BMP (Buffalo Music Players) Episode 47: Meleah

Meleah is living her life in Western New York, making clothing, paintings and journey entries as she goes.

She came on the BMP podcast via phone to talk about it all, how she came to creativity, which for her has always been very private until recently and was actually something of a survival instinct.

If you'd like to support Meleah in her doings and get some cool clothing in return, be sure to check out her website, meleahpescini.com.

Otherwise, enjoy the episode!

BMP Sponsors are:

Captain Tom & the Hooligans

BUFFALO CREATIVE WORKSHOP

MAMMOTH CANNABIS

SHIANNE WAXING STUDIO

Theme for the Shianne Waxing Studio Commercial was Conducted & Composed by Philip Milman

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 1:20

This just then a double scoop of bad news.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Man, life just isn't letting up. I feel like the walls are closing in, and I don't have a way to stop it. I wish there was somewhere I could go. Some place where I could just get away from everything. And just be creative.

SPEAKER_05 1:42

There is. The Buffalo Creative Workshop. Who said that? Spirit of Creativity. I heard you're playing. I felt a duty the healthy. Okay, in the Great Arrow Building on Elmwood Avenue, use our space, our art supplies, and equipment to your heart's content. Let us help you beat back the stress and feel centered again.

SPEAKER_04 2:05

Wow, that sounds great. I'll check it out.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

Always remember, if the world has your creative spirits in a rut, come to the Buffalo Creative Workshop for a pick-me-up. More about Buffalo Creative Workshop can be found at Buffalo.creativeWorkshop on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Hello listeners, this is the BMP Podcast, and I'm Benjamin Joe, your host, and with us today, via telephone, is a very talented artist, uh curator of clothing, and and writer as well. Her name is Milea Piscini. And uh where are you calling from, Mala Malaya?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

I am in the countryside of Mount Morris, New York.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Oh wow, that's incredible. Now now you you you you are from Buffalo, right? Something like that? Yeah, I was uh I grew up in North Tanawanda. Ah, North Tanawanda, wonderful place. I like Oliver Street. It's nice. I like going I like going to that uh little Blackheart Cafe, the uh the vegan cafe up there on on Oliver.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Um well anyway, that that's enough from me, really. Like this podcast can go on without me pretty well. Maybe you'd like to describe yourself to our listeners.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Sure. Um, I consider myself a uh multifaceted artist. I really enjoy jabbling in many different mediums and exploring different ways of expression. The past eight months or so I've been really devoted to upcycling clothing.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yes, that's so cool. I'm looking at her uh website, listeners, it's got a lot of really cool clothing. Um, just uh patches, different different prints. Yeah, how how did you get into that? How did how did upcycling come into your mind as something that is worth doing?

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Well, I've always been uh an environmentalist since I could understand what that word meant at a very young age. And being a visual artist, I always have these conflicting feelings about uh waste and the fact that it takes objects to create the art. And so uh several years ago I started to just dedicate myself to upcycling as much as I possibly can in order to achieve the end goal. So that started with my canvases. Every canvas that I paint on is a repurposed canvas from a thrift store or a dumpster or wherever I can find them.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Canvas is expensive and it really is. Yeah. Do you uh do you do you like paint on like a on like an easel at all? Or is it is it more of a of a you know, just like freeform kind of like I guess I'm interested in the process. Did you go I'm wondering if you're like a classical uh educated artist or if is just something like a savant of some sort in in that way?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Well, I never went to college. I really got into art as a form of um self-survival, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

I've heard that a lot. I've heard that from a lot of people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

It felt it just felt necessary. I always felt safest in the art room, um, as a kid growing up. And I have been painting for I guess steadily for about ten years now. Maybe eleven years. And I just got my first easel last summer.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

That's amazing. I'm looking at some of your paintings. It looks like you use photography along with it. Oh, I I think that's photography unless it's just very well painted details.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Yeah, I like to I like to incorporate collage. Collage, yeah. Yeah. Really, uh I'm more and more I'm trying to become as free as I possibly can with my ways of expressing myself and uh not giving myself too many rules. And so sometimes that means that a painting ends up with collage cutouts in it, sometimes it means that you know, there's fabric sewn to the canvas or odd objects glued on. Um and the same goes with the clothing. It's evolving pretty quickly and was a total accident stumbling upon diving into that medium, but I am fully obsessed.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

So that's great. I'm wondering like where where all this cr this this came from. Like, um, if you were encouraged by anybody in the community before you you started working, you know, you know, maybe you maybe like a mentor or teacher or parent or a a family member.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Um you know, I I've been pretty private about it until very recently. And so I think I I'm I struggle with um you know, which I'm getting better at, but just feeling insecure or having imposter syndrome.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Ooh. Yeah, that gets a lot of us out there.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Imposter syndr syndrome, you're the imposter.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Exactly. Yeah. So I uh yeah, I kind of just kept stuff to myself and I try not to let too much influence in because I will question what I'm making if I am consuming or learning too much from outside sources. Um it gets muddy sometimes where I don't know if uh I don't ever want to really emulate anybody else other than myself. And so I think I've kept quite a bit of walls up around me as far as uh mentorship or learning goes. But I'm deeply inspired by many people and I am a part of the finger legs community now, which is just overflowing with incredible artists of all kinds, and I think I I enjoy seeing examples of it working, but I haven't reached out for support very often until recently.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Well, you know, it's always important for people to feel that they can reach out for support, not so much whether they do or not, but just to know that they're able to if they need support.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

No, and not even if you need it, if you don't need it or if you need it, it's not a qualifying, you don't have to go and be needy in order to reach out to a happy person. But um I guess what I'm wondering is when when did you know that you were an artist? Like w when was that realization? And um how did it feel to to realize that you needed to create art in order to just to function or survive or or or validate your your own existence with the work, you know?

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Right. Well, during COVID I bought a van and lived in my van and traveled around the country. And I think that in that moment or that period of my life, my life was stripped down to just the bare minimum. And so the things that were most important to me really came through stronger. Um I think that that's kind of when I realized that my life path is one that's devoted to being an artist, regardless of how my paychecks are made. Um it's which has been a separate thing my entire life. But I've just recently within the past two years, started to really call myself an artist. And I think a lot of that is because of my partner who would introduce me to other people as a fellow artist. And I think that gave me the permission that I felt like I needed in order to claim that for myself. But ever since I was very young, um, I think probably like twelve or thirteen was when I really started to get the bug and realized that that was the place within myself that I felt most like me was when I was making. Painting, pottery, um just all the all the different mediums that I could get my hands on. Every time I was in that zone, I felt safest and most comfortable and so I think I've known for quite a while, but I haven't told anybody else until very recently.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

What made you feel like now was the time to to come out with uh with all with with uh with your art?

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Well my uh partner is a full-time musician and has traveled and toured with many uh known people and because of that my life is now surrounded with these incredible artists who just go for it and really claim what they are and trust that it'll work or that there's no other route for them. Um and I was starting to be pretty severely mentally affected by working jobs that didn't feel in alignment with not just what I wanted to be doing with my dates, but also just from a moral standpoint, I didn't feel like I could find a place that I really felt good about and so I just thought I would jump and go for it and take a leap of faith and luckily I have um really incredible family support in doing that. I knew that I wasn't going to lose the roof over my head or food in my fridge because I live with my father and my stepmother. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Uh stay there as long as you possibly can is my advice.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Um, I guess that's really cool. I mean, one of the things that we talk about on this program a lot is about community and about how we all support each other and how we inspire each other. And I I think that's especially true in artistic communities. Where um I mean I know that there are people that I go to for validation. Like if I feel not necessarily upset, but maybe a little depressed, kinda. Not not real depression, I know what real depression is, but like, you know, just feeling as though like I'm not getting it or something like that. And they help me. They say, no, this is good. Like, why don't you try this, why don't you try that? And I guess I get um, you know, recharge a little bit in their presence. So I don't know that yeah, awesome. What were the jobs that you were working before you like became a full-time artist? Um any funny stories there?

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Yeah. I was mostly working in child care. Oh okay. So a lot of um yeah, it started with substitute teaching. Well, I'm the oldest of six kids. So that felt like the most natural path was to just keep taking care of kids.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

I'm the oldest of four. I know the and and many cousins all younger than me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah. Yeah, so substitute teaching, uh I ran an after school program for a while.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

And then moved on to like private nannying gigs for predominantly homeschooled families. So parents were usually still around, but I was an extra hand. Um yeah, just helping be a buffer so that parents could get their work done and there was somebody there to help to teach and play with the children. But it it's pretty exhausting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Oh, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

So I would come home and not have the energy to do what I needed to do and um yeah, I just had to step back. I want kids of my own, so I'm trying to reserve some of that mothering energy for when it'll be applied to my own.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I hear you. I have one daughter and she is the the light of my life. Um very talented artist. Uh ha oh, she's twenty-two now. She's she's literally like she's literally half my age because I'm forty-four and she's twenty-two now, so it's kind of that will never happen again. But like it's uh well, I guess when she's No, yeah, that wouldn't work. She'll always be twenty-two years yo younger than me. So yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah, she's great. Um I have I have her she's living in Brooklyn right now. And um Oh, beautiful. She left a lot of her paintings uh at in her room in my apartment, so I just converted it into my office. It's really fun. I can see I can see what she's talking about about the draft though, definitely. Um, I find artwork to be incredibly um vital to my life to look at it, to go and try to understand it. Um what do you feel like you're giving when you when you make art or do you feel like you're giving? Like is it uh is it um is it like just like the end result of of like, you know, an explosion of creativity, or is there a message inherent in it? Um I guess I really want to know what makes you tick when when it comes to artwork.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Yeah, I guess uh most of my process is trying not to think for as long as possible. Oh in the process because I really enjoy and appreciate the feeling of getting part way through a piece of work and then the message hits me. And I I really I think I get more out of my art and the process of creating it when I just leave myself open to interpretation and th I can assume the role of the observer as well as the creator, which feels uh just like I'm utilizing art for its main purpose, which is to help us process our own emotions and stories and feelings and so I try not to come up with too many ideas before I begin something. And that's definitely different depending on what medium I'm working with. Uh with the clothing I usually will get an idea, an image in my head, and then I have to try to translate that into fabric, pieces of fabric, which has been just a bit more complicated or it's a learning curve. I'm learning.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Um My mother is a tactile artist, a uh a textile artist. She quilts and um Oh cool uses different threads and and fabrics to go and re not reimagine, but like to r to re like in some play points like replicate like pieces of art like the kiss or or something or like uh Oh beautiful. Yeah, that she's very good at that. She does commissions as well. Shout out, Mom. Um that that's really cool. I'm looking at um ode to women and ode to women too right now. It seems like there's a lot of native women in in the uh in these pictures, like collages.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Yeah. Um I well my family lineage is predominantly Sicilian and Mohawk indigenous.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Um Italians love to talk and share their stories. So a lot of those stories have been continuously passed down through our family line. But my indigenous family members were uh sent to reform schools. So a lot of our just a lot of our stories have been lost and I think that that's through my art is one of the ways that I try to reconnect with that part of my bloodline that has been uh buried a bit. And I'm continuously doing research and trying to retrace our steps and figure out how to revive some of that in the form of storytelling and just knowing the facts of where we've come from and how we got here. But I do tend to work with a lot of uh indigenous American imagery in my work.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

And it's uh yeah, just in attempts to connect connect with my ancestors.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I feel the same. I'm biracial, I'm Italian and Chinese and I often we have a uh a ceremony that we go through every year on my Chinese side of the family. Like I had no idea that I could be Confucius and um and and Catholic at the same time, but I that's the way I lived my life as a kid that I didn't know any I didn't realize it was it was strange. Um But we're trying we're trying to unfortunately like a lot of the older members of our family are no longer with us, and it's a real struggle to figure out like what exact uh cultural um traditions we're gonna uphold and which ones we can, which ones we can't, because it's a lot it's unfortunate there's so many great things about human beings that we're all alike in so many ways, but there's also a lot of walls between each culture. And um so, like for instance, I was baptized, so like I not I may or may not be allowed to burn spirit money for my ancestors. And if I do, like they won't actually get it. I really like burning it, so it's kinda hard to go and say no for my old members of my family, but like the monks are saying this thing and and uh and nobody remembers the language. So it's just um yeah, it's it's frustrating. I think I I think it's really frustrating for for children and for young adults and older adults to not really know where we came from.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

To the point you know, i you know, to the point where w where my sister is just like, well, why don't we just Google it? And I'm like, I don't think that'll work, but like, yeah, I guess so. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah. Yeah, it's really I think our our stories that we pass down make up who we are to some degree.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

And it's just like there's that feeling of connection, I think, that you know, of something bigger than just yourself. Um I know my daughter is very interested in in our in our family's traditions and I'm just like I don't really know, like I eat this food and you know.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yeah. Well, y when we feel like we're connected to something bigger than ourselves, then we're more likely to take responsibility for our part in it.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Yeah. Oh, I hadn't thought about it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Um I guess I'm really interested in this journal that you have on your webpage. It's really cool. I read this one uh you know, to change the subject completely about uh heaven. Yeah. I thought that was Uh it was made like literally like the first day of of the new year. And um it's really cool. I don't know if you want to talk about the journal at all. I think it's really interesting. You have a lot of really interesting thoughts and um and writings, just like all you know, on your website, which is Moleapacini.com for all you listeners out there. That's correct. Um what made you re write Heaven Came Knocking?

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Um, you know, I think my partner and I also his name's Rick Robertson, for all the other listeners as well. Um great musician, incredible songwriter. We I think we're messing around with a song idea and where we were personifying heaven. And it didn't go anywhere in the form of a song, but I played around with the idea one day writing and I just loved it. I I think I'm gonna go back into a lot of these pieces that are on the journal page of my website and kind of expand upon them and make them a bit longer, but everything that's on my website isn't refined. It's legitimately pages from my journal. Um so I'm hoping to expand on that at some point with my writing and but I really enjoy the act of personifying things that are not people. I think it's a really fun way to just explore our relationships to things and yeah, the idea that uh heaven is on earth or that it is a realm that exists within the realm we exist in and we're constantly seeking it or believing that we'll be rewarded with it, or uh that it's something to strive for or reach for when in reality it's uh a space that you can enter within yourself and it's seeking up just as much as we're seeking it.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

And that's a wonder that's a wonderful sentiment that like heaven is just like is just right there in front of you. And um you just to have some stillness in your life, like maybe this time you'll you'll be able to appreciate the the the visit from her or him.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

And I loved um I also love taking things that people view as pure and whole and innocent and giving them a bit of a prankster quality. And so you know, there's the line where Heaven admits to putting a hole in our favorite sweater. And it wasn't for the sake of frustrating us, but just for the sake of making us notice what things in our life are our favorites to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Very inspiring. So, um we're coming to the part of our program where we ask our guests to showcase a local musician and uh maybe pick out a song. Is there a musician that you would like to showcase today, Malaya?

SPEAKER_02 25:10

I think I'm going to go with my very dear friend Kalia Lee. She has an incredible song, first song on her record that came out in 2022, and the song is called Talking House.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Talking House?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Talking House.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Awesome. All right, why don't we play a clip of that?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

If this house could talk.

SPEAKER_04 26:38

The bringer of life, the bringer of unimaginable joy, the cause of catastrophic destruction. Knowing that you have something so powerful, wouldn't you want the best to take care of it? Pardon me for saying this, I am just a humble announcer. But if I had a coochie, I'd probably get it waxed at Cheyenne's waxing studio on 830 Elmwood Av. You have power in between your legs. So why not have it taken care of by the best?

SPEAKER_01 27:14

And we are back. Now, Malaya, oh me and Malaya were talking a little bit about um her home in Mount Morris, which is a little ways from Buffalo, but it is not terribly hard to get to if you have a car or rent a car. There's all there are choices out there. And um, I was wondering if you could uh talk about it a little bit more, Malaya.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Yeah, so we are starting a unintentionally, start well, I guess somewhat intentionally, starting an accidental uh artist compound here. Um we have a barn that has been fully renovated with a full bar and restaurant-sized kitchen and a stage. We do live music events once a month, and starting this summer we will be doing more community-centered events, uh art workshops for kids and yoga classes and gallery nights and poetry nights and all kinds of stuff. Um we call our barn the Hilltop Haven. I guess the land in general that we live on, the Hilltop Haven. And we do have an Instagram where we keep up with uh sharing what we're doing here.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

That is so cool. That is so cool. And you'll be ha you'll be dropping another line of clothing pretty soon in the next couple months.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Yes, I will. I'm feeling pretty inspired by some new styles that I've been trying with commission work and just my own personal pieces, and I took a little bit of a step back to refine what I want to do, and I'm feeling ready to release the next batch of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Awesome, that's so cool. Well, Melia, we're we're coming to the end of our program right now. It's been so cool to have you on as a guest. Um, it's been a long time coming, I know. I think we tried to schedule last month, but um how how'd that tattoo come out by the way?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Oh, it was great. I actually uh just got the second one yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Cool. Very cool. Well well, thank you so much for coming on the pod. Is there anything else you'd like to go and say to our listeners before we sign off?

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Um, care for your neighbors, care for your community, make art, get to know the plants that are growing in your yard, and care for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Sounds wonderful. Alright, BMP listeners, thanks for for tuning in again. There'll be another episode shortly.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

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