Feb 6, 2024
Part 2 begins with how Melan
thinks of herself as an artist. "Art is therapy," she says. It's how she knows
herself. "If I cannot create,
I cannot be myself."
She's been creative her whole
life. She wanted to be a tap
dancer early on, pointing to Shirley Temple as inspiration (by the way,
Temple was originally from Santa Monica, but died in
Woodside). Melan even did
drag for a while. But she found painting around four years ago and decided
then that she's not doing
anything else after that.
She cites her mom's love of
cooking and baking shows as another inspiration.
Back
in the day, before Food Network and competitive cooking shows, it
was just PBS. Melan watched a
lot of Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, and Martin Yan. She says that she watched these shows more than
the Saturday morning cartoons most kids her age were glued
to. She also loved cookbook
illustrations and says they've been a big inspiration for
her.
Melan talks about the "Muni Raised Me" show at SomArts last year, which
she was part of. In the
podcast, she describes her Muni paintings that were part of the
SomArts show ... they involved dim sum, burritos, and
Irish coffees. Then our conversation evolves into a
discussion of Muni and what it can
mean to life in The City.
Plans for 2024 include hibernating. She says she
needs to paint, that travel in 2023
pulled her away from that. She's looking
for new
things to paint, so if you've got ideas, drop her a
line.
We end the podcast with Melan riffing on our theme: "We're All in
It."
We recorded this podcast in Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley in
December 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt