A Collective Thread: Collaborative Drawings with Older Adults

October 26, 2026October 26, 2026 by Derick Melander

Join me and the residents of Queens Boulevard Extended Care for a reception celebrating A Collective Thread, an exhibition of mixed media works emerging from a month-long collaborative residency.

Using clothing belonging to residents, participants will create rubbings with wax pastels on drafting film. Through relaxed, guided workshops, residents and the artist will work together to reveal the seams, details, and textures of each garment, with the process adapted to meet a range of physical and cognitive abilities. Together, the works will form a vibrant collective portrait of the Queens Boulevard Extended Care community.

Come visit the facility, connect with residents, and experience the artwork created through this collaboration.

DATE:
Friday, December 4th, 2026 from 3–7 pm

LOCATION:
Queens Boulevard Extended Care Facility, Lobby
61-11 Queens Blvd, Woodside, NY 11377, USA

I would love to see you, please tell your friends and family in Queens.

Queens Arts Fund:
New Work Grant  This project is made possible (in part) with public funds from the Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts.

Flushing Town Hall: 
Artists in Queens Grant  This project is supported by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, Statewide Community Regrants Program (formerly the Decentralization program) with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and administered by Flushing Town Hall.

Hall Space Solo Show, Opens Sept 5th

August 18, 2026 by Derick Melander

Hall Space Poster for Derick Melander – Front

I’m excited to invite you to the opening of my upcoming solo show at Hall Space in Eldred, NY. I’ll be sharing a variety of new work from mixed media and watercolor to sculpture, photography and video. As an added bonus, I’ll include a few gems from the archive which have rarely been shown.

Hall Space is tucked into the heart of Sullivan County, about 2 hours north of the city. With an ambitious program of monthly exhibitions, events and classes, they are doing so much to build community. Hall Space is directed by Nonna Hall, who I met over 20 years ago at Record Club. It’s about time we did something together!

Image at the top:
Underneath Your Architecture
Size: 42” x 48”
Wax & watercolor pastel on drafting film,
saddle stitched to museum board
Date: 2024
More about this work here

Pictured above:
Wilderness
Size: 36″ x 30″ x 14″
Second-hand clothing, hand-sewn
Date: 2012

This is where I leave you

September 5 – 27
Opening Reception: Sept 5, 4 – 7pm
Artist Talk: Sept 20, 4-6pm

I’d love to see you there! And if you have friends nearby, please ask them to come say hi.

Join Me for Upstate Open Studios, July 19 & 20

July 8, 2025July 8, 2025 by Derick Melander

For its first edition, upstate open studios (uos) includes over 185 artists who will open their studios on Saturday, July 19th and Sunday, July 20th, 2025, 11am – 6pm.

Above is a map for the participating artists in The Upper Delaware Area, all within about thirty minutes of my studio. We’d love to see you! Check out the Google Map

Happy Pride

November 29, 2025June 30, 2025 by Derick Melander

Wilderness, Textile Sculpture Drawing (detail)

Today is the last day of pride month and next week on July 8th is the last day of the fundraiser I am holding for The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ young people.

This one-time sale is available exclusively to subscribers of my newsletter. Sign up now and I’ll send you the link.

Among the works offered is this early drawing from 2005, Where I imagined every piece of clothing I own—neatly folded, stitched end to end, and rolled into a dense spiral. The core begins with garments worn closest to the body (underwear, socks) and gradually moves outward to those worn on top (coats, hats).

Though this version was drawn from imagination, I later brought it to life as a textile sculpture—using second-hand clothing from strangers rather than my own. You can see that finished piece here.

New collaborative works with Kelly Reemsten

November 29, 2025May 30, 2025 by Derick Melander

New collaborative works with Kelly Reemtsen

Each of these stacked clothing sculptures was created in direct response to a painting by my dear friend Kelly Reemtsen. The paintings and the sculptures form a visual conversation—each echoing the other in unexpected ways. Our collaborative show, Gathering Threads, opened in May, 2024 at Galleri Oxholm in Køge, Denmark. This project was a celebration of artistic dialogue—an exploration of how different materials, techniques, and perspectives can come together to create something entirely new.

Each sculpture is made from between 75 and 100 folded shirt sleeves and pant legs, sourced from my second-hand clothing archive. They are fitted with a custom acrylic case for safe keeping.

1.) Yellow Dress with Burning House (link to come)
2.) Party Dress with Bolt Cutters
3.) Grey Dress with Green Chainsaw

Fundraiser to Support LGBTQ+ Young People

November 29, 2025April 30, 2025 by Derick Melander

I’m holding a fundraiser for The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ young people.

This one-time sale runs June 24th – July 8th and is available exclusively to subscribers of my newsletter. Sign up now and I’ll send you the link.

100% of the profits from this sale will go directly to the Trevor Project — and thanks to a generous matching donor, every dollar will be doubled for artwork purchased before June 29th.

Support The Trevor Project this Pride Month and show LGBTQ+ young people that Pride Belongs Here — and that they belong, too!

Pride is here to stay, even if we all don’t celebrate the same way. By purchasing a work today, you will make a life-saving impact for LGBTQ+ young people anywhere and everywhere. Every dollar raised helps fund critical crisis intervention and suicide prevention services.

With gratitude and pride,
❤️ Derick

Copenhagen, Gathering Threads

December 8, 2025April 15, 2025 by Derick Melander

Save the Date!
Friday May 9th

Galleri Oxholm, Køge, Denmark

Kelly Reemtsen + Derick Melander
A Collaborative Exhibition.

We’re thrilled to invite you to the opening of our upcoming show at Galleri Oxholm. This collaborative project is a celebration of artistic dialogue—an exploration of how different materials, techniques, and perspectives can come together to create something entirely new.

Through our partnership, we’re inviting viewers into a shared space of discovery, where the boundaries between our worlds dissolve and re-form into a fresh, unified vision.

About Kelly | About Galleri Oxholm

Here’s how one of our collaborations unfolded:
We started out by going through my archive. Kelly decided to make a new painting inspired by Drift Companion (2011), shown below.

Kelly created Shape Shifter 1 (a detail is shown below), drawing from the color scheme in Drift Companion. It was done in her signature style, and if you look closely, you’ll see that the chainsaw lends a touch of reflected color to the dress.

I responded with Hem (Green Chainsaw), a sculpture inspired by the dress in Kelly’s painting.

Our collaboration has gone back and forth like this—similar to a game of catch.

This new sculpture is made from folded shirt sleeves and pant legs, sourced from my second-hand clothing archive. It comes with a custom acrylic case for safe keeping.

More info about the work I created can be found here.

Textile Art: Hand Sight (study)

April 11, 2024April 10, 2024 by Derick Melander

Photo-based textile art piece exploring synesthesia. Two men are smiling and standing with a arm around each others' shoulders. They are outside, and it is winter. Behind them are some bare trees and an evergreen, with clear blue sky. One man wears a bright red flannel jacket. The other wears a shimmery gray jacket. Overlaid onto the photo are two polaroid close-ups of each jacket, placed directly above and slightly overlapping each body.

I created this photo-based textile art piece in 2021, but I did the hand-sketch a few years before on scrap paper (below).

However, the idea was inspired by some photos I found in the trash around 1991 (below). Back then I lived in the East Village in NYC. I did a lot of work with found objects back then. In fact, some people called me the trash king.

If memory serves, the detail image of the sweater was inside the gatefold photo. The paperclip and brass safety pin are my additions.

I like the idea that the hand can ‘see’ in a sense, making a picture in the mind of what it feels. A kind of synesthesia.

I guess I was making ‘textile art’ even then. Ideas sometimes take a while to percolate for me. I’m still not completely sure what this piece is about, but I keep coming back to it, so I’m going with it.

Thanks to the ever so patient Scott Hall for posing with me. See more of my drawings here

Collector Spotlight: Giorgia Lera

April 8, 2024 by Derick Melander

Image of Giorgia Lera in her office with Night Sky, textile art by Derick Melander

It’s so nice to see this custom photographic print installed in the office of the lovely aerospace engineer, Giorgia Lera. The photo is of a clothing sculpture I made in 2016, called Night Sky. It was printed in Italy and mounted to a Dibond panel and cradled. As you can see, we went big! Here is what she had to say about this piece of textile art:

“I felt a sense of quiet joy when I first saw “Night Sky” in a magazine and I was really fascinated by how it was made. When we moved into our new engineering office, I immediately knew that I wanted a big “Night Sky” print behind my desk. Our company (Lafer Spa in Italy) makes machines that process fabrics, so Derick’s work made perfect sense in our environment.”

Giorgia initially reached out in 2019, after seeing my work in a magazine. We are not sure which one, but it may have been Hive Life.

Above is the original photo. Learn more about the actual sculpture, here.

Clothing Sculpture ~ Art Furniture

April 5, 2024January 13, 2024 by Derick Melander

Tandem Repeat, 2023. Art Furniture made from white pine and second-hand clothing.

I’m very happy to share my first art-furniture commission. These three clothing sculptures serve as bases for a glass-topped table. The color scheme was inspired by California’s legendary sunsets, but through the lens of memory, fantasy and photo manipulation. It bears a relationship to a piece from 2016 called Night Sky.

Back in October, an architecture firm based in LA called Andmore Partners reached out and said something like: “We love your work, can you make us a table out of stacked clothing? It will be for a store, so it has to be very stable and easy to move. And you’ll have to ship it from The Catskills to Venice Beach.”

Creativity is about solving problems. So I designed an armature from white pine and upholstered it with one inch strips of clothing. The three bases are pretty big, so I made them in two parts with a removable top to provide access to an internal handle.

So are they hollow? The secret space inside each base, holds the stores tied to the thousands of garments used to create this piece.

You can see them a Circular Library in Los Angeles, a new clothing store grappling with sustainability. If you find yourself in Venice Beach, stop by and say “hello” to them?