When Krystii Melaine and her husband Michael moved from Australia to the United States 15 years ago, they settled in Spokane, Washington. They had a large, lovely house with a tree-filled backyard that sloped down to a river. They regularly saw moose, eagles, coyotes, porcupines, owls, and many other birds from their windows. “It was fabulous,” she says.
Melaine loved that house, but Michael was concerned about keeping it up as they got older. So, he dangled the one thing he knew would convince his wife to move: her dream studio.
In Spokane, Melaine’s studio was in the basement and had low ceilings. She had to sit on the floor to paint the bottom of her six-foot high canvases and struggled to haul her large pieces up the curved basement stairs. “I loved it there,” she says, “but, once Michael sowed that seed, it became a thing. I realized how frustrated I was in that studio.”
Read the full article in the March/April 2026 issue.
Bound For Life
oil
30″ by 40″
Wiyukcan, One Who Is Wise, Lakota
oil
36″ by 36″
