Welcome!

Hello and welcome to Sunflower Studios!

My name is Melissa Mustain. I am a writer and poet who also enjoys experimenting with architectural, scenic, and still-life photography. I am quite excited to share some of my creative works with you!

If you are interested in viewing my freelance commercial work, please visit my marketing and publicity consulting firm's website at:

http://www.mustainconsulting.com/

As we all know, a good architect is a fanatic for detail; therefore, some of the most beautiful parts of a structure are best captured in isolation. I believe that an architect’s true vision is demonstrated through the details of the architectural parts that make up the structure as a whole. Through these details, an architect as an artist, shares his talents and skills with his audience. Perhaps the architect-artist does not even consider his audience when designing his work. However, the audience is there to consider the architect and his artistry.

Most notably influential on my interests in structures as an art form is the incredible organic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Perhaps the earliest influence on my aversion to architectural design as the subject of my photography, however, comes from none other than the Renaissance era and one of its leaders, Michelangelo. Architectural photography at its best conveys the experience of being in and around a built environment. The purpose of capturing the image is to capture the feeling of experiencing the structure itself.

The same can be said for my work in scenic photography. Again, my goal in capturing the image is to invoke the emotions within the viewer that I experience during my artistic discovery. With scenic photography, the architect is not always human. More often than not, the architect is of a natural, or perhaps, spiritual form. Yet artistic structures of wonder still result that is meant to be shared from viewer to viewer. The opportunity to capture these moments presents itself to me from time to time, and I feel obliged to share it with those who could not attend the performance.

Still life photography commands my attention as well. Again, I believe the structure of a still life photograph can provoke an array of thought and emotion, varying from one viewer to another. The content of the structure, its symbolism, the environment in which it resides – these are all subject to interpretation based upon the viewer’s individuality and perceptions. The still life photographer makes pictures rather than takes them. Knowing where to look for propping and surfaces also is a required skill.

In these areas of my artwork, I have been most influenced perhaps by the works of world-renowned photographer Ansel Adams and Julius Shulman as well local artists such as Jeffrey Vaughn (Alton, IL). Origins of my inspiration began, however, with a revolution in the art world by such artists as Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Claude Monet, whose still-life paintings involved bright backgrounds rather than the darker backgrounds that were considered apropos at the time. By choosing to work with a bright background, the emotional response to their work was quite different than it would have been if they had followed the expected traditions of still-life art.

Influencing my literary works over the years are such expected wordsmiths as Elizabeth Alexander, Maya Angelou, Judy Blume, Robert Frost, Robert Nazarene, Wistawa Szymborska, and Walt Whitman. However, not only have I been influenced by them, but by unexpected sources as well. I particularly enjoy the conversational presentations shared with audiences by Paul Harvey and Garrison Keillor. As of late, I have also found myself drawn to historical fiction genre and particularly two of its current-day renowned authors, Dan Brown and Susan Vreeland. My literary works are often very personal in nature, based in real life, and meant to entertain, express emotion, and invoke a living connection between the author and the reader.

Throughout my art, visual or literary, it is emotion that defines structure. The forms I choose to capture or the words I use to convey are all indicative of the interpersonal and perhaps unconscious exchange between the artist and the audience. My literary works are often a contrast of characteristics communicated through realistic interpretations of human emotions subjected to both human and non-human existence. There is structure in my literary works and I am the architect. My goal remains: to invoke the emotions within the reader that I experienced during my artistic discovery.

The interplay among the streaks of light and shadow, lines and angles, reality and fiction, history and the uncertain, as well as the interaction between the structural form and its viewer/reader is meant to cause an emotional disturbance from within. This disturbance is my philosophy – my intent is to invoke the audience to consider the thoughts and emotions that inspired the architect – be it man, nature, or spirit – to bring his vision to permanence through the structure presented. As Georges Braque once said, “Art is meant to disturb.”