SHEA STREET STUDIOS

Melody was raised by her Grandparents in a little white house with a white picket fence, in downtown Anchorage, when Alaska was still a territory. As a young woman she always dreamed of living in the woods, she found 10 acres outside Palmer and together with her husband, they cleared the land and built a home. In those 10 years, she raised a son, goats, pigs and nearly every type of poultry. In 1982 she took a summer job in Chignik Bay on a fish processor. It was hard and lonely work; she didn’t stay long. She filled her spare time combing the beach for driftwood, shells, bones and feathers. This began her passion for making mobiles and her never ending search for new materials and new ideas. Fast forward to 1986, she moved back to Anchorage and bought that little white house with the white picket fence where she and her husband, Gary, reside to this day. A passionate gardener, tending the garden her Grandparents started in 1950, Melody never stopped making her mobiles, although the materials have changed over time, she still works to deconstruct and repurpose materials. They are a great way to lose yourself in expression. Melody believes that mobiles are like life, you begin at one end and continue to the other side, trying to achieve balance.