Nature’s palette calls up memories

Editor’s Note: Terri Melnick was a noted local artist who lived most of her life in Youngstown. Her work was exhibited locally and in the Bloomfield Hills area of Michigan, where she moved later in her life and shared a gallery with other artists.

Among her local accomplishments were her acceptance in the 58th annual National Midyear Exhibition and a number of other juried art shows at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown.

According to her niece, Maryann Liguore of Green Bay, Wis., there are many relatives and friends who fondly remember her through that piece, an oil painting of the Youngstown steel mills.

Terri, a graduate of Youngstown State University, worked as a design artist for Youngstown Arc Engraving and in the design department at The Vindicator, and was a resident artist with Dixon’s Art Studio. Her local activities included involvement in the Boardman Artist Guild and at the Butler.

Terri died Oct. 11, 1998.

Maryann, a freelance writer, sent this article about her aunt and godmother to The Vindicator:

It was this time of year eleven years ago, that my aunt and godmother left us, all too soon.

Like me, she put her career on hold to raise her four children. She was a singer, a poet and an artist. Instead of giving her gifts to the world, she gave them to the children she loved.

She taught us that the world was our canvas. We were convinced that those long irregularly shaped pieces of driftwood and the smooth flat stones we gathered on the beach during our summers spent in Conneaut were really art materials, placed on the sand to become paintings of sailboats and sunsets. Magically, we transformed clay clawed from the hillsides into vases, carefully baked in the kitchen oven. We learned that art was all around us, and we learned it from the very best teacher.

We all told her she must quit smoking and not follow in my grandfather’s footsteps, becoming a victim of lung cancer. Cavalierly she would quip, “Well, everyone has to die of something.” When it finally happened, we all thought, “Yes, but not now, not at 68, not with so much left to give.”

With her children grown, and lives of their own, she picked up her art career. Her paintings were well-received. She used mixed media to create soulful images that brought her world to life. Her depictions of the Youngstown steel mills gave color to the Valley, and she brought life to the people who graced her canvases. As an artist, she exhibited widely throughout the Midwest, and her gallery drew great interest from the arts community. Finally, she was being recognized for the talent she was. And then, in the blink of an eye, it was over.

Autumn is the season of color, and it is a time when it is easy to pull her presence close.

When October takes me home to the Mahoning Valley, I think of her. As I make yet another foray into the woods of Mill Creek Park to witness Mother Nature bending over backward to please the eye, colors of autumn engulf me. I am reminded of the colors she taught me to mix as a child; reds melding into purples, yellows turning to gold, countless shades of green fading to sage.

When the time for summer’s leaving comes, I watch flocks of birds seemingly dancing in a natural rhythm across the sky as they prepare to head south. They rise and fall in ribbons of movement over meadows and lakes. They do this as color begins to drench the hillsides and the forests, lulling me into a false sense of security. The forests I see are a great artist’s palette, and they make me long for the palette I shared with her.

Somehow, I feel as if these colors won’t fade. I learned from my aunt that I could mix them anytime.