Lise Melhorn-Boe has been making and exhibiting books and sculptural bookworks for over twenty-five years. She has exhibited widely across Canada and the United States as well as Europe and South America and her work is in several public collections. She teaches bookmaking workshops for adults and children. She is a member of the White Water Gallery, an artist-run centre in North Bay, The Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild and CARFAC Ontario.
Born in Noranda, a mining town in north-eastern Québec, Lise attended high school in Copper Cliff, Ontario. Her mother, Pauline Gillmore Melhorn, was a painter who encouraged Lise's desire to draw and paint and make things as a child. She even was lucky enough to have private art lessons for a while with a wonderful painter from South Africa, named Nan Rowley. Lise studied architecture for a year and two weeks at Carleton University, because her father wanted her to be a lawyer or a doctor! (It made sense at the time.) She then came to her senses and studied art at the University of Guelph and later received M.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Wayne State University in Detroit. She has also enjoyed the opportunity to take workshops through the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, to learn specific book-making techniques.
Lise and her husband David, a musician, now live in North Bay, Ontario. Their son Matthias, a Canadian LEGO® Champion, is a Computer Engineering student at Queen’s University in Kingston. He is also Lise's webmaster.
Résumé
EDUCATION
- 1984 Wayne State University, Detroit - M.F.A. (Fibres)
- 1981 Wayne State University - (M.A. Fibres)
- 1977 University of Guelph - Honours B.A. Art (Printmaking)
GRANTS
- Ontario Arts Council Materials Assistance Grants: 1986 – 2009 (x10).
- Ontario Arts Council Artists in Education Project Grants: 1996 – 2006 (x7).
- Canada Council Project Grant: 1989
- Ontario Arts Council Individual Crafts Grant: 1988
- O.A.C. Creative Artists in Schools Project Grants: 1986.
- O.A.C. Grants to Artists: 1978, 1998, 2003.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
- Art Gallery of Cleveland
- Art Gallery of Ontario Library
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Banff Centre for Fine Arts, Banff, Alberta
- British Library
- Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, Ontario
- California PolytechnicState University, King Library, San Luis Obispo, California
- Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
- Duke University, Perkins Library, Special Collections
- Harvard Fine Arts Library
- Indiana University, Kinsey Institute
- Lafayette College, Skillman Library, Spec. Coll.
- Leicester Polytechnic, Leicester, England
- Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York
- Los Angeles Public Library
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- National Gallery of Canada
- National Library of Canada
- National Library of Scotland
- Notre Dame, Hesburgh Libraries, Spec. Coll.
- Ontario Ministry of Government Services
- Otis College of Art and Design Library
- Parson's School of Art and Design Library
- Queen's University, Jordan Rare Book and Music Library, Kingston, Ontario
- Ringling School of Art and Design
- Scripps College, Ella Denison Strong Library, Claremont, California
- Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C.
- Smith College Library, Rare Book Room
- Tate London
- Texas Tech University Library, Lubbock, Texas
- Toronto Public Library, Rare Books
- University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta
- University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
- University of California, Irvine, Spec. Coll.
- University of California, Los Angeles, Darling Bio-Medical Library, Spec. Coll.
- University of California, Los Angeles, Arts Library
- University of California, Santa Barbara, Davison Library, Spec. Coll.
- University of California, San Diego Library, Mandeville Collections
- University of Cincinnata, Langsam Library
- University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware
- University of Denver
- University of Iowa, Main Library. Spec. Coll.
- University of New Mexico
- University of Tulsa, McFarlin Library, Spec. Coll.
- University of Vermont
- University of Washington
- Virginia Commonwealth University
- Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah Library
- Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut
- Wesleyan University, Olin Library, Spec. Coll.
- Yale University Arts Library
REPRESENTED BY:
- Art Metropole, Toronto
- Printed Matter, New York
- Vamp and Tramp, Birmingham, Alabama