Melinda Matson Spina

Melinda Matson Spina was born in the US to a family with a combination of veteran and immigrant roots beginning in the Vietnam war. Her childhood was spent in the Sonoran Desert at the foot of the Huachuca Mountains. From that grounding experience, she has inclined always toward artistry, habitat and placemaking; developing her ideas in environments ranging from the southern Arizona border and desert to the Panama Canal and rainforest.

Melinda is a lifelong artist and writer motivated by self reliance, community resilience, and aesthetic experience. She worked in art and craft, from curating exhibitions to rehabilitating historic houses, for two decades in Northern CA and the Pacific Northwest. In 2018, she returned to her elementary roots in AZ, where she is currently working with Desert Dispatch, a community-led documentary and mobilization of collective storytelling in the fight against inhumane tech.