I first came across Meliors in her Etsy shop several years ago, and was quite taken with her work. It spans across several mediums, including textiles and bookmaking (have you ever made a book by hand? It’s awesome!).

From there I found her blog, which details her adventures in art, and her passion for environmental activism. I was even more intrigued. Meliors’ sculptures are large, for something that is hand-cut, and hand-stitched, and I was filled with admiration for the dedication, skill, and the enormous amount of time that it takes to complete things of this scale.

"spoil"

What do I love about her work? She takes the humble woollen (recycled) blanket, then spends hours cutting and stitching to re-create sections of melting ice floes, toxic dumps, and oil spills. She crochets huge amounts of ash clouds. The subtle monochrome schemes emphasise textures and shapes allowing for fabulous tactility – I just want to run my hands over them all, don’t you!?

"ash cloud"

Meliors is one of those very fortunate people to have been brought up in a house surrounded by practicing artists – her mother is a printmaker and a painter, her dad is a poet and author, and her aunt is a storyteller. She says they all influenced her in their own ways.

She started her own career as an artist by producing handmade books around 2003, which is why she called her blog Bibliophilia. She says her artmaking subsequently took a few odd twists and turns before she ended up at textiles, but that her Master’s degree in environmental policy continues to be very influential on her current art practice. She has now been stitching her environmental concerns for almost four years.

from the exhibition "imagining Antarctica"

 

from the exhibition "imagining Antarctica"

Meliors is actively voicing her concerns through her art – it would be impossible to think otherwise when considering her body of work. However, she says,

“I’m not interested in making anything ugly or didactic, instead I’m aiming for unflinching beauty.”

It’s definitely that too. But why make something that is ugly (like an oil spill) appear so intriguing? Soft on creamy white blanket, seed stitched with a delicate tracery of inkiness?

Because beautiful work gets noticed; issues come to the forefront and must be faced up to.

from the series "oil spills"

 

"seep"

She admits she does flip about in her chosen techniques though. Her mother was a talented sewer and embroiderer and taught her to sew, and she taught herself to crochet from a book. But she never stuck with anything for very long, and that continues to be characteristic; she says she is always trying new things.

Her biggest challenge as an artist is the same as so many other talented makers – not having enough space/money/time to realise her biggest ideas. But this is helpful too.

“My imagination and ambition continually outpace my available resources. This is useful though, because of the creative opportunities that arise from pushing at my own boundaries and the discipline required to make the most of what I do have.”

"tipping point"

And I love her philosophy on the artistic life, borrowed from  Gustave Flaubert –

“Be orderly and disciplined in daily life, like a good bourgeois, so that I might be wild and violent in my art.”

 

You can find some of Meliors’ handmade books and poetry in her Etsy shop here. Her website, which showcases her artwork, is here, and her blog is here.
(edit – and I just found out today, she was a winner of 2012 NZ National Contemporary Fibre Arts Awards! You can find out the details on her blog here. Congrats Meliors, well deserved!)

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With sincere thanks to Meliors Simms for permission to reproduce her words and images here.