Melissa Averinos grew up on Cape Cod where she has always collaged and painted with abandon. Melissa creates art and quilts all sorts of beautiful things from a studio in her old house that she shares with her “rescue dogs and adorable husband." She teaches modern quilting at home and on the road. In 2016 she won “Best in Show” for her original modern quilt at QuiltCon. Melissa loves quilting, painting, rust, yoga, unicorns, thrift shopping, gardening, and pie. Melissa doesn’t waste any time in getting started. She can have as many as eight paintings going all at once. She uses hardware tools, sewing needles, and anything with a point to make marks and scratches in wet paint. Her favorite things about being an artist are being able make things, experiment and play with her art materials. She’s always in experiment mode and she says it’s really fun.
Melissa describes her studio as “very messy.” The studio occupies 3 of the 4 upstairs rooms that she has taken over in their 1850s era house. Painting, sewing, collage and jewelry making tools are all over the place, and the studio floor looks like it is littered with colorful crayon shavings - these in fact are curls of dried paint. The artists who have influenced her art include Maira Kalman, Van Gogh, Sarah Fanelli, Picasso and Frida Kahlo. Some are illustrators who do wonderful and wacky collage. Melissa doesn’t draw things out in advance. She just starts and let things to develop on their own. It’s a process of discovery instead of forcing something to happen. She course corrects as needed.
