Artist Spotlight: Melanie Muenchinger

Each month, we feature incredible reuse artists in the Austin community! This month we are featuring illustrator and avid-reuser Melanie Muenchinger. Melanie is a designer of art stamps professionally, and uses her passion for upcycling as a side hustle. Shopping at Austin Creative Reuse allows Melanie to find things to supplement her design work as well as experiment with new media and turn trash into treasure! Read more about Melanie’s artistic practice below.  

When did you start creating art?

My mother loves to brag I drew a perfect rendition of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh when I was 2. Drawing and anything with my hands, especially paper crafting, came very naturally. My childhood was full of art. I draw in many styles, cartoons, botanicals, portraits, etc. I love drawing from life but love capturing an expression or as a way to tell a story. Children’s books especially captured my imagination, but also, films and animals. My parents saw art was my true gifting, but not being particularly artistic themselves, didn’t really know how to best help turn that into a profession. My grandfather was a dentist by trade but a very talented oil painter all his life. While he did win some awards an his art hung in some galleries, buildings and homes in Southern California, it was always just a hobby and side hustle. I had no idea how many careers there were in art beyond becoming a fine artist. For those reasons, I didn’t go to art school. (Wish I had, but oh, well! If you’re an artist at heart, that will eventually come out.) I have been blessed to be a professional illustrator the past 14 years for an online crafting company Gina K. Designs, creating a line of art stamps for card making, as well as publishing 2 books on stamping and paper crafting techniques with my stamp sets. I design and photograph sample cards for inspiration for our customers, and have a blog and Youtube channel with free tutorial videos to demonstrate the stamps and techniques in action. I love educating fellow crafters. It’s probably about the most fun you can have “working”! 

What is your preferred medium?

I love drawing with pen or pencil, and enjoy coloring with alcohol markers. I like to work fast and move from one idea or project to the next, so media that require a lot of time and layering I haven’t had as much interest, aptitude, or the patience for! I really enjoy all the different inking techniques art stamps allow for and using them in new ways to make a pretty card that will celebrate a special date or lift someone up who needs encouragement. Many people who receive them say they have never received a handmade card before.  As for painting, which is my newest passion, I love the bold colors and immediacy of acrylics. Their quick drying time and opaqueness allow me to capture exactly what I want quickly, or cover things easily if I decide to make changes. I also like that they are inexpensive and don’t smell!  During the pandemic, the extra time allowed me to explore acrylic painting. 

What drives your creative spirit?

Unique art, beautiful colors, flowers, new ideas, fabulous textiles, clothing, good food, humor, textures, toys, puzzles, fresh art supplies, and found objects with potential to be something more. I love feeling that I can see something special no one else does in a cast off and developing it to reveal its beauty to a larger audience. I don’t like doing the same thing twice, so I am driven to come up with things I’ve never seen in a stamp set, or to solve a problem or fill a need or gap in what I see in the crafting industry.  Trends are fun, but I like to start them if I can. Some of my favorite stamp sets work more like tools that make the process easier, more efficient or effective. In that way, I feel more like an inventor than an artist. I also prefer having a person to create the piece for, rather than playing with an idea for art's sake. Definitely more time and love goes into that, and hearing how much joy it brings to the recipient gives me the same. Having said that, my curiosity for trying new things is boundless, so I can never pass up an opportunity to try a new craft when I see supplies or a kit on sale and just seeing what happens.  Those projects, successful or less so, are for me alone, a little adventure to experience. Before the lockdown, a weekly visit was a must! I saw a fun article on MyModernMet about a thrift store owner who adds Star Wars elements to old landscape paintings he finds at garage sales, and it looked like something I'd love to try. When my friend who loves Star Wars turned 50, a quick trip to ACR yielded a textured print of a mill on a pond (and a frame the right size!) that was perfect for me to recreate a scene from Empire Strikes Back where Yoda raises the X wing! He loved it!  

How has your art adapted during the pandemic?

Increased shipping times of our product by manufacturers meant fewer releases of my new stamp sets, plus an unusual amount of downtime from designing and promoting, so I was not as busy with my usual work. I also now had more free time to explore new interests since I was cut off from my habitual shopping, thrifting, and cultural events like gallery openings, plays, and concerts. I discovered I love acrylic painting! I do a lot of pet and people portraits or capture special moments or places as birthday and Christmas gifts now, and friends and family are so pleased with their painting I am getting several commissions.  As bad as some of the past year has been, in many ways I could count as my best because of some of the art I’ve been making and new opportunities it’s created for me.  Both financial opportunities, and challenging me to out of my box to become a better artist through improving my techniques, going online to delve deeper into the best artists of the past along with what’s happening in the art world globally, whereas before the pandemic I was just doing that in person locally. I am a big fan of the small 4x4 wooden block canvases to paint on, the finished colored edge is so sharp and contemporary, I knew they would make wonderful Christmas gifts for my family and friends. December was a wonderful month of painting their pets, children, or favorite places from photos, while watching movies or listening to Christmas music as I worked, and the result was more meaningful than any present I could have paid a lot for. Not only were they thrilled, I got a list of requests to paint more, so I had to invest in a case of the blocks (thank you, curbside pick up!) to fulfill all my commissions. The joy of making, gifting, and receiving more painting challenges, while also getting paid, is a win-win-win! 

How does reuse play a part in your art? 

I am forever thankful my friend Kitty Crider pointed me to ACR 2 years ago, my only regret is that I missed out on the first two that  it was open! It checks a lot of boxes for me. Retail therapy, treasure hunt, home décor, gifts to which I can add my own personal touch, supplementing my overflowing toolbox, jumpstarting my mojo, or materials to magically monetize with a bit of manipulation! Check, check, check! The low, almost no cost materials virtually eliminate all fear of risk or starting, which can really hamper creativity. I don’t have to worry I have wasted money if I'm not 100% pleased with my results, or don't want to continue pursuing that craft. It was a fun experiment. I learn something either way, if I’m good at it or not, enjoy it or not, want to keep putting more time and money into it or not. All valuable stuff! There is a time to buy the best materials you can find/afford, and that is rarely when you are trying something new! I also don’t get caught up in perfectionism if a canvas or object is old or cheap or possibly damaged or shabby from the start. It can’t get worse, only better! A blank canvas or fresh paints can be very inspiring, but also intimidating without a plan or the worry you might ruin or waste good materials. I never feel this way with ACR finds, only possibility and invitation to create. I have altered several painted canvases that had really good beginnings, adding my own touches to make it personal to my experiences, or the person I planned to give it to. And sometimes, the biggest obstacle is the best opportunity. A very nice painting with a very large rip found its way in the bucket section. I’d  just released a set of butterfly stamps, so instead of seeing the hole as a flaw, I imagined several of my stamped and cut butterflies emerging from the opening, to make a new dimensional piece about transformation. The beauty of brokenness and new beginnings this represents for me, in both the finding and recreating, I just find thrilling. I love that reclaimed pieces have a history and good story. It would be awesome to find out about who painted it originally! Until then I enjoy the mystery and imagining different possibilities.  I found an abstract piece with poppies that had such great colors and impact, but a very noticeable, unrepairable rip (lower left). I bought it for a quarter and added several of my stamped and die cut butterflies I illustrated flying off the canvas and emerging through the hole, echoing the metamorphosis that takes place. 

Do you have a favorite ACR find? What did you do with it?

Most useful: a large folding easel in a carrying bag I can set up indoors to work on commissions or take on excursions for plein aire practice!Most trash to treasure/best investment: a $5 gallon bucketful of leather scraps I picked through for color and textures.  I streamed several movies while cutting these into hundreds of pairs of earrings (some of the jump rings and fish hooks were from ACR, some from another craft store) I was able to sell at craft fairs.Most valuable: a gorgeous oversized chessboard with inlaid burlwood which I hope to have my husband make into a little side table. The craftsmanship is amazing and originally very expensive, but it needed a special product (which I had) and a little elbow grease to remove a bright red mark on its surface, now good as new!  For now it’s just a chessboard, of course I found some chess pieces to go with it on a subsequent visit!Random finds: frames for my paintings, lovely jewelry! One of my first ventures to ACR was handpicking a bunch of beautiful leather scraps from the bucket section to cut out leather earrings. A five dollar bucketful yielded hundreds of pairs of earrings to show at holiday craft fairs. I was able to sell them at a low price since my cost was next to nothing and it enabled people to get stocking stuffers for many with money still left over to treat themselves! 

Where can we find out more about your art?

My channel: www.youtube.com/MelanieMuenchingerMy blog, Hands, Head and Heart: www.melaniemuenchinger.blogspot.comMy stamps are sold at: www.ginakdesigns.com/melanieInstagram: @melaniemuenchingerContact for commissioned artwork: mmuenchinger@grandecom.net