by Sharon Ruth Hill

Created on: September 07, 2009   Last Updated: September 08, 2009

The Nashville area provides a nurturing environment for local artist Melody Evans. Her recent exhibition of collage art at the Hermitage Library appeared as a sophisticated adventure, channeling a variety of well-earned life experience. Suffice to say that the material in the exhibit was quite unlike the over-glued, poster board project collage of our elementary school days. Like a well-made quilt where each clothe block has independent meaning and value, but even greater meaning as a whole, this style of collage art achieves more than merely uniting independent images into a new whole image.

Sometimes real-life experience, and the emotional aftermath, can either culminate in a series of devastating aftershocks or it may bring about the spark for creative interpretation that can offer platitudes of real healing. I am pleased to say that the latter has proved true for Ms. Evans who, many years earlier, suffered through the breakup of a ten-year romantic relationship. Part of her grieving process included a desire to randomly cut out what she considered meaningful images from magazines. Not yet completely certain of the intrinsic meaning of each cut out, nor quite sure about why she was emotionally drawn clip them, Melody decided to buy a canvas backing and then began to apply each image using a collage format and spray glue. "It was almost like God had a message for me in that picture", says Melody as she now reflects on the completion of that very first collage.

While living in a rustic cabin in Northern Alabama, Melody proudly displayed her newly fashioned collage art. Friends began to take notice of the roughly 22" x 14" masterpieces and were quickly able to find their own personal meaning in each picture. Further reflection prompted these same friends to ask "how much would it cost for me to get one like this?", but it simply never occurred to Melody to charge anything over the actual cost to have the print shop reproduce the images, especially since she was "amazed that people were actually looking to buy" her uniquely inspired creations.

The mature, yet sometimes whimsical nature of Ms. Evan's work is filled with eclectic mysteries of light and dark where figures and objects float together in a surreal dream. There is something wondrous in each Daliesque portrait that allows the psyche to reach the playground-of-the-mind in a kind of thought provoking jungle gym. "Butterfly Woman" is a visually stunning picture that is emotionally soothing as the central

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