The Paper Crane

An Inter­view with artist Kreh Mel­lick By Dee Clements

On a recent trip to Asheville, North Car­olina I stepped into a cof­fee shop and saw some draw­ings on the wall. I made a men­tal note to remem­ber the name of the artist; Kreh Mel­lick. I didn’t write it down and of course I for­got it almost imme­di­ately. A few days later, as I boarded the plane to head back home to Chicago, I thought about those draw­ings I had seen and wished I could remem­ber the name of the artist. Sit­ting in my seat rifling through my bag for some­thing to read before the plane took off, I pulled out a cat­a­log for Pen­land School of Crafts, a sweet lit­tle art school in North Carolina’s amaz­ing Blue Ridge Moun­tains. There, on the very back page of the cat­a­log was a pho­to­graph of Kreh Mel­lick work­ing on a draw­ing enti­tled ‘The Kiss’. I rec­og­nized the draw­ing style imme­di­ately, looked up the credit and saw that it was the name I had not writ­ten down. I arrived home, googled Kreh’s name and found her blog then pre­ceded to email her ask­ing her if I could inter­view her about her lovely draw­ings. Here is the inter­view; A walk with Mother, Kreh Mellick

Dee Clements

Hi Kreh, One thing I truly enjoy about your work is the sim­plic­ity of the fig­ures and the line qual­ity. Lets start with your ladies; what I draw from your fig­ures of ladies is that the way they are drawn, the sim­plic­ity and the action they per­form in the draw­ings strips the frills and really shows the char­ac­ter of these women quite sim­ply for who they are. You men­tion hav­ing really strong women in your life which in turn has been a strong theme in your work. What types of things about women are you inclined to focus on draw­ing? Spe­cific qual­i­ties? Things culled from your own life experiences?

Kreh Mel­lick

Using women as my sub­ject mostly comes from a place of under­stand­ing or intrigue. I have lived closely among women my whole life and there are still depths and intri­ca­cies that i have not grasped. On one hand women are con­sid­ered nur­tur­ing and sweet, there is cer­tainly the abil­ity for being cruel and over bear­ing. I think this is prob­a­bly just human. These women just serve as a vehi­cle for rec­og­niz­ing these kinds of moments in peo­ple. I know that so many of my char­ac­ters are quite sta­tic, even emo­tion­less. But I think as I draw them, their is a per­son­al­ity trait that comes for­ward. I begin an under­stand­ing of the sub­ject and later too in its final­ity this may not be as impor­tant. I like the form of women; their shape and the small things that make their faces dif­fer­ent from mens. Their hair and dress. These things come from a naivete that i have held onto but i can also not escape from. The very basic urge just to draw what i want; feet and hands, ges­tures and dresses. I have had it my whole life and it has just come in the form of these women. Per­haps they could be seen as flaws or ide­al­is­tic views of myself. In some sense I sup­pose they have to be. I’m never think­ing of my own self when i draw them. I always start not know­ing what will hap­pen. I start explor­ing the char­ac­ter that will arise.

DC

One thing you men­tioned to me per a pre­vi­ous con­ver­sa­tion was ‘what ghosts leave behind: an arm, a head or the floor, they are black; the con­stant’ This was the first thing I noticed in your draw­ings. For instance ‘The Kiss’, she is miss­ing an arm. I was think­ing more that they were flawed fig­ures and their flaws are more vis­i­ble mak­ing them stronger, more unique char­ac­ters. What I enjoy about your com­ment above is the pos­si­bil­ity that ghosts leave behind an appendage in the liv­ing world, exist­ing or not with­out it in the super­nat­ural world. That this could even hap­pen, is like fic­tion or a dream. Can you elab­o­rate on this a lit­tle more?

KM

So I think that what you noticed about the miss­ing limb in ‘The Kiss’ is pretty spot on. Depend­ing on the sub­ject the miss­ing limb would be their char­ac­ter, whether strength or vul­ner­a­bil­ity. I really loved one-armed swim­mers for a while. Which i think peo­ple viewed as dis­turb­ing. I really just loved draw­ing there bathing suits. The deci­sions are pri­mar­ily visual, I can’t talk about my char­ac­ters heart break or her dizzy spell, so I take some­thing from them that the viewer can rec­og­nize. I think the idea of the ghosts is and exten­sion of this as well. Except, yes, they now exist inde­pen­dently from each other, the ghost and their leg or skirt, etc. If the viewer can see this or when they do, than the ques­tion or the story becomes about their sep­a­ra­tion. What hap­pened to cause this? What is the rela­tion­ship of their sep­a­ra­tion? And beyond the draw­ing where do these things roam? What kind of space do they inhabit? For instance a man who leaves his boots behind; I like to think of those boots with a layer of dust in the closet. If i were to find the boots, i would know what the owner looked like and that he was now only an old mem­ory to the boots. And again, these are only some things I think about these par­tic­u­lar draw­ings. This is never fully real­ized when I am actu­ally mak­ing them. When I actu­ally sit down to draw there is never a plan. I draw to find some­thing, some­times I get lucky, some­times I have to make a stack of draw­ings before I get some­thing that I can work with.

DC

It seems to me that you choose very par­tic­u­larly what to leave out and what to include in a draw­ing. How do you decide or rather what things are more impor­tant to show in the envi­ron­ment or of the character…?

KM

The environment’s are more about mood. When I was lit­tle and had col­or­ing books, I remem­ber always just want­ing to color the peo­ple on the page, just their cloth­ing or faces. I would try to color in their sur­round­ings and it would get bor­ing. I even remem­ber look­ing at really detailed col­or­ing book pages and think­ing how beau­ti­ful they could be if I col­ored every bit. Inevitably I would get bored after fin­ish­ing the cen­tral char­ac­ters or sub­ject. This has remained true for me. I pick the impor­tant moment and its hard for me to cre­ate the envi­ron­ment. I almost feel like know­ing the cen­tral theme is all you need because every­one brings their own bag­gage with them any­how. I add a huge roman­ti­cism to things I am not fully clear about. When some­thing lays before you and you are not sure how a sit­u­a­tion may play out. Your mind fills in the blanks almost sub­con­sciously. I love when this hap­pens. Even if you are so far from the orig­i­nal intent. The abil­ity to retreat into your own world is fas­ci­nat­ing. I am try­ing to explore these envi­ron­ments fur­ther. There have been shin­ings of growth in terms of set­ting. Though I am not wholly there yet. I think the larger draw­ings tend to show more spa­cial sig­ni­fiers. I think I always know where it takes place. Maybe its still a secret.

DC

In our ini­tial talk, you had said that presently draw­ing the idea of ghosts is a theme you are explor­ing. Sug­gest­ing the real vs. unreal–‘like machine draw­ings or dia­grams’ as you’ve stated. Can you elab­o­rate on this state­ment a bit more? Also your use of red and black and the del­i­cate line qual­ity– what those might be allud­ing to?

KM

I have always been scared of ghosts. Being in houses with them, hear­ing sto­ries of them. Fas­ci­nated, but mostly scared. I also have a pretty active imag­i­na­tion at night and I let it get the bet­ter of me. So ghosts, whether there or not have always existed around me. I sup­pose I am just explor­ing how the ghosts inter­act with the peo­ple in the draw­ings. Which really makes it all more of a sweet, quiet story than a scary, haunt­ing story. To show that there are both real and unreal qual­i­ties in a draw­ing, I’ve found that it was like machine draw­ings or dia­grams. One color rep­re­sents the con­stant and one color rep­re­sents the change or move­ment. So black or pen­cil would be the ‘liv­ing’ and the red would be the ‘un-living’. Or red is the mem­ory of the thing that was red and black. Also it is a way that just gives me the oppor­tu­nity to show that some­thing is dif­fer­ent or to add some new ele­ment. The line qual­ity is just my hand. Its my nature, some­thing I can’t really describe. I sup­pose when its a shal­low line it allows you to see imper­fec­tions.

Ghostly Hair Pull, Kreh Mellick

Ghostly Hair Pull (detail), Kreh Mel­lick

DC

In the draw­ing After the War, there are two groups of ladies, some drawn in black, some drawn in red. Are the ladies drawn in red ghosts of the ladies drawn in black? Some of them are point­ing or per­haps reach­ing out, some even look like they are in despair and some even seem just to be observ­ing. Can you dis­cuss this scene a lit­tle and the impe­tus behind it?

KM

This is where the red and black departs from real and unreal a bit. Orig­i­nally when I started draw­ing this, I started see­ing them as teams. How­ever I sup­pose the red could also be seen as the team that lost. Maybe they were wiped out in bat­tle. For some rea­son the red always seems to be the lesser liv­ing. There is some­thing translu­cent and indef­i­nite about red. The char­ac­ters are dra­matic, reach­ing out, show­ing some force, with no real clue that there was a bat­tle of any sort –this is the idea. Set­ting the scene for noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar. I like casual drama or bru­tal vague­ness. The grand build up to an event. All the moments that take place in its com­ing seem to hold all the impor­tant moments. The indi­vid­u­als present, the impe­tus, the moment of doubt. The coor­di­na­tion of out­fits. In ‘Tuffle’, I like that they are put into groups but each char­ac­ter seems to be in their own place. Each char­ac­ter has a dis­tinct role; pro­tect­ing, long­ing, dis­lo­ca­tion. They are all together and all separate.

DC

In sev­eral of your cur­rent draw­ings such as Tuffle, A walk with Mother, and After the War, to name a few, have what seem to be fly­ing heads in the air. Their hair are like wings and their faces sug­gest the whole body. Some tend to be in a light grey bub­ble and are never drawn in red. Are these fig­ures part of a dream, or per­haps they are a character’s con­science? What do they represent?

KM

Oh!! I love these char­ac­ters. Maybe, because right now I am mak­ing papier mache ver­sions. Orig­i­nally, I was call­ing them fly­ing baby heads. I had found them in a screen printed wall­pa­per class I was tak­ing. They began in red. As I drew them more and more they became less like creepy babies and more like angels. Though, I don’t like call­ing them angels, that seems to have some reli­gious con­nec­tion and these heads are not nec­es­sar­ily sweet. They are closer to har­bin­gers of death! Closer to the oppo­si­tion. That is, they pro­tect their indi­vid­ual. They seem to just appear, some of the char­ac­ters need them. They all have a sim­i­lar look; which you can say for most of my char­ac­ters, but these heads are par­tic­u­larly sim­i­lar. I like that they rep­re­sent a cer­tain race of creatures.

Its funny, as I answer these I real­ize how much of my own lit­tle world I live in. I have never had to explain my motives before. I like to think of the fly­ing heads as thoughts or just the way your mind works. Ideas float­ing in and out, fol­low­ing you or whis­per­ing fool­ish notions in your ear.To con­tinue, the heads came by mis­take. I found them while draw­ing and I fell in love. They stick around and they grow and change. The grey area came as a sort of halo that frames the form and gives them an entrance to the seen, like they appear out of some abyss. Some of my other char­ac­ters have these too. Halos or a light wash. I like to use this to empha­size their depth of char­ac­ter as well as space.

After the War, Kreh Mellick

DC

I notice that men do not often show up in your draw­ings, how­ever in one set of draw­ings that are posted on your blog a man does appear. In one he sits with an iron on his lap, a geo­met­ric pat­terned back­ground behind him. In another he lays near a stand­ing nude women, this time the pat­terns are to the side. Is there a nar­ra­tive happening?

KM

He is his own char­ac­ter. He came from left field. I love the moments that hap­pen in these draw­ings. The tex­tures are really graphic. I was mostly try­ing to cre­ate com­pet­ing pat­terns rather than a graphic qual­ity. There is a nar­ra­tive and I had a par­tic­u­lar order in which the draw­ings were placed. I real­ize now that it isn’t so impor­tant any­more. He is on a quest, or real­izes a quest. Of course, it is of epic pro­por­tions in only three parts. Part one; He real­izes his quest and sets out. Part two; he is vis­ited by a prophet. Part three; he receives his reward. Every­day, we are able to find things, attain things, cre­ate rela­tion­ships with peo­ple and they are for­got­ten when we go to sleep. We are always pre­oc­cu­pied with the next thing and then we die. This char­ac­ter finds a jour­ney, par­tic­i­pates and allows him­self the moment to enjoy his iron. I guess, i am in love with lit­tle moments. A lit­tle moment: In Ice­land, I was walk­ing home from the stu­dio and I hap­pened to look into a yard that was fenced in. I could just see over the top of the fence and an older man and woman were sit­ting on lawn chairs. In the moment that I looked over, the man leaned over to kiss his wife’s breast. They were fully clothed and it seemed to me the most inti­mate moment that you don’t see hap­pen between peo­ple but prob­a­bly hap­pens casu­ally between the inti­macy of walls, in moments quickly for­got­ten by the peo­ple involved. I just thought it was beau­ti­ful. Ha ha! Remem­ber­ing of Ice­land, not the lan­guage or the nation’s bird and what have you–but a boob kiss!!

DC

What is your attrac­tion and/or rela­tion­ship to pat­terns? Is it more dec­o­ra­tive or per­haps some­thing more spe­cific and per­sonal? KM

This attrac­tion has been grow­ing in the past few years. I have always loved old wall­pa­per. Dilap­i­dated rooms with curl­ing wall­pa­per rem­nants. I love over­lap­ping pat­terns and rich col­ors. I love Sey­dou Kieta’s pat­terned por­traits and Henri Rousseau’s ‘The Dream’, depict­ing a reclin­ing nude on a couch. The pat­tern began as a dec­o­ra­tive ele­ment. I was using it to cre­ate a space or sense of envi­ron­ment. The pat­tern rep­re­sents mem­ory or some­thing far­away. In a lot of the draw­ings there is only ‘a bit’ of wall­pa­per. A lot of my draw­ings do this. I want to leave a sense of some­thing. It’s impor­tant to the story and sets a tone. Wall­pa­per Print by Kreh Mel­lick The Dream, Henri Rousseau, 1910

DC

Have you con­sid­ered cre­at­ing pat­terns for fab­ric or wall­pa­per with some of the pat­terns you cre­ate in your draw­ings? KM

Yes! I have used pat­terns in screen printed t-shirts. And have taken a screen printed wall paper work­shop at Pen­land School of Crafts. I have a dear friend who I col­lab­o­rate with on some of the screen print­ing projects. I have been dream­ing of doing hand-drawn wall­pa­per for quite a long time. Going to someone’s home (or in my own) and draw­ing the wall­pa­per directly onto the wall in pen­cil. Now that i think, There was a boy that gave me a bit of paper cut out from a book or mag­a­zine. It was just a bit of wall­pa­per— but that prob­a­bly changed every­thing. The mood from many of these draw­ings comes from a place of lov­ing some­one far away.

Domes­tic Dis­pute, Kreh Mellick

DC

How did you come about work­ing in Ice­land? How long were you there and how did the expe­ri­ence effect your art making?

KM

I had been intrigued by Ice­land and have always dreamed of north­ern cli­mates, and for the light and the ocean and the way it affects mood. Com­ing out of the core fel­low­ship at Pen­land, I had put my head to going there. I spent three months there, June-August and it was incred­i­ble! I think that I am still feel­ing the impact it had. I worked a lot. I had undis­turbed stu­dio time for three months. Of course I was walk­ing a lot and did some explor­ing. But I really worked and was able to make draw­ings and explore aspects of my draw­ings that I had not had the time to pur­sue. I made five large 4’x6’ draw­ings and a stack of smaller draw­ings and sketches. I was really able to make leaps and bounds into a body of work. Which was so impor­tant to ven­ture out on my own and do this after the core pro­gram. I have always dreamed of liv­ing close to the sea, sur­rounded by fields and moun­tains. Being in this place really ful­filled this dream. I think that a lot of this work came from a really purely roman­ti­cized place, a make believe place, that also had very human aggra­va­tions mixed in.

DC

It seems like you were really able to focus there. Were you not able to have the same kind of focus while you were in the Core Pro­gram at Penland?

KM

Well, i think the core pro­gram was a big step for me. I started mak­ing the kinds of draw­ings I wanted and I found a lot there. Ice­land just gave me the oppor­tu­nity to sit down and use all this infor­ma­tion that I had been stor­ing. Pen­land was such an impor­tant time for me to have. Between the classes and peo­ple I encoun­tered there, it really opened me up to a lot of pos­si­bil­i­ties and I do no think many other places could have done that for me at that time when I needed it. There was an open­ness at Pen­land, very lit­tle ego. Any­way, leav­ing Penalnd and head­ing to Ice­land, I think I had just been look­ing for some time to be thought­ful and quiet.

DC

Can you tell me a lit­tle bit about the ‘Girl Fights’ draw­ings you did while in Ice­land? The women, and the actions of dis­pute and dance they seem to portray?

KM

These women came first. I feel like they are what Ice­land really gave me; the char­ac­ters and their mood, a stiff upper lip. The fights I think came really basi­cally as a need for action and for some­thing to hap­pen. For some­thing to shake things up a lit­tle between the char­ac­ters. These fights seemed to allow for this. And as they devel­oped nar­ra­tives it seemed they had these very prim­i­tive rela­tion­ships or con­ver­sa­tions. Despite the kind of implied vio­lence, I found humor in it. I mean, the kind of ridicu­lous nature of war and aggravation.

DC

I really enjoy the red design ele­ments in the cor­ners of these (‘Girl Fight’) draw­ings which give them a nice dec­o­ra­tive qual­ity. Are there spe­cific types of dec­o­ra­tive arts and/or folk arts that you are drawn to and that maybe inspire these aspects in your own work?

KM

My fam­ily has a love of antiques. Pri­mar­ily of the Penn­syl­va­nia Dutch ori­gin. I grew up in North­west­ern New Jer­sey, close to the Penn­syl­va­nia bor­der. There is a very huge antique world there. I grew up with old blan­ket chests, tin ani­mal molds and Stafford­shire. My Great Grand­mother con­tributed to many of the old paint­ings that hang in my Mom and Grandfather’s house. My Mom recently found a sketch­book of hers that i brought with me to Ice­land. It is filled with clip­pings from mag­a­zines and bits of paper, where she prac­ticed the dec­o­ra­tive motifs she would paint on tins or use in larger paint­ings. I started copy­ing these motifs from the sketch­book and even­tu­ally, slowly incor­po­rat­ing them into the draw­ings. It felt like a strong piece of my his­tory that I could incor­po­rate. It has this girly ele­ment that I never would have touched a year ago but I enjoy the way it plays off of the fight­ing ladies.

DC

Well Kreh, it’s been really won­der­ful talk­ing with you about your art. Now that you have com­pleted Pen­land, and come back from the resid­necy in Ice­land, where do you find your­self work­ing or set­ting your sights on next? Whats in store for you and where can we see more work in the future?

KM

Well, right now I am in Asheville, NC and will be here through the begin­ning of next year work­ing and find­ing time for the stu­dio. I have been apply­ing to res­i­den­cies and grants so that i can carve out time to ded­i­cate solely to being in the stu­dio. I cur­rently have work up at Rebus Works Gallery in Raleigh, NC. I have a small show locally in Asheville, NC at Har­vest Records. At this point I am try­ing to remem­ber that, ‘the world is my oyster’.

See more of Kreh Mellick’s work on her pic­ture blog http://krehstorrs.blogspot.com

*Dee Clements is the founder of thepapercrane.com and has a BFA in Sculp­ture and Fiber & Mate­r­ial Stud­ies from the School of the Art insti­tute of Chicago. You can see her work on this web­site under the sec­tion tiny paper crane.

Posted by Dee Clements on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 12:15 am. You can follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.