January Issue 2002
M. Mellany Delhom: A Living Treasure
Ceramics Collection Puts Mint Museum On The Map
by Leigh Pressley
Reprinted with permission from Today's Charlotte Woman
magazine from an article in 1997.
M.
Mellanay Delhom sits behind a wooden desk that is tucked inconspicuously
into a corner of a large office at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte,
NC. Absorbed in paperwork, her gray head is barely over the top
of the desk.
It's difficult to imagine this diminutive woman is an independent spirit who has spent her life in search of knowledge, adventure, and the art that has been her inspiration for living. Yet her life reads like a best-seller: She has crawled through dark caves in France to see firsthand the primal art of our ancestors; she has participated in archeological digs in search of ancient artifacts; and she has led camel expeditions, for both research and pleasure, across the silk trade routes of the Middle East. Delhom has been an honored guest at the private villa of Mao Tse Tung.
In addition, she has climbed Pike's Peak, run the world-famous Shangri-La restaurant in Chicago, and prepared an article and ceramics collection for Time magazine.
In times when women were bound to the home, Delhom was bound on making a name for herself. Today Delhom is an internationally recognized ceramics expert whose extensive collection of over 2,000 pieces, spanning 1,000 years of history, and representing nine different cultures, is housed at the Mint Museum of Art. In the process of bringing her collection to Charlotte, Delhom put both the Mint Museum and Charlotte on the cultural map of the world.
"When the Delhom Gallery opened in 1967, it literally put this museum on the map," says the Mint's public relations director Phil Busher. "Ceramics people around the world were saying, 'The Mint who? The Charlotte where?' Her collection got the ball rolling and brought the Mint to where it is today."
"There is no other gallery in the world where you can come in and see the ceramics and porcelain of nine different cultures on display," Delhom says of what she considers her greatest achievement. "Most museums have collections like this in storage," she says. "I may not be ten feet tall, but I feel good about what I've achieved here."
Something Special
Born Feb. 8, 1908, Delhom grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. When her father died when she was a toddler, Delhom's maternal grandfather became "her champion." Her mother who later remarried, encouraged her oldest daughter to achieve what she dreamed.
"I would always ask her if I had curly hair or it I were prettier, would she love me more?" Delhom says of her mother. "But she would always tell me that I was just something special. So I felt like I had to do something special so I wouldn't disappoint her."
A curious and adventurous child, Delhom's interest in art grew out of her love for learning. At the age of 12, she wondered about the meaning of life and found answers in library books on philosophies of the Far East. Paying particular attention to detail, Delhom noticed how artists used colors, shapes and designs to express Oriental religions and philosophies through their art.
While continuing her studies, Delhom soon began buying art herself. At 17, she made her first purchase -- two wooden carvings of Shou Hsing CQ, the Chinese god of long life and happiness -- who holds a peach and a staff.
"It was a good choice," she says chuckling. "I've had both long life and happiness."
Piece by piece, Delhom continued to collect and soon branched out to ceramics. "I began seeing pieces that looked like the Chinese or Japanese pieces, but that I knew well enough to know that they weren't," she says. "It turned out that the Germans, Italians, French, Spanish and others were imitating the Oriental designs. I had to learn to see the differences."
But at the urging of her mother, Delhom also learned other skills. As a teenager, Delhom spent summers studying in a nearby business school in order to prepare for her future.
"My mother said that if I couldn't be the president, I could be the president's secretary," she says. "So I spent my summer vacations studying business."
Delhom also studied ballet, tap and acrobatics as a child, and at 19, left Texas to study dance in Denver. Noting that age is just a number, Delhom says she still loves dance. "There's a big story they tell about me around here," she says. "The Mint had a banquet at Charlotte Country Club when I was in my sixties. At one point in the evening all the speakers got up and did a little talent. We had people whistling and singing. When it was my turn, I did a split."
Longtime friend Ginnie Story was on hand. "I have never been so amazed in all my life," she says. "Here we were all in long dresses and all of a sudden, Miss Delhom's doing a split. It was so graceful, a perfect dancer's split. She's a real character."
Delhom operated a dance studio while in her 20s, but moved to Chicago at age 30 to try her hand at advertising. She also took advantage of educational opportunities, studying at The Art Institute of Chicago and nearby universities, all the while purchasing ceramics with the money she earned from her job at an agency that specialized in billboard advertising.
"If there was a big sale going on in New York, we'd dash up there and see what pieces we could find," Delhom says. "I was self-taught, but I learned a lot from friends and art dealers, too."
At one point, Delhom tried her hand at real estate, developing a grand old Chicago home into condominiums but it turned out, Mom knew best. Delhom's knowledge of accounting landed her a job at the world famous Shangri-La restaurant, where everyone from mayor to the mob dined.
"There was no other place like it," Delhom says of the restaurant. "It had an open atrium two stories tall with palm trees and an Oriental garden growing in it. On one side, a grand staircase went up to private booths. I ran the office at the restaurant, kept the books and did all the buying. It's where I got most of the money to buy ceramics."
Student Becomes Teacher
Delhom traveled to London where she added more pieces to her ceramics collection and met dealers who began to represent her interests at auctions. While in Chicago, she joined the Oriental Society, the English Society, the Wedgewood Society and the American Ceramic Society. Soon, she found herself giving lectures instead of listening to them.
It was in the mid '60s that art museums around the world began courting Delhom and her ceramics collection. In luring Delhom to town amid much heavier players, the Mint made space not only for the collection in the gallery named after her, but for Delhom herself. By then, Delhom was a respected lecturer, conference organizer and tour leader.
"She's an amazing figure," says Busher. "She has a worldwide network of people who share her interest in ceramics. Curators in prestigious museums all over the world come to hear her speak. It's remarkable that she's here."
World Traveler
"Three years ago Delhom's research took her to Turkey
where she traveled by camel."
Delhom has literally traveled across continents to study and buy pieces for her ceramics collection that has doubled since finding a home at the Mint. She has visited China seven times, and has also been to Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Her last big trip, just three years ago was to Turkey, where Delhom's age did not deter her from hopping on the back of a camel.
"She's a very alive person," says Sarah Belk Gambrell, a friend and collector who donated funds to house the Mint's Delhom-Gambrell Library for the study of historical pottery, porcelain and decorative arts. "She's delightful because she constantly challenges you to learn more and study more. She's always ahead of her time."
Delhom's friend, Story, says Delhom has many sides. "She's a lot of different people, she's a lot of fun, but she's also a serious task master if she knows you are trying to learn about ceramics. There's always something new to learn from her and she inspires us all."
Even friends in Chicago stay in close touch with Delhom. International fashion designer Lawrence Pucci recently flew Delhom to Manhattan for a birthday dinner at Tavern on the Green. When she turned 85, The Art Institute of Chicago held a birthday lunch in Delhom's honor.
But Delhom is neither touched by her celebrity, nor is she ready to retire.
"I could never find life dull," she says. "It isn't. It's people that are dull. The ones that don't use their minds."
Although Delhom stepped down as curator of the collection several years ago, she continues to work at the Mint five days a week as a historical pottery consultant. A vegetarian who stays away from smoking and heavy drinking, Delhom also continues to develop new interest even as her ninth decade approaches. Among her new favorites? Watching the Charlotte Hornets and Carolina Panthers play.
"You have to keep your brain going or you'll pass out," she says. "We don't work our brains as much as we need to do it. I just try to keep a balance in life. My problem is that there aren't enough hours in the day to do it all."
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
Subscriptions are available for $18 a year.
Carolina Arts
is published monthly by Shoestring
Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2002 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2002 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.