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.