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Michael Melle
Artist Statement
I have been making these scarecrow figures from sticks and hay for more than thirty years. This particular group is a homage to wood craft. Taking a tree apart with wooden wedges and wooden mallets, wielded by wooden people with a quiet dignity. Making a life from the woods together. This is what many people have done through the years in Cummington. I am very grateful that I was able to save enough to buy some land in this lovely area. I grew up in Pittsfield and always wanted to live in the woods.
Bio: 1969 Vietnam veteran, 1975 University of Mass. Amherst, BFA in Painting, 26 years as a city mail carrier, always working at my art through all the years. A neighbor implored that I make a scarecrow for a hill town contest in 1991. This new scarecrow concept made it so I could build life size figures doing what humans do and display them anywhere. They continue to develop and become more flexible and expressive as I study the figure and the way it moves.
