Melanie Rothschild: Paint & Air at Edward Hopper House

Edward Hopper House Art Center is pleased to present Melanie Rothschild: Pain & Air from June 21 through August 17, 2014.  

Melanie Rothschild is a self-taught artist and a native of Los Angeles.  For over two decades her functional pieces have been sold in galleries and museum stores across the U.S.  In 2007, she began the Paint and Air series, which heralded a major shift in her work.  The series was born from a mistake, when a gallon of spilled paint dried and came up in one glorious piece.  Just paint and the air transformed the spilled mess from liquid to solid, creating an entirely new starting point for Rothschild.  This "mistake" fed what was already a deep interest in the nature of the creative process and resulted in Rothschild pursuing a graduate degree in the study of creativity and, specifically, a focused interest in the role of mistakes both in the creative process as well as our perceptions about mistakes in our greater life experience.  “We miss out on so much potential when we obsess about mistakes. Understanding which things require perfection and when the freedom from worrying about mistakes can greatly enhance our lives, is critical.” 

Her strong beliefs about art and creativity being an inherent right of all human beings and not something which is accessible only to an elite few propelled her to write. The Art of Mistakes: Unexpected Painting Techniques and the Practice of Creative Thinking is being published by F+W Media and will be out in October 2014.She considers moxie, an irreverent nature and respect for mistakes to be the tools of her trade. Melanie has a master's degree in the Study of Creativity from Buffalo State College and a bachelor's in Ethnic Arts, with an emphasis in anthropology, from UCLA.