Now, I find myself in a season of growth that I truly wanted but with a set of challenges I did not anticipate. I am grateful to be in this place of growth and change, and for the work I was able to do to get me here. It is never lost on me that the people who believed in me at the beginning are my biggest blessing. I will forever and always value the clients who have made Casey Monda Art Advisory possible. You have entrusted your collection to me and that is no small thing. Please know how much I appreciate your vulnerability, willingness to take risks, and the trust you have placed in me to guide you on this meaningful journey.

I also cherish the new folks in this community who have risen up to meet Art I Saw & Liked and support this wild and crazy venture. This platform holds my whole heart and it is something I believe in to my very core. Showing people that it is possible to live with great art (without a big budget) and how to do it is my calling and every time you read my email, engage with what I have to say, and generally don’t completely ignore me, you are giving me the gift of fulfilling my purpose and passion. Thank you.

I am also stupendously grateful for my community partners like The Young Team, who took a leap with me and decided to turn their office into an art gallery. They have given me the opportunity to fulfill another dream of curating exhibitions, giving artists a voice, and creating events that bring people together and closer to art. And it is with that in mind, that I present my latest project. Introducing Cleveland Heights-based artist, Mel Rea!

It is unplanned but well-timed that Mel’s exhibition went up on the Young Team’s walls this week because her story is one that highlights the magic that happens when you listen to the inner voice that guides your life’s direction. Mel Rea began her artistic career as a ceramicist creating large figurative pieces with intricate details. A chance encounter with a bucket of beeswax in her grandparents’ basement sparked her curiosity about the potential of other media. Having worked in ceramics for 17 years, Mel was ready to take on a new challenge and began exploring how she might bring her years of experience in sculpture to a painting practice. Thus began her brief but torrid love affair with encaustic (a wax-based painting medium). While the soft satin finish of the beeswax initially lured her and replaced her love for clay glazes, she eventually wanted to be able to move more freely, intuitively, and spontaneously across the canvas. She began dabbling in acrylic, pastel, gouache, and oil sticks and she has never looked back.

Having fully abandoned the referential details that characterized her figurative sculptures of her early career, Mel’s current painting practice embraces abstract assemblages of colorful lines, shapes, splashes, drips, sprays, and scrapes. The resultant forms may suggest something concrete; but, that narrative would only be in the viewer’s mind. It is precisely this intuitive reaction that initiates the relationship with the painting that Mel desires. As evocative forms dance and weave themselves across the canvas, so too do stories, narratives, emotions, or reactions emerge. It is precisely this back and forth that vitalizes Mel’s work. While she is careful to channel warmth and connection into her compositions, she recognizes that anyone can bring any experience to a work. Once she has made her mark, she yields control to the eye of the beholder. The give and take of meaning-making between the artist and the viewer sets up a dynamic relationship that allows for infinitely open-ended interpretation.

Mel Rea completed her BFA in Ceramics at Kent State University. She currently lives and works in Cleveland Heights.

Now that you have read all about her, you must see her work in The Collection plus the other hundred or so pieces available for discovery there. If you’re local, let’s go have a coffee in the gorgeous space at The Young Team and look at her work together. All of the work is for sale and there are even some small works that would make excellent holiday gifts. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!

NEXT WEEK…

Looking forward to December, I will be heading to Miami for the Super Bowl, ahem, I mean Miami Art Week. Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to. In the next issue of Seen & Liked Lately, I will be outlining how I prep for the year’s grand finale and making a few FaceTime slots available so you can get in on the action. Whether you are in the market for your next statement piece or just curious about how an art fair looks and feels, I can be your boots on the ground. Slots will fill up fast and there will only be a few so make sure you grab one before they’re gone!