About the Artist

Melinda Willis grew up in a large family in Homer, Illinois, got married, had three beautiful children and then moved to Fithian, Illinois, where she now resides. In 1993, the artist returned to school and began a long seven-year journey towards a degree in art education.

Her love for clay began in 1995 when she took a ceramic class to fulfill a requirement for her degree. That was all it took. Being a self-taught woodcarver, and even then being inclined to carve intricate sculptures from one piece of wood, without “add ons,” she found clay to be so forgiving and fell in love with the medium. After five more years of exploring the endless possibilities of clay manipulation, formation, glaze effects and firing techniques, and pushing it to its limits, she earned her BFA from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Melinda’s first encounter with a bead was while she was at the U of I and needed an extra credit. She had become interested in whistles so she and her instructor agreed that she would make 100 whistles for that credit. She made sweet potato, double chamber and bulb-shaped ocarinas. She made some lizard slide whistles (see below), 3-inch harmonica type whistles, and to challenge herself even further, she started making them as small as she could. Some of them were not even an inch in diameter but the words “bead” and “pendant” were still not part of her vocabulary and she called them “whistling necklaces.”

Melinda had big plans after graduation. She was going to open her own pottery, go large and get into more architectural ceramic and had dreams of her husband and children joining her and having a family run business. With one more semester to go, her life, reality and dreams were ripped to shreds when her 19 year old daughter, Amy, died by suicide. She didn’t think she would ever touch clay or be able to do anything again. With a lot of love and support from her family, friends, her Survivors of Suicide support group and her instructor, She was able to go back and finish her last semester and graduate.

The first year was spent in a fog. “I felt like I was in a foreign world that I had to learn to relate to again and I needed to begin to heal and redefine my life.” Melinda was unable to concentrate on her work for very long and pieces were drying out before she was able to finish them, so she started making small vessels, boxes and whistles. She found much comfort in making and being able to complete these small pieces and they became very personal and therapeutic.

In 2002, Melinda took some of her work to the annual “Artists Against Aids” fundraiser and a lady called her to ask questions about her whistling necklaces. That lady was kelk, another JustBeads auction site user. That woman introduced Willis to the world of beads and to the JustBeads site, where she has been selling her work ever since.

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Artist’s Statement:
The time I spend carving the surface of a vessel is a time of refuge, meditation, and intrigue. I am soothed by the feel of my tool cutting through the clay to reveal what is hidden beneath the surface. I find it intriguing that by subtracting, another layer or dimension is added.

I see my vessels as individuals, each one with many interlocking and interwoven layers, each layer being different, responding to the last and affecting the next. To me, the layers and leaves represent life and time.

The work that I enjoy making the most are the small pieces that can be held in one hand and cupped in two. The seem more personal and accessible to hold. I like that my vessels invite the viewer to hold them in both a visual and tactile sense, and it is my hope that the user enjoys this interaction as much as I did when I held the vessels on my lap and in my hand and nurtured them into being.

Ascension, porcelain, 12"h, 2001

The vessel above was featured in the 2004 Biennial Ceramics Invitational, held at the Parkland Art Gallery in Urbana, IL. The theme was Elevating the Utilitarian: Transforming the Vessel through Surface Decoration.

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Contact her, melinda@melindawillis.com.