Melissa has been collecting her single use plastic for over a year. Inspired by the Lands End Project she worked on during the exhibition she was moved to save her plastic, keeping it out of landfills and finding another purpose and meaning for the material that is easily discarded and considered trash. There is a huge pollution crisis on the world's hands. Struggling with the news that there is no part of earth left untouched by plastic is a hard thought to swallow. Repurposing used materials is one of the most effective solutions there is to deal with today's environmentally devastating waste issues.
Melissa Bolger work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across the San Francisco Bay Area in venues that include SFArtsED, Root Division, Piedmont Center of the Arts, Oakland Museum of California, Bedford Gallery and the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work has been reviewed in publications that include the Contra Costa Times and East Bay Express.
Bolger is a California native and was raised outside of Redding, CA near Whiskeytown Lake where her parents settled on a remote piece of property, built a house, and raised their family off the grid. Her mother sewed the family’s clothes and other household items. For Bolger, the woods were her playground and she grew up hiking, fishing, hunting, riding horses and panning for gold. Some of her early artistic influences grew from those days, living off a dirt road overlooking a canyon and creek, when do-it-yourself was the only way to get things done. Today, she merges the techniques of craft with fine art in her interpretative portraits, recycled materials, paintings and drawings.
