Melanie Weidner is a Quaker Artist and Spiritual Director whose contagious love for image, metaphor, poetry, and spiritual exploration create joyful and transformative openings for growth. She engages wide audiences across the country with experiences of art and spiritual refection, then circles back to her Oregon studio to pray and create. See www.ListenForJoy.com or www.ElysiumArtists.com for a sampling.

	first watercolor, age 5

"My art images, teaching, and spiritual listening work are three different kinds of the same sacred curiosity. I ask questions like, When are we fully alive? What helps us listen to truth and love within and around us? Where do our soul passions meet the world’s needs? I delight in the process of getting clear on who we are, then embracing and becoming our true selves as a gift back to God and all beings. I’ve learned I must pray in both silence and art to find my way.

Art rises out of my BE-ing, soul, and connection with Spirit/God/the Beloved/Holy One. My images and teaching are shaped by life experience, contemplative spiritual practice, poetry, the Great Story, and my love for reverence of all kinds from many traditions. I hope my work will inspire your connection to Spirit’s wild abundance and transforming love."

Melanie earned a BA degree in Religion with an Art minor from George Fox University, a Master of Divinity degree in Spirituality from the Earlham School of Religion, and a Certificate in the Art of Contemplative Listening from the Namasté Center.  In 2002-03, she served as the Minnie Jane Quaker Artist in Residence at the Pendle Hill Quaker Contemplative and Study Center.  She's a member of the Elysium Artists' Circle and Spiritual Directors International.  

Melanie engages wide audiences with experiences of art and spiritual reflection. She joyfully lives and creates in Portland, Oregon.