We were lucky to catch up with Melany Meza-Dierks recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Melany, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I first knew I wanted to be an artist when I was 14 or at least, that’s when I announced it. I knew even before then. I felt it. Creating was something that made me feel accomplished and gave me a sense of being. As an only child, it kept me occupied and distracted from life’s downfalls. I grew up with a stutter that didn’t stop until I was 12. I had already changed schools a few times and making friends was tough. So, I drew portraits of the other kids to make friends. At 14, I had a discussion with my mother about my future in becoming a cosmetic surgeon. She wasn’t happy with my argument of wanting to be an artist and didn’t talk to me for a while. Since then, I knew what I wanted to do, regardless of approval. I knew it made me happy and that I was good at it. I knew that this was going to be something I was going to have to stand up for and nurture.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got into the arts as a lonely child that needed a sense of pride. I grew up in a family where perfection was expected and criticism was an every day occurence. I couldn’t please my family but I knew I could please myself. In knowing so, I never made art to satisfy anyone else except myself, with my own challenges and pleasures. I became obsessed with portraiture an an early age, when I had a stutter. I couldn’t speak right, so I drew portraits to gain camoradory. Portraiture helped me develop my obsessive sense of rendering. Of course, no one saw how this could make any money so, I had to disguise my passion through graphic design, so that I could at least get my mother’s approval to go to art school. After graduating with my BFA in Communication Arts at Otis College of Art and Design, worked in the creative department of an ad agency, DGBW, as a creative intern for over a year until layoffs happened. I worked as a freelance designer, making logos, brochures, posters, and storyboards for clients for about another year until I decided to teach painting to kids at a public art studio in Santa Monica. I was happy to finally be doing what I felt I was put on earth to do, paint, create and inspire. However, my background in graphic design did help me brand myself and recognize more of the business aspect of art. I had also started tattooing, which was something constantly hinted at me to do by peers. Tattooing alongside painting became a form of rebellion and reward which stemmed from pain. It also became another way to sell my work. If it wan’t going on a wall, it was going on skin. The idea of leaving something permanent behind gave me a sense of value in image making and for myself. Humans became canvas and panels became personified. I received my MFA form Otis in 2016 and moved to Long Beach and began painting murals, expanding my exposure all around the city. At the start of the pandemic of 2020, I was put to work and commissioned to do a Kobe Bryant mural that had set the wheels in motion for many more murals after that. I currently live in Long Beach as a tattoo artist at Belmont Heights Tattoo Boutique and a painter from my studio at home.

My work reflects on a lot of my life being transitional, in the sense of things constantly changing, from schools, to homes, having a baby, and overall adapting to the chaos that is life with characters emerging through portals in settings of the unknown where they live in awe and discovery.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

After graduating with my Masters in Fine Art, I had become wiser but I had also become a single mother and broke. This was a very scary time in a world of unknowns. I moved to Long Beach and worked at a strip club dancing. I was able to pay bills and rent and worked only 3 days a week. The time that I wasn’t there, I kept myself busy. I knew that I wasn’t stuck because my passion wasn’t going anywhere. When I wasn’t painting and spending time with my kid, I was dancing. I was able to gain perspective as an entertainer in another world finding parallels between being a painter, an artist and a dancer in this fantasyland. Being able to speak to people and carry conversations, navigating headspace, and finding ways to connect and convince are common practices that reflect in my work. Eventually I was hired at a tattoo shop. The club was able to give me the time and connections I needed to move on. By the time the pandemic hit in 2020 and everything closed down, I was getting mural and painting commissions and people still wanted to get tattooed. Things got pretty busy for me as an artist but even busier as a mom and a teacher. It may be hard to find the positives in the negative but, I was fortunate to have my ex around to help take care of my son on the few days I don’t have him each week. On some days, I would take him with me to mural locations to help assist me in the small things, teaching him in a big way about life and hustling. To get where I am now, has taken resilience, by way of staying busy, keeping my head up and allowing everything to fall into place.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think something that other people may struggle with may be the stability and the seriousness of being an artist, nevertheless a female artist. My mother wanted me to have the stability of a doctor and I refused. There’s nothing wrong with being a doctor. A good doctor is constantly intrigued and driven by his practice and loves being a doctor as does an artist. When you are in pursuit of happiness and your goal is a prediction not too far off, your practice becomes an addiction. You do what you need to do to keep your dreams alive so that eventually you live your dream. When you are good at something, it makes you happy and others can recognize this, it is what drives you. The career of an artist develops and comes with age, unlike other professions that rely on youth and physicality because it isn’t our body as much as it is your mind. The more that I mature, the better my work gets, going beyond the technicality of a rendering and challenging myself in more ways through concept and composition.

Something that “non-creatives” could benefit from is the problem solving you get being a creative because being a creative is the definition of problem solving, finding ways of making something happen, telling a story that is captivating or observing silence. To be an artist requires gut and ambition and is something to be respected. I didn’t come from a supportive place so, it took a lot of extra work but I know that adversity is simply another challenge and every challenge presents wisdom and perspective.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mywetpaintstudio.com
• Instagram: @melanydierks
• Facebook: facebook.com/melanymd