As a kid, I was often thought of as creative but mostly because I was a Gideon and us Gideon kids loved to make art.  I realized early on though, that making step-guide art and coloring in the lines was so boring to me. 

I vividly remember our 2nd grade dinosaur puppet show.  For a week, each of my classmates were working on making their own dinosaur puppet in art class for the show.  We all had outline silhouette templates of different types of dinosaurs to choose from and construct using colored paper.  The intent was to have all of the dinosaurs in a silhouette form so that during the show they would interact with each other from a side-view perspective.  I remember asking my art teacher Mr. Melton, “can I make my dinosaur face forward to talk to the people?”  He was completely taken aback.  That meant I’d have to make the design up myself without a template despite having so many different options for silhouettes of various dinosaurs to choose from.  I remember looking up at him from my tiny stool and insisting that my dinosaur be different.  I knew I would have to make the whole thing up from scratch AND risk failing, but little Mel didn’t care.

And that was the key.

He let me make it. It was awkwardly three times larger than everyone else’s and completely stood out in every way.  Try to envision in your mind how today’s Barney character on TV towers over the kids on the show when he hugs them.  That was my dinosaur puppet next to the others.  Huge. Disproportioned. Red. Plastic googly-eyed.  I was proud of my dinosaur because he was different. 

I was proud of myself because I was different.

I wore that feeling like a badge of honor through the puppet show and without knowing it had learned the single most important lesson: that there is no failing, in art.  It’s really just you against your brain.  You against that voice that tries to keep you in line.  That strong inner steering wheel that wants to protect you from feeling out of place in the world of pressure to be a certain way like everyone else. Over the years, that subconscious commitment to embracing my authentic self and my desire to let my weird shine the brightest was not always so clear.

It has taken the rest of my lifetime to realize that this is the part of me that matters the most.

Today, for me, MellyMooneyes is the essence of my identity that despite any external pressure to conform, stands up tall, puffs up my chest, and shoots the biggest CareBear rainbow stare into the universe screaming to be bold and to be unapologetically unique.

My Hope is that my photography and art will encourage others to embrace their own passion and seek their own wonder.

The Journey To MellyMooneyes Photography

I wish I could say I led with that force field of creative freedom from second grade on, but that wasn’t the case.

I often look back knowing I should have fought harder to let that courageous part of me lead my decisions, but like many of us, I fell victim.  Victim to the part of me that yearned for acceptance.  Sometimes it saddens me to know that I didn’t just go for it.  I didn’t go all-in and double down on the creative inside me.  In college, I wanted to pursue a career in acting or in the arts but I chickened out. I felt like that wasn’t enough. I’m not clear if societal pressures brought me to that or my parents wanting me to push myself, but either way, that force was there. Instead of pursuing a fun and exciting path through college and listening to that inner voice, I chose Biology because it was fascinating but SO INCREDIBLY challenging.  I thought that becoming pre-med would allow me to fulfill another meaningful passion of mine.  I wanted to be a pediatric Ophthalmologist.  I thought there was no more noble cause in the world then to help children see.  All the while, in the back of my mind, I knew a big part of me was being lost and silenced.

While in undergrad, trudging through my loathed chemistry and physics classes, I continued to quiet the artistic voice, but then something started to shift.  I was forfeiting my coveted wild-out College Spring Break to travel to Honduras with the Timmy Foundation to set up medical clinics with a team of doctors, students, and volunteer translators.  We were instructed to bring a bag of our clothes and personal belongings and were also each to pack a 70lb duffel bag filled with medical supplies and hygiene kits.  Right before that trip, my Dad said to me, “you are going to need a good camera”. 

My dad was the photographer in our family.  Even my oldest brother had his entire birth filmed in the late 70’s when camcorders were few and far between.  My dad valued photography and documenting life’s moments more than anyone I’d ever known.  He raised me to appreciate photography from a very early age and I got my first real taste for the art in High School taking photography classes to learn how to process film. So as I set off for Honduras, he gifted me with one of the first really good digital cameras on the market.  It was a 5 Megapixel Sony.  It was incredibly expensive and I was nervous to even hold it.  He handed me the box and said to me “you can only have this if you promise to read the manual from front page to back page.”.

I read every page of that manual.  Amidst stacks of science textbooks, I’ll be honest, that was the most text I had read in years (please don’t tell my parents 😊).

I packed my clothes, my 70lbs of hygiene supplies, and a separate suitcase with my seemingly 300lb laptop and my stone-age printer. 

I had a new mission.  A secret mission.  A mission that would change my life forever.

I spent the first day there helping the team get the first clinic set up at a rural church in the middle of what had to be nowhere.  I began working with the translators to get the families of patients in an organized line outside the church to receive their free healthcare. Within a few hours, without even realizing it, I had blindly wandered away from my post and found myself sitting out in the middle of the tall grass field next to the church.  I was cross-legged in the middle of a circle of ten bright-eyed Honduran children, ranging from three to nine years old.  I had a box of Crayola markers in my hand and was drawing all over them.  Up and down their tiny little arms.  They couldn’t understand anything I was saying and I didn’t know any Spanish yet.  But that’s the point.  It didn’t matter.  I was drawing vibrantly striped snakes and making hissing noises and we were all giggling uncontrollably.  The bright colors blended into their dark olive skin and ran down their arms smudging onto one another.  We were all belly laughing through the squirming and animal noises. 

We were communicating.  They were healing.  I was healing.

This was joy.

I grabbed my new fancy camera and began taking pictures of the kids.  They were excited to be around me and totally comfortable in all of the candor and playfulness despite being in a “clinic” to get care.

I set my printer up to an adapter and printed 8x10 photos of the kids on what I can imagine was the most expensive photo paper ever invented.  As their parents were leaving the clinic after getting their care from our team, I casually approached them with my arm extended holding that large piece of paper, face-down.

I had no concept of the magnitude of the next moment. 

I handed a piece of paper to a young mother walking her little boy out of the clinic.  She turned it over as she was starting to pass me and stopped in her tracks.  She began to tremble and broke down into sobbing tears.  She looked at me with the most wholehearted warmth of gratitude.

I didn’t realize that I was giving her the first picture she had ever seen of her son.

This happened several times over those next few weeks.

I was forever changed.

I went home from that trip and signed up for two more in Central and South America.  I was fortunate enough to go back and work with the children at an AIDS hospice orphanage outside of Tegucigalpa. Then, later that year, I was put in charge of the public health initiatives in the very destitute mountain villages hours outside of Quito, Ecuador teaching kids how to brush their teeth and wash their hands.  This work was incredibly gratifying, but more importantly to me, I was still capturing the moments.  From the young kids to the elderly women coming to our sites for care, every person was fascinated by having their photos taken.  I’m confident that even today, they are still cherishing those images.

So, it would be easy for me to say, that was all I needed.  I learned the emotional value of photography in its rawest form.  But at the time, I didn’t know that intrinsic value, would translate to becoming valuable.

It was a crazy time. Some of it is a blur, but leaving that family there that day with that deep pit of hopelessness haunted me all the way back to my cozy, privileged, American home.

When we got back to IU, we were planning for a Timmy Foundation event in Indianapolis.  I printed several of my photos and made an entire board of photos of Luis. We had a fun night, I met a lot of adults who seemed invested in the work that we were doing, but I didn’t even realize at the time how much power these images would have.

About six months later, I was sitting at my desk on my computer.  I was going through my inbox and a message popped up in my email from the Timmy Foundation.  I clicked on it and what in modern day patience for internet speed would label this a short eternity, watched an image populate from the bottom of my screen to the top.  One pixelated line of color at a time. Minute-by-minute.  Like layers building a time-lapse skyscraper over a years-long construction project. 

As the image became clear, I took a gasping breath.

It was a full screen picture of little Luis with a huge surgical scar from just above his navel up to the nape of his neck.

‘The email said: “the money “we had raised with the photos I took at the event in Indy paid for Luis to have heart surgery”. 

In a way, my photos HELPED save his life.

From that day forward, everything changed. I became more disillusioned in my “science” path and knew that I didn’t need to be a doctor to help people.  Instead I pursued a career in healthcare administration and was able to use these more innate skills to make a difference on a larger scale. 

I continue to strive to find purpose and meaning in everything I spend my time doing.  I have finally taken a step back from my healthcare career to highlight this other side of me--this growing inferno of creative passion that was inadvertently stifled along the way.