Rachel Melis
Assistant Professor
of Visual Communication and Foundations and
Coordinator of Illustration B.A. Grinnell College, IA
M.F.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research Statement:
My artists' books, prints and installations convey a settling process: my settling into the Flint Hills of Kansas (home of much of the last remaining tallgrass prairie ecosystem), the settling of my great, great grandmothers on the prairie in the 19th century, and the settling of prairie seed pods and other objects that, like books, act as transports for germination and regeneration. I see myself as a reverse pioneer - one who observes, re-imagines and re-images what was overlooked by the first prairie pioneers - the vitality, diversity and importance of prairie populations: native peoples, plants and ecosystems.