About Melissa

Hi, I'm Melissa Nellis. I am a fiber artist with a love for abstraction and color. In my work, I strive to elicit an overall feeling of well being in the midst of the magic and adventure of life.

My art quilts focus on natural and ethnic themes that arise from my childhood experiences in the north woods of Minnesota. Finnish heritage drives my design sense and instills a reverence for my ancestors and nature. I believe that in the present we receive energy from the past, and I attempt to incorporate a sense of energy within my work.

Though I began quilting in the late 1960s after inheriting some hand-stitched blocks from my great aunt, fiber art took a backseat to my various careers and family life until retirement. My career began first as a Medical Technologist MT(ASCP) clinical microbiologist, then food microbiologist, environmental microbiologist, and finally Biological Safety Officer overseeing research with infectious agents and rDNA at the University of Minnesota. I worked on fiber art in my spare time and when I retired in 2009, I opened a studio in Minneapolis where I enjoy working with fiber almost every day.