(The Best Of) 100 Days of Inspiration The paintings and prose of Melody Hogan

Melody Hogan was born in 1964, in Searcy, Arkansas, to parents who were devoted to education and invested themselves in their small town community. Born a decade after her brother and sister, Melody was raised with a dual citizenship of sorts, as baby of the family and as only child, after her siblings left home for college life. Her creativity blossomed early in life - performing vocal solos in her mother's professional music programs at the age of 4, winning her first blue ribbon for Art in the White County Fair at the age of 6, and involvement in a variety of other creative outlets throughout her early school years. Upon graduation from Harding Academy, it was no big surprise to friends and family that Melody enrolled as a Fine Arts major at Harding University, in her home town of Searcy. Subsequent to earning her Masters degree in Education, she took to the open road and lived on both the East and West Coasts while pursuing corporate careers in marketing, interior design and the graphic arts. After spending 20 years in the corporate world, Melody returned to her first love - fine art. She attributes this rebirth to the loving encouragement of her husband, John, a musician and educator. Having married later in life, they share the common conviction that their relationship to God and each other directly influences their creativity and should be given top priority in their lives. Establishing a safe place for each other's creative expression to be nurtured, as Melody states, "was like throwing lighter fluid on smoldering ashes. It ignited a creative craving in me that I had never experienced in my art studies - as if somehow I'd made an inner transition from doing art, to being an artist." Surprisingly, she found that her hiatus had not depleted her creative abilities, but actually enhanced them, in what Melody has humorously dubbed "the germinating years." She recalls with fondness the "thawing out" process, and likens the days that have followed to the colorful explosion of spring after having endured the grayness of a long, cold winter. Her rebirth into the world of painting coincides with a spiritual re-awakening, in which she became inspired to celebrate God's presence while she creates. She says that painting is "the perfect union of doing what I love for the One I love. It's no longer just about me expressing myself and my point of view, but it's about the two-way conversation going on between me and my Creator."