Melody Ashley

Melody Ashley’s interest in Art has been life long. She majored in art in high school and although she received an art scholarship from Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri, she did not pursue her studies at that time. Melody also has a big interest in the environment and adventure.

Melody earned her bachelors in Geography, cum laude, from the University of Arkansas and her Masters in Ocean Studies from the University of San Diego.

Her honors thesis produced at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, “The Process, Advantages and Disadvantages of Four Types of Waste Disposal in Northwest Arkansas: The Most Feasible Solution,” was used as reference material for the waste disposal planning for Northwest Arkansas in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. Melody has had several papers and studies published. See list below

Melody was appointed Coordinator for Earth Day 1990 activities on the University of San Diego campus with special responsibility for the planning, in cooperation with the Earth Day 1990 Coalition, Stanford University

After graduate school, she found that God had a sense of humor and she could not get a job in her area of study. She moved back to Arkansas, started a landscape and maintenance company and became more and more interested in “yard art.” After 9 years she sold her company and began designing metal garden art and having it made in Guadalajara, Mexico. Melody’s designs were displayed in show rooms in Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, Santa Fe, Taos and Atlanta between 1999 and 2001. She shipped her designs coast to coast for 3 years until September 11th, 2001, when she decided to scale way back and make her art herself.

She loaded up her truck with shop equipment and moved to San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico (a long time vacation spot), and after a few five minute lessons from welders she began teaching herself how to create metal and tile art. During this same time period, Melody built several houses from the ground up treating the vacant lot as her canvas. All of her houses and gardens in San Felipe were on the AARP tour of homes and the most photographed in town. Her last house was built from old tires and turned out a spectacular site to see. People came in flocks to tour her home; and while they were there they would want her metal and mosaic tile art and then later bring their friends back to buy more.

Ready for another adventure, this past summer, Melody and her partner, Angela, moved to Florence for the natural beauty, cooler climate and friendly people.

Since being here in Florence, Melody found a way to recycle various pressure tanks by converting them into artistic water fountains. One of her fountains can be seen in the front garden at the Backstreet Gallery in Florence. Most recently, Melody finished a series of the seven baleen whales that cruise Oregon’s magnificent coast. They are now on display at the Backstreet.

Melody uses an oxygen/acetylene torch to cut the metal and lets nature patina the creations for color.