Melissa Harshman
Red Mandala, Relief Prints and Crochet, 60" x 60", 2016
“I try to never walk by flowers in bloom or dazzling foliage and not pay attention. Color is all around us and always trying to get our attention if we stop to notice.”
Melissa Harshman is an artist living and working in Watkinsville, Georgia (USA). Her approach to color is often intuitive, responding to events she encounters whether they be walking in the UGA State Botanical Gardens or picking out yarn for knitting projects. Her work in printmaking has lately involved working with small linoleum prints which are then combined to create larger works or wall installations. Color has become a crucial element of the work, creating a mood or emotion surrounding the work.
Melissa has been inspired by her garden for the last several years, creating pieces using floral imagery. Although intaglio was her first love in printmaking, she has been using mostly relief and screen printing in her recent work. Her love of color has spilled over into papermaking. She is currently working on a piece for the “Press Here” exhibition at Agnes Scott College in 2021 as well as creating a large wall installation of pulp-painted flowers.
What is your philosophy on using color and how does the printmaking process itself relate to how you work with color?
One of my favorite passages from Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” is when Shug says, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it”. After reading this book years I ago, I try to never walk by flowers in bloom or dazzling foliage and not pay attention. Color is all around us and always trying to get our attention if we stop to notice. My house is full of colorful walls and artwork. Color makes me happy.
Printmaking allows an artist to layer transparent colors to create new color mixtures, giving the work depth and intensity. You get a deeper color by layering than simply trying to mix a color outright. I enjoy the challenge that poses in composing a work. It’s satisfying to pull a print off the press or run a squeegee to see how your colors have interacted.
Lately, I have been attracted to using color ombres to create a vibration of a particular hue. In the pieces “Kind of Blue” and “A Long Spring” each color layer in the work not only changes but so does the thread used in sewing each individual flower. This is a small detail many viewers might miss, but was important (and fun) for me to incorporate in the work. The back of “A Long Spring” is done in an ombre of reds and oranges, creating a subtle glow that is reflected on the wall. It was challenging to take one small linoleum block and print it many times to compose a larger wall piece.
A Long Spring (detail), Sewn Relief Prints, 192" x 30", 2019
A Long Spring, Sewn Relief Prints, 192" x 30", 2019
“Printmaking allows an artist to layer transparent colors to create new color mixtures, giving the work depth and intensity. You get a deeper color by layering than simply trying to mix a color outright.”
Kind of Blue, Sewn Relief Prints, 48" x 48", 2018
Mo(u)rning Flowers, Sewn Screenprints, 120" x 160", 2017
Are there specific associations towards color in your work?
I don’t always have specific associations when choosing color, but often go by instinct or an emotional response. In recent printmaking wall installations I am not trying to emulate the colors in the flowers themselves, rather my use of floral imagery has been a vehicle for my use of color.
I used the same linoleum blocks in the pieces “Red Mandala” and “Orange and Red”. Colors were chosen by inspiration as well as practicality. I had just ordered an array of Charbonnel inks and used them straight out of the can in the concentric rings of the prints so I could see the different hues. I see these pieces as markers of meditation or contemplation when viewing the work, inspired by artists such as Mark Rothko and Sean Scully.
Other works such as “Mo(u)rning Flowers” was a direct emotional response to the 2016 election. I felt the need to print in black rather than the bright colors I was previously using to reflect my mood and feelings of anger, disbelief, and despondency. In this work I used silkscreen to print black on black with black stitching. I was inspired to start sewing on my prints after Natalie Chanin of Alabama Chanin came to UGA as a visiting artist.
“There is a similar joy and satisfaction watching a shawl or sweater emerge from my needles as there is as one pulls a print off a block.”
Orange and Red, Relief Prints and Crochet, 84" x 84", 2017
Black and Blue Mandala, Relief Prints and Crochet, 45" x 45", 2016
What are the direct references, research, or aspects of history that your work includes?
Inspirations come not only from researching artists and themes online and in the library, but from knitting. I have become an avid knitter in the past 7 years. Colorful skeins of yarn make me swoon with the deep colors and playful speckles. My yarn stash is equivalent to my shelf of inks. Each skein or can representing new possibilities for explorations in color layering, mixing, and patterning.
A shawl that has been on my needles for several years continues to inspire my prints with ombres of pink and ochre. This is reflected in the pieces “Cascade I” and “Cascade II”. I find the color choices in my knits often reflect or inspire what comes out of the print studio. There is a similar joy and satisfaction watching a shawl or sweater emerge from my needles as there is as one pulls a print off a block. The tactile sensation is different in a print or paper piece, but the reverberation of color and the excitement of a luscious print motivates me in similar ways as a complicated swatch of brioche knitting.
Cascade I, Sewn Relief Prints, 60" x 30", 2020
Cascade II, Sewn Relief Prints, 60" x 40", 2020