Born in North Carolina, Melvin Way was raised in Brooklyn by a relative and developed a passion for science in high school. As an adult, he experienced mental health issues that forced him to interrupt studies at the Technical Career Institute in New York. This led to progressive marginalization linked to drug problems. Soon, Way became homeless on Ward’s Island, in the East River. From 1980 onward, he attended Hospital Audiences, Inc. (HAI) in New York, where he began drawing. There he met artist Andrew Castrucci, who mentored him and encouraged his work. Way’s small-scale notes, kept folded in his pocket or hidden in books, consisted of tiny pieces of paper densely covered with mathematical or chemical formulas written in ballpoint pen, along with symbols, and partially covered with tape.
Way associated past events with present ones. He stated: “I have been amnesiac for thirty-five, forty years. Now I am another person. The same, self-identical. […] I don’t draw, I do repair science, medical science. […] I bought Puerto Rico, my palace was in Texas, I was in the Himalayas, my bedroom was at the Guggenheim.” He claimed to have been President of the United States multiple times and to have played in famous funk bands. His productions, about five hundred in number, required many hours of work, sometimes spread over years. Way often insisted that HAI advise collectors not to attempt to replicate the formulas in his work, as they were, he said, “powerful and too dangerous.”
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