Two Cheeky Monkeys: Feature Friday

Friday 26 March 2010

Feature Friday - Melanie Cook

My very first feature Friday is of an artist whom I "met" through the Australian Etsy team, DUST. In fact, Melanie, who runs the cheekily-named store wiccked (which is full of an eclectic mix of beautiful work), is one of our DUST team administrators. I adore Melanie's paintings, they are so colourful and so detailed! Here is what she had to say about herself and her Etsy store:

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I live in Alexandra Hills, a bayside suburb South East of Brisbane, in the Redlands, with a husband, two dogs, three cats, numerous birds and numerous fish. Bayside, unfortunately, doesn't mean that I live near the sea. Our bay - Redland Bay - is fringed with mudflats.

I haven't had a day job for almost 7 years, and in the two years prior to that I did work briefly, part time. I worked in IT. Computers are still a big part of my life, and I'm always messing around with geek stuff, as well as all of the other art stuff I do. Even though I don't have a day job, I wouldn't say I'm a full time artist either - I should be, but I'm not that disciplined!

Describe yourself in 5 words.

Creative, honest, optimistic, earthish, me.

Egyptrienne - original watercolour painting

When and how did you first start crafting/creating?
I've been doing it all my life! When I was little I used to scrounge anything at all to draw or paint on - including the cardboard from the inside of a new shirt when my Dad got one! And the medium has never mattered. I've always been quite happy to create with anything, pencil, paint, shells, rubbish, fabric, clay.... anything at all.

What do you create and what are your favourite materials with which to work?
I create all sorts of things, from jewellery, paintings and quilts, to hand bound books. I love to work with gemstones, silverclay, water colours, fabrics and fibres - I'm a colour and texture junkie. I'm not really big on knitting, yet I have quite a yarn stash. I can't resist those gorgeous colours and textures!

Gold solitaire ring

When and how did you start selling online?
I think I probably started selling online around three years ago. I started off with my own website, selling hand made soap, lip balms, cards... and expanded to jewellery, dropped the soaps and balms, kept the cards, jewellery and hand stitched tarot bags. My daughter and a friend used to sell their work through my online shop too. It became very hard to keep going with a shop that got very little traffic, then I had a problem with my site that I couldn't fix, so I started selling on Etsy, and gradually moved all of my stuff over there and closed down my own site.

Describe your store in 5 words
Eclectic. Bright. Fun. Inspired by nature. Wiccked (how could I not say that?!)