Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 30, 2010
Moments transfixed by local artist Melissa Hefferlin
Erica Tuggle
Local artist Melissa Hefferlin creates colorful, vibrant works like her newest still life piece on the easel at her studio in downtown’s Southside. Unlike some thematic driven artists, Hefferlin says her art speaks for itself and acts as a relaxing, enjoyable item wherever it is displayed.
- Erica Tuggle
There are 86,400 seconds in a day, and any one of them could be a captured moment and the setting of Melissa Hefferlin’s next piece. While it is certain that she isn’t in danger of running out of material any time soon, the choice of which moments and subjects to freeze and immortalize with her work is a daily task.
The most constant subject of her paintings is still life, which she says appeals to her for the simple reason of her love of color.
“These are not timid paintings. I get to use obnoxious amounts of outrageous color, and that makes me happy,” she says.
The more complex answer behind her love of painting still life is that it allows her to take a stand on the debate in art and philosophy on the ability to create order with art or that art and chaos are too closely bound for such a task. Hefferlin says she belongs to the former line of thought, and enjoys making order with her works.
“It’s part of my life philo-sophy that order can be made, can be perceived and in 16
by 20 inches I can make something orderly and, to me, beautiful. I find that like an act of meditation, and very soothing to me,” she says.
Other frequent subjects of her works include animals (used as a metaphor for human experience), people, mountain landscapes, self-portraits and images of women’s lives. Hefferlin says she finds painting women’s lives more interesting than painting men’s because, “I’m not exactly sure what goes on in a man’s head, whereas I am a bit more bold about sharing experiences with females,” she says.
Hefferlin says she also enjoys painting her daffodils when they bloom, because they signify that winter is over.
Hefferlin grew up in the countryside of Collegedale. Art was always a big part of her family, and Hefferlin was studying classical violin until she was 17 and saw art as a career choice. When she realized her desire to be a professional artist, she says she did things the old fashioned way and went to art school, first at the University of Tennessee and then at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, where she apprenticed with painter Michael Newberry. She says the experience apprenticing and seeing how artists made a living with their work was, in many ways, as useful as the things she learned in school.
From there, she left to study at the Russian Academy of Fine Art; the only American to study at this prestigious academy during the Soviet period. In fact, she was the only American who had ever studied there with the exception of James Whistler in 1884.
With this experience, she returned to UTC to finish up her degree. She and her husband, artist Duad Akhriev, intended to stay in Chattanooga for a summer and then return to Los Angeles to continue her schooling, but Akhriev received a large commission, and Hefferlin liked UTC, so the couple stayed.
“18 years have gone by, and we’ve been really happy,” she says.
During the first decade as a professional painter, Hefferlin exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Denver, London, Zurich, and throughout the Southeastern United States. In 1999, she co-authored a coffee table book about Russian painting titled “Traditions Rediscovered, the Finley Collection of Russian Art,” and in February 2002, the Hunter Museum of American Art presented a solo show of her work.
Although Hefferlin says she has always enjoyed her hometown, the reason she left to make her way in the world of art was because she did not anticipate being able to support herself in Chattanooga with her art.
“I didn’t really have an awareness of what an art-town Chattanooga was. It was a delightful surprise that a serious artist can make a living in Chattanooga,” she says.
Her work is on regular exhibition downtown at Gallery 1401; the Miller Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio; Paul Scott gallery in Scottsdale, Ariz.; the Culture Clash in Salida, Colo.; three of her murals are on display at the Collegedale Seventh Adventist Church; and her painting to celebrate the Chattanooga waterfront celebration is on display in the business resource center on Market Street.
She is currently preparing for a group show at the Jewish Cultural Center for the “Figures” exhibit, and will be taking several of her cow paintings to the Kentucky State Fair soon. She’s also working on a series of small paintings “in Catholic fetish style of cowgirl goddesses of the Rocky Mountains,” she says.
The goal is that her work speaks for itself.
“I consider myself as fine an artist as anybody, but there is not a term paper behind these paintings,” she says. “You have artists that will write a manifesto about a very small painting and together they make a powerful artwork, but 80 percent of it is idea. I am much farther towards 10 percent of it is idea that has to be discussed, and 90 percent of it is visual,” she says.
She wants people to find her work meditative and restful, and encourages the purchase of original art for the value of the effort the artist has made to share a part of their life.
“When you buy original art, you are buying time in someone else’s life. You buy their education, their philosophy, what they love and in that piece of art is ‘X’ weeks of their life that they spent making this piece,” she says.
Hefferlin is an avid equestrian and enjoys riding her horse with her sister, Heidi, every chance she gets. Hefferlin says she and her husband also utilize living downtown and walk in the city almost every day. While there may be enough seconds in the day to find a beautiful work of art in each, Hefflin says, there are simply never enough hours in a day to enjoy everything she loves to do in her work and in her city.
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