Melody A. Recktenwald, Seattle-based photographer

Melody A. Recktenwald is a Seattle-based artist who primarily works in pictures, exploring themes of autism, nervousness and grief.

Seattle Refined: How lengthy have you ever been creating? What mediums do you’re employed with?
Recktenwald: I’ve been creating for so long as I can keep in mind — drawing, writing, tinkering — however since my father’s passing, pictures has actually change into my predominant focus and outlet. I’m drawn to pictures as a result of it feels so layered and alive: each picture is sort of a fingerprint, distinctive to how every individual sees the world. I really like that no person else will ever see precisely what I see by means of my lens. It’s such an intimate, revealing type of expression, and for me it is the truest approach to join with what’s fleeting, lovely and even unsettling.

Can you inform us about your inventive course of and the way the totally different levels work into it?
My course of is at all times quietly unfolding within the background, even when I’m not taking pictures. I preserve a pocket book stuffed with scraps — plans, sketches, half-formed concepts — so when inspiration strikes in the course of one thing else, I’ve an entire world of seeds able to develop. Sometimes my work may be very private, rooted in what I’m feeling or experiencing proper then; different instances, I simply need to play and see the place the medium takes me. I shoot fairly intuitively — I wish to set little “dates” with my digicam, the place I spend a day wandering with no aim besides to note issues. I’ll deal with myself to lunch someplace, then spend the night modifying and shaping what I discovered. It’s half ritual, half exploration, and it retains me related to my work in a approach that feels alive.

Tell us about the place your inspiration to your artwork comes from.
Much of my inspiration comes from my very own experiences with autism and nervousness — how they form the best way I transfer by means of the world and spot small, missed particulars. Grief has additionally been a continuing thread in my work, particularly in how bizarre locations or objects can maintain traces of loss. I discover inspiration in quiet moments and the strain between consolation and unease.

Do you’ve got a particular “beat” you want greatest – nature, meals, profiles, and so forth.?
I’m actually just a little obsessive about the meals part — I really like cooking, making an attempt new dishes, and chasing down sudden taste mixtures. For me, cooking and pictures really feel surprisingly related: they each depend on a basis of science and approach, nevertheless it’s the inventive contact that makes them come alive.

Do you’ve got one piece of artwork which means extra to you or is extraordinarily particular to you?
One piece that is stayed with me is a picture of a crimson flower I took in Maui. It was half of a bigger venture the place I used to be making an attempt to course of the lack of my father. I usually gravitate towards muted, quiet colours — however this flower is so daring and vivid, but additionally delicate and fleeting. It jogs my memory a lot of how he lived his life: sturdy and shiny, however gone too shortly. Every time I have a look at that picture, it brings me again to the combo of grief and gratitude I felt whereas making it.

What experiences in your life have affected your artwork probably the most?
Being identified as autistic later in life has reshaped a lot of how I see my work and myself. It gave me language for issues I’d at all times felt — the fixed sense of being on the sting of issues, seeing particulars that others miss, needing to make sense of chaos by arranging it into photographs. Grief has additionally deeply marked my work; dropping individuals I really like has made me take note of absence, traces and the methods we maintain onto what’s gone.

If we need to see extra of your work, the place ought to we go to search out it?
You can discover my work at www.melodyphotoworks.com and on Instagram at @melodyrecktenwald. I share new items and venture outtakes, in addition to the occasional picture of my two cats, Sam and Maggie.

What is subsequent for you? Anything you are engaged on proper now that you just’re actually enthusiastic about?
Right now, I’m deep in a brand new collection that makes use of a digital digicam obscura to re-imagine the autumn of the dinosaurs — it is equal elements playful experiment and visible storytelling. It feels good to have a venture that lets me step away from heavier private themes for a second and simply play with gentle, historical past, and just a little little bit of fantasy. I’m actually having fun with being in “play mode” and seeing the place it leads me subsequent.

Lastly, how do you’re taking your espresso? (We ask everybody!)
I’m really not an enormous espresso drinker. In the autumn, when the climate is cool and the skies are dreary, I do generally seize a White Velvet from Vivace. It’s my small Seattle luxurious.

About ‘Artist of the Week’: This metropolis is full of artists we like to function weekly on Seattle Refined! If you’ve got a neighborhood artist in thoughts that you just want to see featured, tell us at good day@seattlerefined.com. And when you’re questioning simply what constitutes artwork, that is the great thing about it; it is as much as you! See all of our previous Artists of the Week in our devoted part.