We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Melissa Stutts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Melissa below.

Melissa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Despite having gone through an arts program in college, I didn’t meet encaustics in real life until 2014. I gave myself a crash course into the discipline after my full-time job every night. I had two really amazing books on the artform and supplied myself with finds from the good-will for many years. My shitty little griddle is still my favorite today, despite having a beautiful one from a real fine art source.

Melissa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

An artist since childhood, Stutts studied Art and Design at Appalachian State University before working professionally as an art director and designer. Her design portfolio includes clients ranging from large national brands to small boutique advertising agencies and everything in between. She has experience in app design, digital development, creative project management, publishing, and extensive commercial print chops.

Stutts never stopped her studio practice while working in the corporate world. She has had several love affairs with various mediums over her career, but she was introduced to encaustic around 2014 and was hooked immediately. It was either the smell or the fire. She can’t pick one over the other.

“Working with encaustic I create graphic ecosystems by embedding unexpected materials inside many layers of wax. This construction of a suspended reality enables me to investigate complex themes around mental health, personal discipline, and sustainability. Layer by layer, I build up an environment of various mediums presented as simple shapes, to represent the beauty of chaos in our lives and our ability to find peace with it. My compositions aim to untangle these universal webs while encouraging reflection, conversations, and constant reevaluation of our realities.

I build these graphic ecosystems by layering non-traditional materials within an ancient medium. Finely ground metals, prints of plastic trash, and botanicals are preserved in a cloudy, almost dreamlike encaustic case. The inclusion of the objects in the melting of the wax represents the duality of building and destroying at the same time. It is my way of honoring and trying to understand the complicated nature of being human in the modern day. Reminding myself and the viewer that we are infinite beings, despite being flesh and bone. We can burn brightly next to each other while we hide our deepest emotions and wrestle with connectedness.”

Today her professional workload consists of commissions based off pre-exiting work she has in her art portfolio. Working with clients to make their subsequent irritation unique to their soon-to-be new homes.

New life update! Stutts has recently moved into the McColl Center in Charlotte, NC. Relocating her studio to this hub for creativity has opened up so many possibilities for her next body of work and explorations. She plans a residency deep in the Appalachian Mountains, exploring encaustics and local flora. This body will extend her existing ‘perfectly imperfect’ series. A series of Birch tree leaf impressions with oil and 24k gold finishing touches. This series orginated from a tragic event related to local flora where she resides. A 100 ft tree fell from her neighbor’s house into hers. The devastiation left her wondering if she would ever love her tress the same way again and finding a way to heal her own imperfections. The body of work aims to explore the beauty in our trauma, growth and imperfections.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

To trust myself. Figuring out as an adult that everyone is winging things in some way or another, has eased my anxiety in a way I can’t fully articulate. No wonder I was always so anxious as a child thinking grown ups knew what they were doing. Encaustic also eases my anxiety and reminds me that no matter what comes, I’ll figure out how to navigate those waters or flames.

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

My graphic ecosystems aim to untangle universal themes that are complicated while holding space for any feelings that the viewer may have. This evolution came about, as I was and still am, processing losing not one but two parents to aggressive cancer over several years. Watching someone’s body turn on the person who raised you and helps the world makes sense is a special type of torture for caregivers and their families. It embeds visuals in your brain you will never be rid of but must sit with for the rest of your natural life. The arrangements of these graphic ecosystems represent the society we live in and the communities they make up. How the world keeps moving despite your entire existence being ripped from under you. They aim to suggest their is something valuable in this type of growth and understanding that death is a universal truth despite our society not holding much space for it. The arrangements hold movement and structure while the individual shapes themselves can be barely whole and completely disjointed. The arrangments can symbolize time as an abstract concept and connectedness of ourselves to community despite physically showing up and being present. You can be present while half of you is absent. The reality of this state is always present in my graphic ecosystems after losing those we loved far too soon.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.melissastuttsart.com/portfolio
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissastuttsart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melissastuttsart
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissastutts/

Image Credits
Photos by Emily Chidester, Adam Whitlow and Logan Cryus.