Title: Charleston Appreciates Art

Article photo features artist, Melanie Perkins of The Artist Attic, surrounded by hand painted ornaments. A large photo of ornament depicting the WV state Capitol.
Staff Writer Sandy Wells
Gazette Photos Lawrence Pierce

Article as follows:

 Holding a pearlescent Christmas ball in one hand and a tiny brush in the other, she applies minute strokes of reddish-brown paint-bricks for the Marshall University landmark Old Main. Painting anything on a fragile, round Christmas ornament would be nerve-wracking enough. But Melanie Perkins is a stickler for detail, reproducing homes, churches and historic buildings right down to the bricks, drain pipes and doorknobs.
 
    She works with the deliberate confidence of a billboard painter, despite the microscopic scale. She can't afford to be nervous. "If I think about it, I'll panic, "she said. The women behind The Artist Attic in Greenbrier County will finish a two-day visit in Charleston today, demonstrating her craft and accepting photos for orders at Alex Franklin Ltd. on Bridge Road. Specializing in personalized tree ornaments and other hand-painted gifts, the painstaking Lewisburg artist prides herself on diminutive authenticity.

    "The brushes I use, some of them have only three bristles," she said. Achieving perspective on a round surface add to the challenge. "Painting on a sphere isn't easy," she said. "I'd much rather paint a flat piece of wood." Then, there's the matter of acrylic paint. Unlike oils, acrylics dry almost instantly, she said. "Once you make the wrong mark, about the only way to correct it is to start over."

    Considering the intricacy of her work, she's amazingly prolific. "It's nothing for me to paint 400 ornaments in two months," she said. "I could do this all day and not get up, not even to eat. I'm addicted to it. I have to force myself to stop." To keep the ball affordable, she fights the temptation to make them even more elaborate. "I keep thinking about all the things I could add, but then I think, gee, I'd have to charge $2,000."

    Familiar ornament motifs on display at Alex Franklin include Riggleman Hall at the University of Charleston, Woodburn Hall at West Virginia University, the state Capitol, the Charleston Moose Lodge (complete with the Moose seal, flag and flag-pole), the United Mine Workers headquarters on Kanawha Boulevard and Lewisburg's Old Stone Church.

    The 33-year-old Atlanta native can thank her grandfather for the success of her personal approach to painting. "My grandfather told me long ago, if you ever want to be successful, you have to paint what everybody else wants you to paint, not what you want to paint."

    Six years ago, she finally took his advice. She painted her first batch of ornaments and entered them in an arts and crafts festival. "I thought I'd be lucky to sell anything. They sold by the dozens."

    She does lots of dogs, cats, hobby motifs and historic buildings, but what every-body else wants her to paint has sometimes surprised her. "One lady wanted me to paint her son in his Army uniform and the words, "Welcome Back." It was during Desert Storm and he was coming home."

    She painted a horse clinic on Longaberger basket lids for a customer in Lexington, Ky., to give to the clinic veterinarians. Another woman ordered a dozen hand-painted ornaments of her farm. The following year, she ordered 18 more. "I asked her why she wanted another 18, and she said they were the second family on the farm, and the original owner wanted ornaments, too. So they went through two sets of families."

    For a Canadian Exchange program in Greenbrier County, she painted the local junior high school on 50 ornaments to be given as gifts in Canada.

    Besides Christmas ornaments, she paints jars, saw blades, boxes, glassware, plates, mugs, trivets, stationary, pillowcases, eggs, pottery and family trees, all with personalized themes. "I do things that are very sentimental," she said, "because that's what I am-very sentimental."

    Always artistic, she decided to try painting when she moved to West Virginia in 1990 with her husband, a Huntington native. After her success with the hand-painted ornaments at the crafts festivals, her father-in-law suggested taking her wares to The Greenbrier. When the hotel ordered several dozen, she knew she had something. Now, she's a full-fledged businesswoman complete with home page address:  artistattic.com.

    Customers can bring photographs of their homes, businesses, farms and pets to the Bridge Road shop today, and she promises to return personalized, hand painted ornaments in time for tree trimming or gift giving. "I might still be painting at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning," she said, "but I'll get it done."

Title: Beckley Recognizes Talent

Article photo features artist, Melanie Perkins of The Artist Attic, surrounded by family tree, stationary, family plaque, round wooden boxes, ornaments, hot plate trivet and cookbook, as she applies paint to plaque of home.
Register-Herald Reporter Debbie Schwarz Simpson
Register-Herald Photo Debbie Schwarz Simpson

Article as follows:

Busy Time of the Year!

 Crafter Fashions One-of-a Kind Items to Brighten Holiday Season

LEWISBURG- Melanie Perkins is as busy as one of Santa's elves this holiday season.

    Perkins doesn't work out of the North Pole, however. She fashions her one-of-a-kind items in her home that she shares with her husband, Brad, and their three young daughters.

    "I'm doing people's lives," Perkins said, as she pointed to a hand painted Christmas ornament. The ornaments have become a trademark under Perkins' Artist Attic label. "I use regular Christmas balls," said Perkins. "They can be any color the customer wants."

    Perkins works from postcards and photographs to capture the scenes that transform an ordinary ornament into a work of art.

    The miniature brushes which she dips into her pallet of acrylic paints allow Perkins to give each work depth and detail.

    "I do lots of homes," said Perkins. Churches and colleges also are popular subjects for her ornaments, she said. Two University of West Virginia landmarks - Old Main and Woodburn Hall- are featured on Perkins' ornaments as are The Greenbrier resort and a best seller, the Capitol of her adopted state.

    When a woman in Northern Virginia wanted a set of ornaments emblazoned with likeness of her pets, ranging from birds to dogs, Perkins obliged.

    Holding up a recently completed clear ornament featuring a couple's beach house, Perkins had a work of advice for making the piece distinctive. "I'd fill it with sand," said the multi-talented artist.

    Stressing that an ornament can bear any theme, Perkins points to a bulb, centered with an award winning "34 Ford coupe which she recently completed.

    According to Perkins, who moved to Greenbrier County from Atlanta, it takes her from an hour and a half to three and a half  hours to complete each ornament.

    The ornaments have a wide appeal and have gone all over the country, Perkins said. When Canadian exchange students ended their stay in Lewisburg last year, they went home with an unusual gift, hand painted ornaments of their host school, Eastern Greenbrier Jr. High School, each personalized by Perkins.

    Perkins stresses that the ornaments are far more than decorations for the Yuletide evergreen. "They should be displayed all year round," she said. "They're heirlooms."

    Hand-painted ornaments are not the only medium for Perkins' talents. "I'll customize a gift for any person for any occasion," said Perkins.

    She has created bird houses with a golf theme, painted scenes on the marble tops of boxes, and has designed elaborate family trees. She hand paints tiles for wet bars, kitchens and wine cellars and she did a pen and ink drawing of the Lewisburg United Methodist Church for the cover of its cookbook.

    Perkins also has a line of glow in the dark pillowcases with holiday and sports themes. The pillowcases were designed with both the young and the young at heart in mind.

    Perkins can trace her artistic talents back to six generations. The artist credits her grandparents, Georgia residents, Betty and John Bishop Jr., with laying the groundwork for her success in her chosen field. Perkins said that she inherited her creative talents from her grandmother, while her grandfather gave her some excellent advice that she still follows. "I was always painting pretty girls from the covers of magazines," said Perkins, who took paint brush in hand at an early age.

    She later honed her artistic skills at Emory University in Atlanta. "My grandfather told me to stop painting what I liked and to start painting what other people like" she said. "If it hadn't been for him, I still would be painting ballerinas."

    Perkins sells many of her personalized gift items via word of mouth, she said. "Lewisburg is a little melting pot," said the artist. She explained that her neighbors and friends purchase personalized gifts and send them around the country, boosting her business.

    Locally, Perkins has her gift items displayed at Alex Franklin Ltd. in downtown Lewisburg and Charleston and at The Greenbrier in nearby White Sulphur Springs.

    "I'm also on the Net," said Perkins. Orders can be placed through email: MelaniePerkins@msn.com

    "My dream is to have my own studio," Perkins said. During the Christmas season, the soft-spoken artist is hard at work designing and fashioning gifts for others, while her husband tackles the task of holiday shopping for the couple's family and friends.

Email:  Mellyh@hughes.net