About Mel Garvin

Co-founder

My name’s Mel. I’m an artist, designer, and co-founder of Plinths.

I grew up in upstate New York, I eventually moved down to Brooklyn to study communications design at Pratt Institute. While I was there, I solidified my love of watercolor, but I also explored just about everything I could get my hands on—metalwork, pottery, printmaking, you name it. Creating has always been my way of weaving beauty into the everyday.

After school, I worked for Takashi Murakami at his studio in Long Island City. Alongside a team of fascinating and incredible artists, I helped translate digital files into finished works, from massive prints to intricate details. I traveled to Japan to help his Tokyo studio complete work on tight deadlines, and poured years of my life and sweat into perfecting his pieces. It was an incredible experience that taught me the power of collaboration and the importance of precision, down to the smallest detail.

Later, I moved into the world of printing and e-commerce, where I learned the ins and outs of marketing, web development, and sales. After ten years in Brooklyn, I packed up and moved to rural Colorado, where my partner and I built a homestead with our many animals. Out here, I continued working with artists, building websites and tech systems to help them create sustainable ways to share and sell their work.

For me, Plinths is about more than tools. It’s about creating a foundation—a plinth—for artists to stand on, grow from, and thrive together. After years of working alongside artists in studios, online, and across continents, I’ve seen how much impact the right support can have. Plinths is our way of giving artists that support, helping them focus on their work, share it with a world where it’s needed more than ever, and build the creative lives they want.