A few words from Melissa Marie Haskin:
Hi! Thank you for stopping by! I am deeply honored you have chosen to visit my site. I am a stylized-realism artist, and my creative goal is to "Take People into the Beautiful." I pray that this art is a blessing to everyone that it reaches.
I have spent several years blended in both business, and in ministry; always with hints of arts & media. This has also included missions travel internationally abroad, and domestically working in such cities as Boston, Kansas City, and Los Angeles. Another key theme of my life journey, has always been themes of intercession and prayer. These experiences informed me and still continually inspire me creatively. I do have a very unique and strategic perspective.
But it was really overcoming an unexpected severe health curveball in 2015, which led to a move out of Los Angeles, back to a small lake town in New England, that unlocked me as an artisan. Now, living closer to immediate family, and to now also more fully embracing my true passion & calling, which is the fine arts.
I am mainly a self-taught artist, with some formal graphic design training (alongside a completed business degree.) Currently, as of September 2020, I am now enrolled in a one year, Fine Art Masters Program with Milan Art Institute. This robust program focuses upon drawing and oil painting in "Old Masters" methods, mixed media, and gallery portfolio and marketing. I was led to this school by a very specific dream I had about "Dimitria Milan teaching me art" before I knew anything about her or the Milan Art Institute. I am thrilled with this program.
One of my favorite memories as a child is when my great-grandmother (a professional artist by trade) taught me to draw and paint every weekend in her home for 3 years, ages 11-14.
Worship is the main vehicle and paradigm that initiates and motivates my art. As for stylistic influences, I deeply resonate with the artists from the Romanticism period of art history, and their sense of “awe, scale, poetic, wonder and the meaningful.” I also love Impressionism, Baroque, and Renaissance artists, etc. I love the skies that Maxfield Parrish painted. I also love mixing layers of like urban gritty over softer juxtaposition. There is a layer of abstraction in all my paintings. I’m also very provoked by contemporary artists such as Makoto Fujimura, and his use of gold leaf, and abstraction, or the Ukrainian artist Yuri Pysar’s dancer series, among others. I was formerly a dancer. Musicology, or synesthesia and movement, is seen in my paintings. Lately, I have been strongly influenced by patriotic, passionate, and iconic imagery, as well as, ambient light, textile, and nature.
I am also discovering, as I have now been painting with dedication for three years now (as of 2020,) that my art is also very influenced by the vivid and prophetic dreaming I have at night. This has been a prolific and resounding backdrop layer of my entire life. I am actually looking forward to painting more imagery from what I have seen in dreams, over the coming years. Having said that, I do not consider myself a typical "prophetic artist" as most people's expectation of that label is very cliché with lions and swords. I would say that limited aspect only touches a small scope of my style aesthetic as an artist. But I do think its fair to say that my art is prophetic in nature.
I do feel compelled to continue to step out as a faith-filled, patriotic and artistic thought-leader; carrying a voice of truth in our generation that points to a paradigm of The Holy and The Beautiful. Some might recognize my work from my Twitter platform, Melissa Strategic (@StrategicMelis), which has featured some of the incredible commission work opportunities, I have been able to partner in, during the last few years. Such as for the very honorable Lt. General Michael Flynn (ret) and his family, and many other special works. Its been an amazing journey so far! I look forward to where this path will lead!
You are invited to come along!
"Truth is Beauty, Beauty is Truth." -John Keats
"Jesus is the Truth, the Way, and the Life." -John 14:6