Father-son connection: Melega shares passion for art
Artist Frank R. Melega poses next to a painting of Pittsburgh’s Polish Hill in his Rices Landing home.
This is Frank R. Melega’s depiction of a scene from a trip to the East Coast.
RICES LANDING – When Frank R. Melega was growing up, a career in art was not what he had in mind. Melega had an adventurous spirit and wanted to “see the world.”
“Since my dad worked for the railroad, he got to ride the train to all of these different cities. I thought that was great, and it paid good money,” Melega said. “When he quit, I asked him why he’d give up a good job to go into art. He said, ‘Because, that’s what I wanted to do.'”
As it turned out, the late Frank L. Melega would become renowned as an artist who depicted the people, patch towns and coal mines of the industrial age. Frank R., who is now a retired art teacher, along with his friends, would open a museum dedicated to his father’s work in Brownsville. Choosing to remain behind the scenes in a sense, few know of the son’s own artwork.
The road to teaching art started when Melega was a young boy working alongside his father doing commercial art. While Frank L. was creating his masterpieces, the commercial work paid the bills.
“I’d tell my dad, ‘I want to be done early so I can go play ball,’ but he made his own schedule and he would start later in the day. A lot of the time, we’d be out there at 9 or 10 at night working by the headlights,” Melega said.
Frank L. built up a lucrative business doing advertising murals for Hagen Ice Cream, Braun’s Town Talk bread and big car companies. His son learned lettering and the importance of a steady hand while his father created the faces and scenes. Frank L. was a workhorse, doing in two days what a team of five or six men would take a week to do, according to his son.
Melega said he thought, “There is no way I want to do that stuff, working 12 to 14 hours a day. Nope, that’s not for me.”
Despite his protests, he learned a lot from dear old dad. Frank L. had used his time on the railroad to visit museums and art galleries learning firsthand from the masters.
At 16, Melega got his driver’s license and picked up a job working for a local contractor.
“I could paint as good as any of those guys in the painters union. I had good basic training.” Melega said. When they tested him, he knew all of the right answers. “So, I got into the union and worked at the contractor for almost a year. I made a lot of money in those days for a kid.”
But in a few months the company went bankrupt.
“I thought, ‘I don’t need them.’ At 17 I opened my own business, painting houses. I knew what I was doing. I could do the work. I would bid jobs and they would think they were hiring my dad,” Melega said, chuckling. “My dad never painted one house in his life.”
A year later, Melega went to work at an Ohio factory with his uncles.
“After about a week, there I was going nuts. I said, ‘I can’t stand this, doing the same thing over and over.’ The money was great. But I wanted to see the world,” he said. “A couple of buddies I went to high school with joined the service. I went into the Air Force. I wanted to be a pilot to see the world.”
Without a college education, Melega’s sergeant said, ‘You are never going to be a pilot.’
Melega instead became a crash rescue firefighter.
Art was never far from him. Melega even attended some art classes while he was in the military, learning perspective from a civilian teacher. After a short-lived move to New York, he decided to go to college.
“I enjoyed it (the civilian taught classes) and it got me back into the grove so it (art) was never out of my mind completely,” he said. He would graduate from Indiana University of Pennsylvania on the G.I. Bill with an art degree and a wife, Lenora, who he will celebrate 50 years of marriage this year. They had three children, Mark, Jill (Freeman) and Kerry (Kleinhans).
“Music and art, it was in the blood. My brother, Jerry, played with Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey and the Rat Pack for a while. Mom played piano. Dad played piano, banjo and accordion,” said Melega, who is also an accomplished musician.
Melega’s parents would encourage him toward teaching. When he was set to go to work at a school in Sparta, N.J., Jersey he received a phone call.
“I was working a part-time painting job in Brownsville. There were no cell phones back then and my parents called and said, ‘Get over to Jefferson-Morgan High School for an interview. The art teacher there quit.'” His parents were friends with then-principal, Ben Parker.
“I told him I didn’t have any of my credentials to show him and he said, ‘We know all about you,'” Melega said.
He threw out a high salary request thinking they’d pass. It backfired.
“They said, ‘You’re hired.’ I thought, “I’m supposed to be in New Jersey in a week.’ ” Instead, he remained at J-M for 32 years. When he retired it was one of his own students, Mike Lesko, who took over and still teaches there.
“I can’t thank Frank enough. He was on his way out. I said, ‘Frank, I’m a couple points short,’ and he told me he’d give me the extra time to get it done,” Lesko said. “He is part of the reason I went into art. He always thought outside of the box. One of his favorite phrases was, ‘Put some roller skates on that duck.’ He got you away from two plus two is four and got you thinking abstractly.”
Looking at the artwork on the walls of Melega’s home one might think of his late father. The color and line are that of a true artist. It is Melega’s own. Dozens more take up a corner space in the family’s basement. There isn’t room to hang it all but Melega continues to create more. His table with brushes and paint is feet away. He paints, makes music and lectures on his father’s work at Penn State Fayette.
He reflects on his success stories. The work of former student, Tiffany Barnes Watson, hung at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., and in the home of the late State Rep. K. Leroy Irvis.
Like her mentor, Watson, who has two young children, has done mural work and continues to create. Melega will be pleased to know it.
“He pushed us. He’d put something in front of me and say, do this and I’d just do it. I still think of him often,” she said. “I wanted to go to art school but my parents were against it.” She became a nurse.
Always the teacher, Melega said, “Art is to be enjoyed. If you have a talent, use it. Don’t waste it. It helps you and it helps other people to share it.”