My City January 2023

“I’m sticking with collage for now – although, I was thinking about going back to the beginning and working with watercolors and pen & ink. Take it back to my first show, so to speak.”

Flint was bustling and his family was part of the reason why.They owned and operated the iconic Vogue Fashion Store on Saginaw St. and young Michael couldn’t wait to contribute. “After I graduated high school in 1958, I was accepted to the University of Michigan,” he recalls. “I wanted to start working immediately but my father believed that everyone should have a college education and I couldn’t convince him otherwise.” However, after a stint working in New York’s garment district and his sophomore year at college, Melet was allowed to join his father and official ly embrace Flint. He was given the reins of the business in 1972 and took it as far as he could, while at the same time serving on boards including Flint Institute of Arts and Buckham

Gallery. It was while serving on the board for Buckham when a casual glance over his shoulder shed light on a talent that had been kept behind closed doors. Melet had been a private artist nearly his entire life. He worked at and appreciated art in secret, col lecting art literature (he and his wife boast a library of over 3,000 art pub lications), fashion and art magazine clippings, and hundreds and hundreds of personal drawings. “I doodled and sketched all the time,” he says, “and I keep all of my sketches. I have files and files of them.” (One of his shows included a 4ft. by 4ft. cre ation called “Waiting For” where he displayed a good portion of the sketches.) As he was sketching during a Buckham board meeting, another

MELET’S PORTFOLIO INCLUDES SCULPTURE, GLASS, ACRYLICS, MIXED MEDIA AND COLLAGE.

attendee noticed and appreciated his picture. Buckham Gallery co-found er Sam Morello got wind of it and inquired. “I had more sketches and

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