With Trixie Flory's departure to pastures new and diary clashes for Katherine Thorn, Maria Tufft, Marilyn Pipe, Rhian Winslade and Sarah Ditchfield we have recruited two new chums to our Collective for our event in May.

In this post we would like to introduce to the first of our 'new girls' - the multi-talented Melanie Gow.

Describe yourself briefly:  First I’m mother to two boys who are growing up to be great men and may well turn out to be the best thing about me. Other than that I have lived my whole life as a creative, never far from a camera or a pen. But, I feel I have waited all these decades for the world to finally develop the perfect medium for me – I make original Artwork using digital apps as a creative photographer.

For me it’s like breathing, it’s how I respond to the world, whether I am inspired or I’m in pain, I spend my time as an artist trying to make a small part of it glow. 

Describe your style?  Forever trying to capture the moment or the metaphor that has meaning. I feel the image as I use a palette of Apps, usually taking several days to get the right mood, and then each one inspires a quote or I write a line of poetry.

Tell us about your workspace? On the road, on the run, on the phone, it’s the space I grab with myself that helps me connect with my thoughts and make sense of it all. It’s how I feel articulate.

How and when did you get involved with Collective Art in Marlow?  I met Julie Rumsey and Liz England through exhibiting at the Windsor Emporium; I’m surprised they’re able to still be artists as I bit their arms off for the chance to join this collective. It has been the most nurturing and welcoming experience.

What is your favourite technique? I really like using mixed media to create an image I then photograph and add into a layer on my images, or I like to add mixed media to the final prints – I like adding the real into the digital, but I also really like “colouring “an image for the emotion.

Apart from creative photography do you have any other creative interests?  I run a Community Interest Company that delivers cultural initiatives into the area to foster civic pride. It’s an enormous challenge, but I love coming up with an initiative that can touch the global community and have a real world event locally at the end of it.

Favourite film: That’s so hard, BC (Before Children) I was a film director and screenplay writer so I love films and watch around 5 a week still. But if I have to name one it’s “All That Jazz”, Directed by Bob Fosse.. a theatre director is dying and the whole film is a bizarre musical conversation with Death. I have always related.

 Pets: I had a cat for eighteen years, she was with me through college, there as I started on my career, moved in with me when I bought a house and saw both my sons born. I have not had a pet since.

 Favourite place to be: Wherever there is a chance to be in the present, sounds corny but those moments when you are not hurtling towards some deadline, appointment or end of a “to do” list are like the universe opening up endlessly. 

 Person I'd most like to invite to dinner: That’s too hard, a historical figure? My late father for one last conversation, or my eighty six year old self who would be wise of course? A great conversationalist, a conservationist, someone controversial or just Robert Downey Jnr as I am going to marry him, just as soon as he realises I exist? Option overload!

Random fact about me: Bragging rights, I had a book published and then took my sons on a road trip across America from LA to New York over 7 weeks, drove to the Grand Canyon in an RV had dinner there at sunset just for starters - absolutely life affirming.  Also, I don’t cook.
Lala Woods
6/5/2013 10:40:01 pm

What a very interesting interview, and Mel makes the Collective Art in Marlow sound such a lovely cooperative of artists. I'm filled with envy.

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10/9/2023 09:38:12 am

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