Melody Squires

Paintings

I am Melody Squires from Guilford, Vermont! I am disabled due to having Cerebral Palsy with a bad speech problem. I am confined to a wheelchair all the time and I can’t use my hands at all, so I paint with my head. You probably think that I am crazy and it’s very hard to do, but in reality, it’s rather easy. We attached a paint brush to my rod of my headstick. My headstick is like a helmet with a rod coming out from it.

I was very fortunate enough to have art classes at The River Gallery every week and it was the very best thing I ever had done. I never thought that in a million years that I would be an artist and that people are excited about my art, but they actually are!! My classes are one on one and my art teacher is Ross Smart (many of you might know him). Ross has taught me so much about art and I am really in awe that I am actually painting with oils which I absolutely love so much. Ross is more than my art teacher, he’s my best friend. 

Ross introduced me to oils, I was scared!! I haven’t worked with oils that much, only in sequencing and that wasn’t that much. I remembered that day, when I first tried it, I didn’t want it to end! I was enjoying it too much. I think that oils are so much better than acrylics. Acrylics are running, but oils are pasty and easy to use. After I am finished with a painting, I make them into cards and they sell like hot cake.