It takes courage to grow up
and become who you really are.
ee cummings
Mel Brown is a self-taught painter, entrepreneur and a possible occasional mystic descended from a family of Eastern European rabbis that originally came from Spain. He grew up in a working class steel town in Northwest Indiana.
In his early years, he worked as a railroad switchman as well as a boiler cleaner at U.S. Steel in Gary, Indiana. He also studied abstract experimental photography at Indiana University under the tutelage of Henry Holmes Smith, one of the most influential fine art photography teachers of the mid-20th century.
Mel went on to study medicine at both Indiana University Medical School and the University of Palermo in Italy before setting out on a decade long journey of travel and discovery. During that period he lived with Native Americans on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico, fished with local fisherman in Sicily, tended apple orchards on an Israeli kibbutz, was a pathologist’s assistant in the San Francisco Bay Area, taught sociology at Indiana University and was an aspiring cartoonist in New York City.
After his years of travel, he founded what is today a multi-million dollar children’s product company, Crocodile Creek, that now has a presence in more than 50 countries around the world. He continues to serve as Creative Director of Crocodile Creek as well as Co-CEO along with his brother. Throughout the years he has collaborated with hundreds of illustrators and designers including Maurice Sendak, Eric Carle, Mark Brown and William Steig creating thoughtfully designed products for children. Hiscontinued travels during these years have taken him to China, Italy, Israel, Germany, England, Denmark. Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Morocco and numerous other countries where he has been a student and keen observer of many different cultures and religions.
For many years he has also been a dedicated teacher of Jewish mystical texts. In addition to leading intimate study groups in a line-by-line parsing of the Torah, he co-leads a post-denominational Jewish spiritual community in the Boston area.
Mel is engaged in creating non-representational art that is unique and evocative, drawing on his own wide ranging experiences, his sense of mystery and his ongoing engagement with ancient Jewish texts.
For the past 20 years, he has been living with his family in the Boston area.