Some people just have to create.  For this select group, art merges with the way they view the world and experience life, and their hands must find an outlet for the beauty and energy and chaos that view entails.  Melynn Huntley is such an artist.  As a child, she collected a pile of storm-scattered cedar shingles and turned them into depictions of childhood scenes using a wood burner and a young imagination.  Melynn peddled her masterpieces through the neighborhood, igniting a lifelong passion for creating art and inspiring an audience.  In more recent years, she pieced art into precious free moments: painting sweeping mountain scenes en plein air, fields of sunflowers while on hold with customer service, those moments when the sun was just in the right place to send the world into an explosion of color.  Her art captures beautiful moments in her happy places, and, as a result, finds its way to an audience that appreciates the peaceful escape into a world of color.

While most of Melynn's training occurred on long walks through the mountains of northern New Mexico, she also earned a BFA following studies at Texas Tech and West Texas A&M University.  She studied watercolor under Emilio Caballero, and eventually put her artistic talents to use through advertising and graphic design.  In more recent years, Melynn has focused on landscapes and oil painting using skills honed through the Painting Boot Camp with Taos Artist Leigh Gusterson.  Not far from Taos, Melynn earned  "Best Use of Color Award" at the Red River Wine and Arts Festival.  In the summertime, Melynn is often found with an easel and paints in a mountain meadow capturing the joy of the natural environment with movement and color that tends toward the impressionistic while revering the awesome power of nature.

Melynn's stunning landscapes have inspired commissioned work that has expanded her repertoire and created entirely new audiences.  Melynn's pet portraits began through requests by close friends to memorialize pets in their final years.  Everyone has photographs of their pets, but Melynn's work beautifully captures the energy and spirit of the animals she paints in ways that photographs cannot.  As a result, Melynn now has a constant string of commissions largely through word-of-mouth.

Melynn has also been commissioned for works tied to her core loves: a painting of a solitary cross-country skier in the aspens for a ski area, an old pine cabin in a large mountain valley for the cabin's owner, a bright red Jeep on an overgrown mining trail for an adventurer.  Melynn's work captures the emotions and energy of perfect moments, and her following has grown as a result.

So, put on your boots and grab that straw hat.  Walk with Melynn into the high mountain meadows where she finds her muse and enjoy the view.