We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melany Dierks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Melany, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Resilience is the reward we get from battles, from the trenches, from the bad, hard times. It’s the learning, the thicker skin, the wall, the stamina, the callus, the strength we have achieved. I didn’t get dealt the best hand of cards with the toxicity of an unstable family environment. I didn’t have supportive parents. No one had ever told me they were proud of me or patted me on the back. I grew up an only child raised by a woman who wasn’t very fond of children, in isolation. A simple pad and pen became the tools I could use to create portals that could take me to places that made me happy, that made me proud. The joy I felt from seeing my own progress was enough to keep going. Having a stutter didn’t help with my popularity either, but drawing other students portraits did and gave my skill some recognition. Resilience comes from fighting for what you want. Instead of my interests being nurtured, I was shamed and made to feel doomed to starvation. It forced a disconnect and broke my trust with people that were supposed to have my best interest. being an artist meant being alone and left to my own devices. It gave rise to purpose.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am an artist. I paint canvas, wood panels and walls. I tattoo. In both worlds, I work with people and their visions besides my own. My focus is convincing realism and my specialty is portraiture in both tattoo and paint. My paintings are inspired by surrealism and tattoos are inspired by stories and memories, for the warriors of pain. The tattoo shop is located in Long Beach, Belmont Heights Tattoo Boutique. I’m there wednesdays, thursdays and fridays. If I’m not tattooing, I’ve got an easel set up for painting, constantly at work in my practice. There are a couple pieces I’m working on right now. One of them will be part of a show with the Care Bear franchise at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles February 2024.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Who you know will always be important. People make connections based on relation and how you make them feel. A gallery is akin to a supportive family. In tattooing you have to build trust with your client and make them feel comfortable during a time when they will be vulnerable to the pain inflicted. Go to art shows and get to know them because these are relationships you want to build as well.
Being an artist requires being social, but it also involves isolation, making time to be in your practice and dedicate the time each piece asks of you.
If I were to just stop and give up something that gives me purpose just to make a hurtful person happy, I would lose myself. It would feel similar to suicide. The unknown of the future inspires me. The passion running through my veins gives me life and meaning. Even if things are slow, you still have to push through and keep working. The time you spend not creating is also important because your work requires a healthy headspace. Taking time for yourself to meditate is essential. Good ideas come from a zen mind.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
My Granny played a key role in my life as an artist. She was also an artist so we had some things in common. Her work inspired me bc it was different from mine. My work has the tightness of rendering in terms of control of what goes into the figurative and the time to create pieces that are convincingly real. Granny made collages, quilted, used fabric to make abstract compositions. She used found objects to make some pieces. She lived to be in her 90s, but had the curiosity of a child and that’s the kind of magic I want to hold onto. As a kid growing up, she would give me art supplies that sparked my curiosities. She kept drawings I made to show interest and intrigue. It made me feel that there was value in the things I was making. I was in a relationship that wasn’t working with my son’s father and I was going through a time that I wanted to expand my art career. She helped me and supported me when I needed it the most. I was able to leave that relationship and put myself through grad school. She moved me, quite literally. She recently passed away. I felt like I had lost the only person that really cared for me. Even though we did not see each other that much, she made big impacts in my life. With my inheritance, I was able to move into a house with enough space to have my studio and make a beautiful life for myself and my son. I will forever be grateful to her.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.mywetpaintstudio.com
- Instagram: @melanydierks
- Facebook: Facebook.com/melanymd
Image Credits
Joel Millane (photo of me)
