Melinda R Smith

I’m an artist—a painter and (mostly former) writer, and I’ve been in the thrall of the muse my entire life. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t, although as a child, I would not have called it the muse. For whatever reason, I was lucky enough to carry my child’s sense of play with me into adulthood, which I personally consider necessary to being an artist of the nonacademic sort—a muse-driven artist, one who makes art because she must, because she’d wither and die if she didn’t. My work is play, and if it isn’t, there’s something off kilter in my practice. Which isn’t to say my work isn’t work as well—it is, and it’s sometimes very hard work—but at its core, it’s born of childlike playfulness.