April / May 2009
Soul Mates

Our cover artist for the Animalwize issue is Melissa Harris. The title of her work is Soul Mates. When I sit with our relationship to our animal companions a picture such as this comes to mind. It helps me to expand to the love shared in the natural world not only to our domestic friends but also to all creatures and plants in nature.

Melissa is known for her expressions of our many transitions as we grow and morph into the expanded human consciousness. In many of her pieces, nature is her partner in this expression. Her online galleries include Fantasy Art, Butterfly Art, Sacred Erotic Fine Art, Landscape Paintings, Fantasy Portraits and Cats; they can be found at www.melissaharris.com. You will find a gallery called Creatrix and these works may be familiar as they have been used in her Creatrix Anything is Possible Activation Cards, which I'm sure many of you have seen.

Melissa is a Fulbright Scholar who studied in Paris for two years on her grant for painting. She received her BFA in painting from Syracuse University in NY and her MFA in painting from Queens College in Flushing, NY. She has also studied at the University of Virginia, the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the New York Studio School. A visit to her website give a more in-depth insight into her life and her experience with parents not understanding her clairvoyant gifts through her journey to becoming the expression of self in art.

She teaches private classes combining drawing, painting and meditation, holding workshops at the Omega Institute, The New York Open Center, the Foundation des Etats-Unis, the Phoenicia Pathwork Center and here in Maine Leapin' Lizards in Freeport.

A desire to reconnect with nature after many years of life in New York and Paris brought Melissa to the Woodstock, NY area in 1993. She lives on 9 magical acres of meadows and forest that back up to a reservoir in the Catskill Mountains of New York with her partner Kent and their four cats, Timmy, Sashi, Monkey and Lucy.

Melissa expresses, "I feel strongly about the lack of respect for the earths' resources that seems rampant at this time. For myself, I feel an obligation to live as simply as I can with an awareness of how each action is related to the next both in terms of how we can be as waste-efficient as possible, and also in terms of how we relate to others. It is my continuing practice to try and live fully in each moment, keeping in mind the desire for the best for all concerned."

Last year in June I was fortunate to meet Melissa, whose work I have admired for a long time. Melissa Harris came to Maine to do a slide presentation of her work, a Painting Outside the Lines Workshop and private sessions.

I was immediately drawn to do a private session with her. She was great, as I showed up with my partner and asked if she would consider doing a sitting with the both of us together to render an expression in art of what my partner and I had come together to express in the world. I was excited and could barely sit still, continuing to smile until my face actually hurt. What a wonderful surprise and gift we all received.

Well Melissa will be back in Maine June 13th for her Painting outside the lines workshop and June 14th for Spirit Essence Portraits at Leapin' Lizards in Freeport. I highly recommend this experience to everyone.

I hope that you will enjoy checking out Melissa's two websites and the artwork displayed.