The Imaginal Institute

 

 

 

 

Jackie Melander
Founding Fellow

 

While I have been slow in providing biographical information as a Founding Fellow, I have not felt a great urgency since there was something of an earlier introduction provided by Leigh:

In an effort to tire her out, Leigh's mother enrolled her in a creative modern dance class at the age of three. It didn't work . . . .

I am the mother who tried to tire Leigh out.  Fortunately I was not successful, but I must admit to having acquired a certain fatigue myself in the process. But now, several years later and more or less rested, I am ready to offer a bit more detail about what I have been up to over the years.

In the mythical context of the Imaginal Institute, I probably would want to align myself most closely with Clio, Muse of History. In addition to approaching an ever-historic age, I have spent the last three decades “doing history.”  This has ranged from restoring historic houses to transcribing early documents; from searching for unique and sometimes rare books and maps to being obsessed with 19th and early 20th century American fine art and folk art; from being intrigued with the progression of settlement patterns to pondering and writing about the evolution of architectural styles, landscape development, and city planning.

State College and Centre County, PA have been our home and territory since leaving Minneapolis ever so long ago.  I became a community joiner and sometimes fomenter in organizations especially involved in local history and local government -- presiding for more than twenty years over the county historical society, and serving on municipal planning, design review, and historic preservation commissions.  A special privilege during the last six years has been membership on the board of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.  

Many of the pieces and parts of what I have been up to over the years have combined into an intense interest in what can be called a community’s sense of place.  Some places reveal a sense of place; some do not.  What does the architecture or the surrounding landscape tell about a place?  How have those components been retained; how have they been lost?  This interest causes me to want to continue to better know and understand where I live.  And it is what prompts a need to explore other locations, near and not so near, in search of other places with that sense of place. What are the ways in which that spirit of place has been retained and revealed?  

In addition to those kinds of revelations, I should reveal that I have two other tireless daughters, besides Leigh, both Institute Founding Fellows, and am related to another Founding Fellow family member, the father figure who, according to his accompanying bio, seems to think that he is Archibald Leach or Cary Grant.   And then there are the three young granddaughters whose energy level makes Leigh’s seem miniscule in comparison.  Perhaps I need to enroll them in some creative modern dance classes.  

Centre County Historical Society website