Building a life rooted in creativity.
She raised her two daughters through an unschooling approach, creating an environment centered on creative problem-solving and self-directed learning. That way of living—autodidactic, intuitive, and exploratory—has deeply informed how she sees both art and people.
Now, with her daughters grown and thriving in their own creative paths, Melissa has returned fully to her own work.
She creates original bodies of artwork while also activating spaces—bringing that same sense of curiosity, beauty, and discovery into environments where people gather.
Melissa went on to study painting and printmaking at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, where she deepened her love for material, color, and composition. At the same time, she was selling her own work and noticing something important—people weren’t just drawn to the artwork, they were drawn to the wonder of it. They wanted to understand how it worked, where it came from, and how it connected to a larger history of art.
That curiosity shaped everything that followed.
It led Melissa to develop her own unconventional way of teaching—less about instruction, more about experience—and to build a life rooted in creativity.