Art Analysis - Blog Posts
‘Of Meadows and Blue Skies’ by Melody Money
‘Of Meadows and Blue Skies’ by Melody Money was a solo show at Visions Art Museum in San Diego in 2021 that now lives on the form of an online and video exhibition on the Visions website. Melody Money is a mixed media textiles artist who prides herself on attention to detail and is “motivated to take a medium that is traditionally worked on a smaller scale and expand it to a larger version” and that's evident in this show.
After Melody Money received her Fine Art degree from the University of Colorado, she went on to study prismatic colour theory at Rudolph Schaefer school of design, and this schooling in colour theory shines through throughout the show. This works’ colour pallet is almost exclusively bright warm blues, greens and yellows. Few of the pieces from this collection use colour pallets that could be described as realist. Instead, Money opts for the sort of colours that you could imagine a child choosing for a scribbled marker pen landscape that features a buttercup yellow sun in the corner of the page. It’s clear that these colours, maybe even more so them the actual pieces themselves, were designed to invoke a child-like wonder and love for nature.
Money’s piece ‘field studies’ is more reminiscent of a sample board than a fine art piece but that makes me love it even more. The piece itself is a 4 x 10 grid of textiles field studies, these studies are predominantly beaded embroideries of local wildlife like birds, butterflies and various flora. Money clearly prefers creatures that fly as, apart from one solitary fish, all the animals depicted have wings of some variety. I do not find this preference shocking as the sky is a constant reoccurring character in her work, always lovingly decorated with swirling winds. This piece being a series of studies and not one final piece makes the work seem a lot more personal to Money, I feel like I am witness to a before unseen part of her process which is both greatly endearing and gives greater context to the rest of the work in this collection.
Money uses beading throughout these pieces, most significantly in ‘Rain’ but also rather heavily in ‘Field Studies’. All the beads she has chosen have either an iridescent or metallic quality to them, this means that in the bright lights these pieces shine. In ‘Field Studies’ a trio of blue iridescent swallows pull your focus immediately and in ‘Rain’ the whole lower third of the piece is alight, shimmering with silver bead work. These circles of beads and stitch create pools and puddles of rain that reflect both the faux, stitched light in the piece as well as the real, dynamic light of the exhibition space. Melody Money has said that light is the key to making her art sing, and I couldn't agree more, the beading on both these pieces would have been significantly less impactful and appealing had she opted for dull beads; it would have completely lost the magical shifting colours of the swallows and apparent glow and movement of the pooled water. The effect that light has on these pieces and really all of Money’s work make it such a shame I was only able to view this exhibition in the form of consistently lit photos and a lower quality than I would have liked video. I do think her work is lovely but to have seen her work in reality, especially in shifting sun light, would have been something else entirely.
‘Rain’ is an incredibly dynamic work, though the art itself is ever-stationary. Money’s use of layered vertical strips of differing shades of blue draws your eyes up and down the piece. This paired with the influx of cascading, downward-pointing triangles, which colours fade from navy to white, creates a faux sense of gravity, like the fabric rain is really falling. This effect and the way that Money has achieved it is beautiful and, in my opinion, makes ‘Rain’ the most visually stimulating piece in the collection.
By comparison, ‘Chant’ at first glance is a much simpler work; the colour pallet is more muted, and it lacks the flashy beading and intricate forms of some of the other pieces. Instead, most of the piece is made up of layers of silk shaded fields. From a distance this embroidery looks simply like blended colour, but up close the individual threads are evident and reminiscent of thousands of single plants and grasses. Due to the simplicity of the design of this piece, the intensity of the silk shading shines through. The most impressive element is the scale of the piece and volume of stitches - this amount of embroidery is a feat to undertake. But what I can only assume is dozens and dozens of hours of work has absolutely payed off, as all these dense stitches create this sense of never-ending, empty fields. This feeling is accented by the inclusion by seventeen beads of small iridescent birds in flight, up over the fields into the waiting bright blue sky above. These tiny birds seem little and insignificant in scale, compared to the force of nature that surrounds them, to a degree that I can’t help but feel small alongside them.
‘Of Meadows and Blue Skies' is undeniably a love letter in fabric and thread to the ever-changing natural world that surrounds Money’s home in Colorado. Having grown up in an environment similarly surrounded by nature, Money’s work really speaks to me, it reminds me of the importance of enjoying and protecting the wild spaces around us. Money says in her artist statement “I try to shine a light on everyday moments” and for me she does that both completely and beautifully.
I'm back and I brought my MIND BOMBS!
Ok so I have about 1 fan for these silly little posts and I have decided that now is the time to start doing them again. I took a break because of college but also because I like procrastinating and didn't feel ready to push myself to write more silly little analyses. Enough about me though its cardboard time. Mind Bomb to me has very vivid imagery. It was created originally in 4th edition before magic started being wholly coherent. Magic was still finding its footing and the border is a testament to that. I ended up with this card as one of my first MTG cards; my dad had bought me a random 1000 card job lot off of ebay and in it was contained a bunch of cards from across a massive portion of magics history. Some Lorwyn, some Futuresight and many more but this one and many of the other classic cards had always struck me with their bizarreness.
The card itself works in quite an interesting way with it allowing any effected player to substitute its damage for discard instead. I view this is in a way where one word of its name is emphasised more than the other, mind and mental effects usually being associated with the loss of cards whilst the bomb being a clearly vicious and destructive physical force. Another thing of note is its cost, there is no real narrative behind this card at least not one I know of so seeing its cheap cost mixed with its art clearly depicting multiple dropping as our detonating one does implies that this weapon is commonplace in its plane. The art has many things of note to it to really sell the player on the impact of its effect. For one the splitting shell as it comes down with bolts of mental lighting zapping to the now loose casing. The bomb itself being in almost regal tones, the golds and reds giving it an air of power and decadence. Yet upon closer inspection this weapon may not be as impressive as thought. The metal is dented and worn with clear signs of aging and the insignia with its bold red colouring is not done to uniform or at least doesn't to be with its asymmetry and hints of dripping. The detonation we see central to our card may not even planned as we can see the straps that hold its shell together flailing in the wind, falling apart, as the two others in view descend cleanly. These are relics. Whatever war these were a part of, whatever nation they once served is gone. Wiped clean. Whatever once stood is no more and perhaps it was their own doing. We will likely never revisit this card or its plane of origin as whatever once there has been forgotten. Could these bombs have been their undoing. We could ask them, if they still know. I hope you enjoyed this slightly dumb rant about an irrelevant card these are fun to do and I actually have some lined up now which is good. No hints though. I have two final notes a slightly lighter one and a slightly less so. Lets start heavy. There is a TTRPG called normality, the premise is similar to my final little statement where in which the world is hit with psycho-nukes that make the entire planet stupid. This idea of a mental bomb that strikes and destroys civilisation is probably what crept into my mind at the end there; the game itself is batshit and almost impossible to play with the GM being encouraged to lie to the players to only make matters worse for them. It seems cool and I want some friends to torment with it. Might try it on my college group. Try it today! Lastly this card reminded me greatly of the thing that first got me into card games. In season 4 of Adventure Time there is an episode called "Card Wars" later in life I would learn this was a parody of magic made up for the show but at that young age I was completely drawn in by the cool monsters, little scenery and the way the players interacted. This card reminded me of cerebral bloodstorm, a card played by Jake that backfires and kills his own husker knights. That's all. I CAN REST AT LAST.