If you’d told Melina Johnstone back in Year 12 that she’d end up teaching in the same art room she used to escape to at every opportunity, she probably would’ve laughed. Not because it sounded impossible, just because, back then, she was more focused on making it through the week than mapping out a career.
Melina left DESS College in 2015 with a sketchbook full of ambition and a plan to study Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University. There, she met Alexandra – amazingly one of the other Cypriot girls on campus, and who, in an unexpected twist of fate, turned out to be on the very same course. They became best friends, and years later, Melina stood as Alexandra’s Maid of Honour.
During her final year, Melina returned to DESS College for a three-week shadowing opportunity that quickly turned into something more meaningful. “Those few weeks really confirmed it for me,” she says. “I realised I didn’t just want to make art, I wanted to teach it.”
As the final Enrichment stage of her PGCE course, Melina seized an opportunity to return to her former school in Cyprus to teach part-time. When a full-time opportunity came up, she was ready to stay. But then a message landed from a friend in Dubai: a teaching position had opened at DESS College.
She hesitated. She didn’t want to let anyone down. But when she shared the dilemma with her Principal in Cyprus, she got nothing but encouragement. “She told me to go. She said it was where I belonged.”
And so, in 2019, Melina came back, this time as a teacher.
Her love of art started early. Raised in Cyprus, she moved to Dubai at 15; an age when leaving childhood friendships behind can be hard. Her dad, a pilot and passionate painter, had introduced her to oils at the age of five. “We used to paint together outside,” she says. “Never inside - too risky!”
At DESS College, art was her sanctuary. “I wasn’t especially academic, but I always found my place in the art room. That’s where I felt most myself.”
Today, Melina passes on that sense of belonging to her students. “Art is as much about patience as it is about talent. You’ve got to want to be good at it. The desire comes first, and the rest quickly follows.”
She lives in Dubai with her husband Rory and says that while her route into teaching wasn’t a straight line, it was the right one.
“Coming back to teach where it all started isn’t something I’ve ever taken for granted. It’s a reminder that your path doesn’t have to be perfect. Just true.”