Melanie Piech

Website: http://www.melaniepiech.com

Bio: Melanie was born in Los Angeles, California, and practiced law for 14 years, most of that time as a plaintiff’s class action lawyer, learning firsthand how greed and power, both public and private, disrupt fairness and justice. After stepping away to have a child, she returned to school to study sculpture. She spent 10 years part-time at SFAI, graduating in 2018, and now works out of a SOMA warehouse. She has always been a maker. Her art has recently been displayed at Heron Arts, the Hera Gallery, and Metal Haus, as well as through ArtSpan. Two of her larger sculptures are permanently installed in California and Colorado.

Statement: When very young, rightly or wrongly, I came to understand that society values men over women. That meant that I felt like an outsider to society. I took this to be a challenge to beat men at their own games. Success meant mastering things that society thought only men could do or should be doing. This was true when I started practicing law. Seventy-five percent of California litigators were male. When I transitioned to sculpture, it was important to me to master techniques that had been traditionally thought of as male, so mainly metalworking and technology. Thus, my work is feminist in my choice of technique, as it challenges societal notions of a woman's place in the world. In addition, due to my outsider mentality, my art often tries to amplify the voices of those who are not typically heard.