Melissa Burrell

Melissa Burrell has lived in Haywood County all her life. She has been a self-employed custom picture framer and antiques dealer for over 30 years. She has always enjoyed being an artist and holds degrees in Fine Arts and Business. Melissa works in several mediums including acrylics, colored pencil, graphite, fiber art, and basket making.

In more recent years, an interesting art style caught her attention: producing art pieces in Torn Paper Collage. This medium combines hand painted paper with found papers like “junk mail,” newspaper, and tissue paper. A design is drawn on the prepared surface and then appropriate shades of different colors of paper are glued to the surface to complete the work. The surface is then varnished for protection.

Melissa has found that objects in nature make good subject matter for this style of art. Roosters, cows, birds and even grasshoppers work well. What better place to see nature's grand selection of wildlife from the beautiful North Carolina mountains!