Today (Oct 5th, 07) begins the first of many blogs on Melville T. Wire. Over the next few months, more postings will appear about this man, his art, his life and why this is important to me. There will be high resolution pictures of the works we have collected and many links to information available online. There will be pictures of Melville and his wife in our home, helping us celebrate family events. There will be references to other people's writings about him. If I am lucky enough, conversations might even begin with others who have even more to contribute.A quick Google search for Melville T Wire gives only about 130 hits; Yahoo only shows 77 links. The biography at askart.com is quite incomplete, somewhat inaccurate. There is no entry (yet) in Wikipedia. It appears there is a gap. One of the outcomes of this work effort is to improve all sources of information about Melville T Wire.
An article about Melville in the Oregon Historical Society,Winter of 2004, has at least 34 references to other materials about Melville. This excellent article is a great introduction to the life and art of Melville and is one of the best places to begin. The authors, Ginny Allen and Gregory L Nelson, are both engaged in the discovery of Oregon historical art. They were instrumental in ensuring the first major art event honoring Melville Wire was a success. In 2005, the Willamette University Hallie Ford Museum of Art hosted a small exhibition of Melville Wire painting and it gave an excellent presentation of his life. It would be great to have that presentation be available through this blog.
Sometime between 2003 and 2004, Karen and I were browsing through the Portland Museum of Art. As we entered the area reserved for Northwest artists, the very first piece of art we saw- the first thing on the wall as we entered - was an etching by Melville Wire. I was so excited, I couldn't believe it at first. It was so cool! This was the first time I had seen something hung in a museum where I knew the artist and owned some of their works. Also we really value his work, especially the subject matter. It was that event that got us interested in Melville again.
More to come...
