Clothing as biography

A Portland artist’s new exhibit examines stories that clothes tell about our lives

By Janie Nafsinger

Boom!, Jun 1, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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“I’ve always made things,” says Meltzer, who started crocheting when she was 5. “When I colored, I could never stay in the lines … My mom would say, ‘Go outside and play, you’re reading too much.’ ”

Meltzer majored in art at Montclair State College in New Jersey and later moved to Seattle to earn a master of fine arts degree from the University of Washington. She moved from Seattle to Portland in 1971. She and her husband, whom she met on Valentine’s Day in 1969, have lived in the same house in North Portland’s Portsmouth neighborhood since 1975.

During her 40 years as a working artist, Meltzer has also taught art, Photoshop and digital imaging. She has crocheted with wire since the 1970s — “it’s very hot now,” she says — designs Web sites, produces commissioned art and collects “anything with lenses.”

And there are always the clothes. In a self-portrait that stands in her art studio, Meltzer has clad herself in a purple dress adorned with bits of wire, discarded CDs and other shiny embellishments. The figure is meant to call to mind the famous Jenny Joseph poem that begins, “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple… ”

Meltzer doesn’t like the poem, by the way.

“Why wait,” she asks, “until you’re old to wear purple?”