Biography

My name is Melissa A. Robinson.  I live in Central Minnesota with a small menagerie of animals in a wonderful house near a beautiful river.  My studio is in my home.

I cannot remember a time before art.  I always loved to draw and color and paint.  I see the world that way.  As art.

My education includes stints at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Macalester College, and the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio.  I have a degree in art and English.

Artist's Statement

I make art for people.  Not for galleries.  Not to impress other artists.  Sometimes just to entertain myself.  But mostly I make art for people.  Because some connections are deeper than words.  Because art is what I have to give. 

Color feeds me.  Heals me.  Lines, too.  Shapes.  Light.  Emotion.  That is the stuff behind it all.  Emotion.  Power.  Faith.  My work is a way of weaving together the many resources we need to cope with modern life.  Virtues and failings balanced with humor and grace.  Scrubbing away the gobbledygook to get to the heart of things.  The Holy stuff.  The pulsing beat of love that sings just below all of our daily concerns.  I try to capture that.  Even just a glimpse of that.  To remind folks - to remind myself - that our lives are not just routines and drivel.  Not just responsibilities and duties and things to buy.  Our lives are poems unfolding.  Beautiful dramas full of unseen forces at play.  Our lives are art.  God's art.  And when my odd little pictures are successful.  They give you a moment, a space, to breath in and remember the beauty of life unfolding.