I’ve had the pleasure of working on some inspiring projects with some amazing clients.
Tonya Quinn
Executive Director
La Napoule Art Foundation
“During his month-long, La Napoule Art Foundation international artist residency, John Melvin proved to be an outstanding artist and human-being. John manages to question and push boundaries in a way that opens minds and hearts. As an outstanding artist during his residency, John was invited back to live and create at the Château de La Napoule exhibiting his Evo Crawler sculpture in the Château gardens, which not just delighted but also stimulated lively discussions with visitors of all ages and nationalities.”
Steve Hardy
President
Buffalo Creek Art Center
“John Melvin was one of the first resident artists at the new Buffalo Creek Art Center in the summer of 2017. John had several sculpture renderings on his website that had not been built. The one that caught my eye was Helix, a thirty foot wood sculpture that I thought would be an amazing addition to our new sculpture park. I commissioned John to make Helix which continues to be one of the favorite sculptures in the Buffalo Creek Art Center Sculpture Park.”
Caroline Boyle-Turner
Art Historian
“Passionate is the word I associate with John – in his work, his craft, and his embrace of environmental concerns. He engages us with his efforts to show us alternatives to our wasteful society by linking art-making to environmental issues. How about challenging school children to scavenge for plastic bottles and turn them into intriguing, large scale sculptures, and then be responsible for recycling the plastic at the end of the project? He does that well.
Both the large scale and the beauty of the materials John uses, as well as his sensitivity to the places he chooses to install his pieces, create an experience that moves beyond simply the joy and sense of discovery they stimulate; that they also encompass issues of waste, civic responsibility and team work underlines their relevance and importance to today’s environmental crises.”
Ginevra Boatto
Regional Representative for Southeast Asia, World Monuments Fund
John is an artist profoundly dedicated to the environmentalist cause. When he started his residency at the WMF’s conservation program at Angkor, he spent a lot of time to get to know our projects and especially our team. Thanks to his multifaceted background, he instantly connected with many of them, from the architect to the worker, from the engineer to the draftsman. This allowed him to understand how to best communicate with the team and to craft a very accessible, at times funny, at times extremely serious, yet impactful and informal training, focused on the need to reduce single use plastic. Objectively, the outcomes were beyond expectation. Beside his surprising ability to keep the listeners’ attention at all time, he got everyone to think, to make questions, to bring up examples from their own life, and to contribute to the debate. I was extremely impressed when I saw people asking for his slides to bring home and share with their family, supporting the principle which John calls “cross-pollination”. Many colleagues of mine, the next day, started adopting alternative and traditional solutions to single use plastic, including reusable food containers and flasks, which they proudly showed me immediately.
It was an honor to see how John was inspired to create his “plastic monster” piece for the 1961 exhibition hall and the Siem Reap International Airport during his residency at the World Monuments Fund in Cambodia.
