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Melissa Vlahos

http://melissavlahos.wordpress.com

May Day

Another amazing photo shoot today. May 1st is a holiday in Greece. They celebrate Labor Day and also the spring flowers on this day. How cool, right? A day dedicated to natures beauty. People gather wild flowers and weave them into crowns to wear on the head, to hang on the door like a wreath or to give to friends as gifts. It's one of my favorite holidays in Greece because I love celebrating natures beauty everyday. This year was special to spend the entire day in nature with my Greek girlfriend. We basked in the glorious sunshine on the beach, listened to the waves, watched the birds in the sky over lunch, smelled the sweet flowers of spring and did an expressive photo shoot at the sea shore at sunset. I love Greece!  Shots from today will be included in my upcoming solo show, May 22nd. More information will follow. 

Inside Out photo shoot

Amazing Sunday photo shoot spent with an amazing model and friend.  

I'm building a series of women bringing their inside emotions out with body paint. Here's a sneak peak...

Open Studio Art Show

We are four x-pat women from  America & Great Britain that have come together with a common connection-our love of Greece.  We each found our own unique way to express this using different art media; painting, photography, ceramics and metal smith jewellry.  We will be having our first show together soon.  Please join us.

 

Click to go to our Facebook event page

 

The opening reception will be Friday December 13th from 6pm-10pm.  The studio will be open again Saturday December 14th from 1pm-5pm or by appointment for the remainder of the month.  Andreas Papandreou 84, Glyfada. 

 

American Embassy Exhibit-Artist Easel Program

Fourteen of my water/sea photographs are being exhibited for sale at the American Embassy until the end of October 2013.  They are exhibited in the embassy's media/conference room.  The exhibition is titled Sea in Your Self.  Unfortunatly I wasn't aware that the exhibition is only open to embassy employees, but I've posted pictures so you can have a glimpse...Please contact me if your interested in purchasing :)

SEA IN YOUR SELF

Artist Easel Program, U.S. Embassy, Athens, Greece

The natural element of water conveys a particularly strong pull within me.  I feel that water is a symbolic reflection of the female self.  Water remains itself even though it can be many different forms.  For example, a stream is flowing and fluid, it can move around rocks gently, easily, but with persistence.  It doesn’t let anything get in its way-it finds a way around it gracefully.  A woman to the core remains herself, but will have many sides of her personality and mood that can take many forms like water.  These actions of the water are representative of how a feeling or mood can feel inside to me and I capture that in a photograph.

Recently in my artwork, I’ve been revisiting a recurring theme that I enjoy playing with.  The classic concept: it’s not what you see on the outside that is important it’s what on the inside that counts.  The sea lends itself well to this concept for me.  As a whole it will always be the sea.  One step deeper, and on the surface it’s constantly morphing into shapes, splashes, bubbles, droplets, foam, spray and waves.  One can form their own opinions on how they react to it or their eyes perceive it.  But once you explore below the surface it’s a whole new, beautiful, deep, world inside. The sea is like our souls, it has depths that we will be forever exploring.  I’m not interested in photographing fish and corals to relay my theme.  Instead to show the depth, or the inside as I’ve said it, I use the shapes, reflections, bubbles and colors which I see that nature has presented to me.  It’s these multiple layers of the sea that suggest what is within.

Melissa studied at Youngstown State University in Ohio and majored in Visual Art and Multi-Age Licensure in Art Education.  She received a Bachelors of Science in Education, and taught high school Art I for one year before moving to Greece.  She is particularly drawn to the sea saying, “ The sea is inviting, clear, clean.  It’s amazing the depth it holds and the distance I can see into it.  It’s mesmerizing and meditative.  I can watch it for hours, noticing the patterns and reflecting shapes, feeling the rhythm of the tide, listening to the crashing, splashing, and bubbling on the shore.  It’s alive.  It’s moving energy.   I am centered there, relaxed, at peace.”

Melissa Acierno-Vlahos                                                     

www.melissavlahos.com                                                                               

Athens, Greece                                                                                             

September 2013

Spring Blooms

Oh how I love this time of year!  Spring is in full bloom, the birds sing their lovely songs, the sun sweetly warms the earth, trees begin to droop filled with white and pink flowers for fruit, I breath in the jasmine and orange blossom scent and my creative energy is flowing.  I am ready to fulfill my passion.  My manifestations are no longer on the horizon, the time is now.  Starting with a feature in an online blog/newsletter, www.living-postcards.com .  Please check out her site and my article to see what an amazing job Iliada is doing promoting Greece!  My new Canon camera will be here the end of May, just in time for summer sea shots.  Weekly blog post, daily hours in my studio (no more excuses to myself!), and stay tuned for a new Facebook page called IseeArt.  It will be an open page for artists and creative thinkers to share, inform, collaborate, meet, show, view, etc.
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UNTITLED

My favorite way of applying color to canvas