In this week's episode, you'll meet a visual artist who has found a way to make her career both portable and local, by diversifying her work and learning how to move beyond art as a hobby or self-sacrifice and into a real business. She'll also talk about how local influences have changed her craft at each post and how her foreign service life has provided unique opportunities that a creative life domestically could not have.


Over the last 10 years Melissa Finkenbiner has had nearly 20 art exhibitions, including the Zimbabwe National Gallery and 8 solo exhibitions. Her art is in private and permanent collections in 11 countries including the private collections of two ambassadors. The U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies purchased three pieces of art for U.S. Embassy Harare. Melissa hand fabricated and sold 500 pieces of jewelry including bespoke jewelry pieces for a bride’s wedding party and for an ambassador’s wife. In the last year she expanded into surface pattern for lifestyle products. She creates for those who appreciate eco-conscious works of art and those who seek a connection to global cultures and landscapes. Her husband joined the State Department in 2011. They moved from Myanmar to Armenia, Zimbabwe, and now Japan. Her art has been a way of exploring and connecting with these places.

See Melissa's work at:

Website and online shop: https://www.melissafinkenbiner.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissafinkenbiner/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelissaFinkenbinerArt