Melinda feels her role as an artist is to transfer the images found in literature and myth into tangible characters we can hold in our hands. She has been producing dolls in cloth, polymer and porcelain for thirty years and has taught doll workshops for over ten years.
          She was born in the year of the dragon, practices yoga, and lives in the Pacific Northwest. She grew up in Colorado, camping and skiing with a family of artists, photographers, woodworkers, gardeners and musicians who are funny, inventive, and respectful of the mountains. Her love of nature is the bedrock of her art career which has involved graphics, calligraphy, silk-screens, watercolors, costuming, beading and sculpture.
          For seven years she was a volunteer in the Art Literacy Program in public schools. In the 80s she taught workshops on scale-replica wicker furniture and miniature dollmaking. Two of her doll houses have won the top prizes at West Coast miniature shows, and her work has been featured in articles in miniatures magazines such as Nutshell News and Miniatures Showcase. In 1993 her dolls earned her Artisan standing in the International Guild of Miniature Artisans (IGMA). Her work can be seen at the Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art.

Melinda's work has been included in these books:

Creative Cloth Doll Couture by Patti Medaris Culea (Quarry Books 2006)
Beautiful Animal Dolls by Miriam Gourley (Sterling/Chapelle 2001)
Finishing the Figure by Susanna Oroyan, (C&T 2001)
Anatomy of a Doll by Susanna Oroyan, (C&T 1997)