Carol Mell
Photo Encaustic, Painting
Carol Mell grew up in wild Oregon, descended from 49ers, homesteaders, one-room school teachers, engineers and photographers. She spent summers by the ocean and in a ghost town near the Idaho border. She played in a natural world of imagination, where trees, sturgeon, squirrels and whales spoke. To this day, she believes that the heart of life is found in play.
Marriage and motherhood brought her to the Southwest where she sojourned from Navajoland to Yuma, Taos and now Albuquerque. She is a fluent Spanish speaker and has absorbed both Spanish and Native stories that spring from many generations on the land.
Her photography explores spirit and nature with imaginative shooting, editing and mixed-media presentation techniques with an emphasis on texture, materiality and physicality. Her recent work incorporates silk and paper images with beeswax, resin and oils.
Encaustic and cold wax painting became a pandemic passion as a way of processing difficult emotions. What emerged were figures of joy and healing. She continues to paint intuitively with an emphasis on movement, texture, color and story.
Mell's lifelong artistic journey has included choreography, writing, photography and now painting. Through it all she has exhorted her collectors, students and fans to “Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul.”
