Melody sits and smiles in bright red jacket and pants holding her engraved glass Ewing Award.
Theatre Adventure alum and board member Melody Squires is one of this year's Ewing Arts Awards Recipients!
Melody poses, grinning in front of three paintings sitting on easels at the award reception.
The Award Ceremony took place in Keene on Thursday, July 20th! A cohort of Theatre Adventure staff and board members were there to celebrate her accomplishment. Melody received a standing ovation when she went up to receive her reward.
Wendy, Darlene and Melody pose for a picture.
Theatre Adventure Staff and Board members gather around Melody’s table at the award ceremony.
Melody receives a card from her Theatre Adventure friends and colleagues.
Melody poses with the other Ewing Award recipients.
Melody Receives a Standing Ovation.
Melody’s Nomination
Ross and Melody painting at River Gallery School.
Melody became an actor with Theatre Adventure in 2016. She has been in eight performances. Her favorite play so far has been Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Melody played Nick Bottom. She loved playing this character because she loves to kid around and play tricks on people. In Melody’s words, “That’s right up my alley. I love playing jokes on everyone!” Melody is also a painter! Because of her Cerebral Palsy, she cannot use her arms easily so she uses a head-stick to paint. It’s like a helmet with a rod on which a paintbrush is attached.
View Melody’s Art
Melody's a member of the Harmony Arts Collective
With the help of a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts Melody was hired by Theatre Adventure to be a painting teacher during our summer camp in 2019. She was also asked to be a Board Member in the Fall of 2019 when Theatre Adventure became its own non-profit organization. Melody’s paintings are expressive of her joie de vivre----Melody’s jokes and smiles bring vibrancy and laughter to all who are so fortunate to spend time with her. What a wonder that this same delightful energy is expressed in Melody’s paintings!
Melody Smiles in a pastel floral dress.
From Melody: I am Melody Squires from Guilford, Vermont! I am disabled due to having Cerebral Palsy with a bad speech problem. I am confined to a wheelchair all the time and I can’t use my hands at all, so I paint with my head. You probably think that I am crazy and that it’s very hard to do, but in reality, it’s rather easy. We attached a paintbrush to the rod of my head stick. My head stick is like a helmet with a rod coming out from it.
I was very fortunate enough to have art classes at The River Gallery every week and it was the very best thing I ever had done. I never thought that in a million years I would be an artist and that people are excited about my art, but they actually are!! My classes are one-on-one and my art teacher is Ross Smart (many of you might know him). Ross has taught me so much about art and I am really in awe that I am actually painting with oils which I absolutely love so much. Ross is more than my art teacher, he’s my best friend.
Ross introduced me to oils, I was scared!! I haven’t worked with oils that much, only in sequencing and that wasn’t that much. I remembered that day when I first tried it, I didn’t want it to end! I was enjoying it too much. I think that oils are so much better than acrylics. Acrylics are running, but oils are pasty and easy to use. After I am finished with a painting, I make them into cards and they sell like hotcakes at the Harmony Collective. I am a member of the Collective.
Melody teaches a painting class in Theatre Adventure’s summer program.
Melody loves traveling to visit art museums with her Ross. Her favorite museum so far has been the Yale University Art Gallery. When Melody is home in Guilford she enjoys sitting on her porch enjoying the weather (especially when it’s hot), listening to music, and being on her I-pad. To learn more about Melody please see the article written about her for The Brattleboro Reformer (here).
Melody performs as the character Mariah with her cast mates in Theatre Adventure’s “Twelfth Night.”