ART!  What inspires my art?  What gets the juices flowing?  EVERYTHING!

It is 10a.m. the last Friday morning of January.  I have only been awake for two hours.  I slept in.  I celebrate January as my birthday MONTH!  The combo of new year and another year older really gets me jazzed.  It is hard to paint during the holidays (and with company) so January is an explosion of creativity.  Here are some of this morning’s inspirations screaming for me to pick up my paint brushes:

·         bright ¾ moon at 4 this morning
·         coral sunrise through the condensation on my windowpane.
(Note to self: consider looking out my window less when I am supposedly sleeping.)
·         momma cardinal on my window sill
·         tiny  bird with yellow belly
·         sunshine and books
·         Morning prayers
·         cell biology
·         paint splotches on the top of my drafting table
·         Himalayan Splendor loose leaf tea

·         amaryllis blossom in the whiskey jigger
·         dried orchid blossoms
·         treehouse squeaking with the wind
·         Trader Joe’s vanilla wafers

It might be easier to ask what DOESN’T inspire!   Email.  Email doesn’t inspire nor does that show application, due on the 5th of February.   Schedules.  Schedules and I are currently holding negotiations.  We are looking for a win/win option.

What inspires art?   It is the universal artist question.   Artists hear it so often we sometimes forget that it is a valid, sincere question.

Focusing on non-objective work enables me to better understand the question.   I used laugh at the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art.  I did not get it.   Yves Kline was the biggest mystery for me; the dude patented a color!  Seriously?  I attended a few lectures and BOOM! Yves and I are best buds.  Soul mates!  I GET IT!    (http://themodern.org/podcasts)

Learning the inspiration, the concept, and the story behind the work or even behind the artist has made more and more art accessible to me through the years.   (The little yellow bellied bird is back!) 

I am currently going back through my website and attempting to verbalize the inspiration, emotions, circumstance behind the works.   I want you to GET IT.

My fear is that by verbalizing MY stories I won’t leave room for YOUR stories.  

This doesn’t happen when we stand side by side looking at a painting.  When we stand side by side stories flow in both directions.   My concern is that when you are looking at work online, if you read the story of the painting it will inhibit connecting YOUR story to the painting.

Fifteen years ago I was painting live as part of various worship teams.   It was collaborative.   People attached their stories to the painting as it developed and were anxious to share their interpretations with me as soon as the gatherings were over.  (Every once in a while someone would come up on the stage and tell me right then and there!  Not cool!  Once I asked the sharer to go share with the pianist and we could share afterwards.  OOPS!)

Studio painting has its benefits, I can spend 40 hours on a painting now rather than 45 minutes, but I do miss the sharing.  I miss hearing what the viewer felt and what the viewer sees in the works.  I miss the back and forth.

IDEALLY, we should be able to have a back and forth via the internet and social media.   I post a lot of work in process images on Instagram and I get some feedback there.  I would love to hear from you on my Instagram account .   My Facebook page is very similar to my Instagram account but with more finished work and blog links and some sharing of articles and artists I find interesting.  It is easy to post on the Facebook page and have a conversation about a work of art.

I would love to hear from you.  Your comments don’t have to be all roses and sunshine.

So, what inspires my art?   Life.  As cliché as that sounds, it is the truth.  I paint my life and in doing so I sincerely hope I am also painting your life.  I paint my hope that God holds entirety together and that the end product will be beautiful.  I paint beautiful, not necessarily pretty, paintings that hold out hope that our stories will have happy endings.  Happy endings even if we can not see that possibility now.

I am 55.  It seems significant to me.  Twenty-six days into 55 I am carrying a myriad of emotions.  I am very happy.  I am also very hurt.   I am confident.  I am afraid.   I am strong.  I ache.  I am 55.  I have at least 75 more years’ worth of art projects still bottled up inside of me.

Fifty was significant to me.  Half way through my 50th year my niece, the firstborn of her generation, was killed.   I went into a mourning for my niece, for my sister, and for myself.   I was mourning for all that was lost and all that would never be and it was very nearly crippling.  I could not taste food for five months.  Disconnected from my body, life was surreal.  My celebration year turned quickly into a year of self-evaluation and much of it was not kind.  My acupuncturist (thank you Barbara) brought me back into myself.   She reconnected my emotional and physical self.  The sense of taste returned and I looked out from inside of myself rather than looking at myself.   And I was only the Auntie.   My heart is raw tender for those who have lost children.   It turned not only my heart but my art.

2016.  It is five years later.  Looking back I can see a lot of work, a lot of growth, a lot of hiding.   This year, twenty-six days into my 55th year, I am coming out of hiding.

How?  I am journaling (HALLELUJAH!  Journaling is like breathing for me and I quit after Lauren died.  I also quit polishing my toe nails.  Maybe I’ll give that a go, too!)  I am POSTING the blogs rather than just writing them!  I am connecting with old friends and making new friends.  I am even CONSIDERING leaving the house to attend art openings again where I might actually have to interact with other human beings.

It has occurred to me that invisibility might not be the best business strategy. 

As I stick my neck out of my shell (I won a turtle award a quarter of a century ago for being a slow starter, I prefer late bloomer) take a chance and stick your neck out with me.

PLEASE share YOUR THOUGHTS and YOUR STORIES.  One story inspires another.  It is how we connect at a human level.   We begin to see ourselves in each other.  Not separate tribes, but a global village.   Pour a cup of tea, fix a pretty plate of ginger thins (Girl Scout Cookies will work, too) and let’s share together.    I want to hear your story.   Invite your friends to join us.   I am hopeful that as I navigate the waters of show venues we will have the opportunity to visit and share in person.    My fingers are crossed (which makes typing really hard!)   I hope to see you soon and I hope you bring friends.  I’ll bring the art and the cookies!

Peace out!  Gwen

This post needs a soundtrack. I could hear the Beatles while I was writing this.  Here is a nice link so you can hear it, too.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsxtImDVMig

Love, Love, Love…
All you need is love……

Unconditional love.

SOUNDS GOOD.
Application?
SO HARD!

Sometimes love is not enough.
Sometimes nothing is enough.
Sometimes nothing is the most loving thing you can do.

I was born a fixer.
First born.
Fixer.

I know I can’t fix everything.
I KNOW it.
I don’t believe it.
There is shame when I can’t fix the proverbial IT.

Last night I gained some clarity.
Appropriated some wisdom.
I ALMOST believe that IT was not my fault,
At least not in whole.
I ALMOST believe that I can let IT go.
I ALMOST believe I can move on,
Free and freeing.

I did the best that I could in that moment.
THEY did the best they could in that moment.
I ALMOST believe that.

Nothing can be changed.
I can offer forgiveness.
If forgiveness is not returned,
I can forgive myself.

I am free.
Most days.
Most of the time.

Free.
Free to love
with no expectation of reciprocation.
Free.

Happy New Year!   As mundane an expression as that is, it is most often delivered with sincerity.  Friend or foe, I sincerely wish you a happy 2016.

Yes, I know that January is trending towards February and the stores are already pulling out Valentine decorations, but it is STILL January.  A new year.  A new beginning.  A fresh start.  The world collectively contemplates what has come transpired and what might be.   We look back and we look forward.

  The New Year is a good thing to pause and evaluate life, to make course corrections and embrace possibility, but the New Year is NOT the only time and it is not necessarily the best time.    

Mornings are opportunities for micro-evaluations and course corrections, but mostly mornings belong to routine and auto-drive or no one would make it out of the house.

First of the month.  Bigger than the morning but smaller than the New Year is the first of the month.  Twelve opportunities to pause, evaluate and make course corrections.

Seasons are bigger than months and more fluid.   Some places get four distinct seasons while others just get two or three.   Do you have a favorite season?  Do you, COULD you tie a new beginning to your favorite season?

Birthdays, like New Years, are singular opportunities.   Although they come around annually, they are never the same.  I was 55 on the 3rd.  It feels significant.  A new year, a new age, a new season of life.

Death is a cruel opportunity for course correction.   Mortality is not something most of us consider on a daily basis.  When death of one near or dear interrupts our routines, it is an opportunity to contemplate personal mortality and consider personal legacy.   Politicians do it.  Maybe we should, too.

I could go on and on but (HOORAY!) I won’t.   The moral of this story is that our lives are filled with opportunities to start fresh.   I am not saying that we can nor should avoid the consequences for our choices.  I am saying that there is power and there is mercy and there is grace in new beginnings and we don’t have to wait for a new year. 

Set aside a time and seek out a place to pause, evaluate, and calculate a course corrections.   Pause long enough to discover where we are and to remember where we are going.  Minor course corrections, early, will impact on the trajectory of a life.  Less correction is required the sooner the flaw is discovered.

Museums are a good place for contemplation.   The artwork allows you to see the world, be it landscape, still life, portraiture, or abstraction, through the eyes of another.  Art enables us to see ourselves in and through the work.  Take a journal.  You might be surprised where the art and your heart take you when you visit a museum.

Nature is the number one worldwide place for reconnecting with one’s self and direction.   New research is showing that our brains work differently exposed to nature.  EVEN a potted plant (not a pot plant but maybe that, too) can reduce cortisol (stress hormone.)  Take a pencil and a journal.  Write. Sketch.  Listen.  Hear.  Record.

Cozy places, be they at home or in a favorite coffee spot, make room for contemplation and new beginnings.   Again, the journal.  (3×5 cards work well, too.)

There is a kindness to a fresh start.   We usually think of kindness as something extended to others.  That is important, but what I am speaking of is kindness to oneself.   Allowing ourselves to pause.  Allowing ourselves to look back and to look forward, not with judgement or condemnation, but with love and kindness.  Allowing for and enacting course correction is vital.

I have been painting for over 30 years.   I assumed being a good painter would be enough to earn my living painting.  It is not enough and I am making those course corrections and learning to share my art (and my heart) with those outside my circle.   Thank you for journeying with me.

Gwen

The Holidays are OVER!  YOU MADE IT!
Wait, WHAT? Aren’t the holidays supposed to be magical? 
 Yes.  Yes, except when they are not.
Recently I read:
HAPPINESS = REALITY – EXPECTATIONS

What does that mean?   It means that EXPECTATIONS defeat happiness.
Expectations move us out of the present into the self defeating land of
Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve.   
A steady diet of Disney-esque fairy tales, romance novels, movies, white knights and sunsets has us believing that happy-endings are our due. 

Fairy tales, romantic novels, movies, gleaming armor and sunsets are not bad things.
Expectations, though, can be devastating.
Expectations rob from the present moment.
Expectations keep us from enjoying the here and now
when the here and now is all that we really have. 

As my Grammie Hannan used to say,
“The world doesn’t owe you a living.”
She also told me not stir poo with a stick.

This is not the blog that I expected to post on January 3rd, my 55th birthday.  That blog was light-hearted with clever reminders that holidays are hard for many (most) folks and offer a reminder to give yourself a pat on the back for making it to the other side of the holidays.   If I had posted that blog on January 2nd it would have been fine.  The next day it was not fine. 

Backstory:  All six children (including two spouses) were here for Christmas day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day.  The 2nd I was back to work writing the aforementioned brilliant blog and painting on a new painting.  The next day, my birthday, was a good day.  After supper I dusted off my internet connection and, while trying to remember my password, I allowed Facebook to distract me. 

A photograph in my feed took me back almost 40 years.

The photograph was of a high school classmate, Gloria, at a football game, but something was wrong with the uniform.  The headline didn’t make sense until I realized that it was not Gloria, but her daughter Sara Mutschlechner.  Sara, 20, a UNT (University of North Texas) student, had been shot in the head while driving friends home from a New Year’s Eve party.   Sara was dead.  The descriptions of Sara sounded like they were describing her mom.   The world shifted.   

Sara and her parents Gloria and Clay made it through Christmas, but now Sara, their only child, was dead.   I began weeping.  And not just for Gloria and Clay.  I wept for my sister, and my cousin.  For Pam, Jeff, Dianne, and Melodie.  I wept for the ones I love who have lost a child.

I was contemplating unspeakable loss.
Unimaginable loss that we all imagine.
A loss with no name.  An alienating loss.I claim that my paintings represent stories of hope.  I claim to make paintings reflecting nature and journey.   Paint laid down like seasons.  Past seasons shaping but not defining the present.  The present influencing but not determining the future.   Clear medium stretching the  space between applications of pigment marking the passage of time. 

Some layers are hidden during the process while others remain visible, even if only partially, through completion.   Each choice influences the next.  The impact of the unseen layers ripples through the painting. 

I work with the painting, I fight with the painting, until chaos is resolved and beauty revealed.

It is easy to say art is a metaphor for life.

It is easy to claim art has a power to affect lives. Do you know what is not easy?  Hope.  

Hoping that my claims are true.
Hoping that others can find their stories in my work.
Hoping that, finding themselves,
they will be imbued with hope for their journey and their beautiful end. 

Are my claims valid?
Can hope be represented with pigments on paper?
Is there anything more hopeless than losing a child?  

I watched Clay and Gloria share their hearts on the news, professing gratitude for the 20 years they had with Sara.  They are people of faith.  They are clinging to hope.  I am a person of faith.  I am clinging to hope.   As a community we are clinging to hope because expectations always let us down.  

Maybe the equation is not one of subtraction but of addition.

Maybe HAPPINESS = REALITY + HOPE.

Have you ever worked on a project for five years?   Of course you have.

We didn’t get to where we are, wherever that is, without putting in the years.  So much of what we do is ongoing.  ON GOING can be discouraging.   Like feeding kids and pets.  You feed them and six or seven hours later they want to eat again!   So little of what we do is a done deal.   I try not to think about it.   Oh, you were trying not to think about it and now- ELEPHANT! – you are thinking about it, too.  Sorry.    

So, about ten-ish years ago I received a proposal for an art show with the word “liturgical” in the title and my experience (Southern Baptist and Bapticostal) led me to believe liturgical was a flow-y dance form with lots of wanna-be ballet moves.  I started researching.   A google search was followed by books.  (By the way, the word liturgy is summed up as “the work of the people.”)  

Scot McKnight’s “Praying with the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today” was the first book I read. Before I finished that book, other books were speeding on the way to my house (I tried to buy local, but they were not available so I slipped back into my addiction and ordered off of Amazon.)  Phyllis Tickle’s “The Divine Hours Pocket Edition” quickly followed by her “The Divine Hours” volumes 1 through 3 (Prayers for Summertime:, Springtime, Autumn and Winter)  and  Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours.   

This was all new to me.  As the set prayers and rhythms became more familiar to me they began to remind me of the relationship my heart had with hymns growing up.  We would sing hymns again and again and we never labeled them “rote.”  Why did we call prepared prayers rote?  

I also noticed that having a prayer written out for me was particularly wonderful when life was particularly hard. Instead of praying “oh, God, oh, God, oh, God HELP!” A beautifully constructed prayer keeps the desperation of the moment in perspective.  

Life circumstances become part of the larger picture, not the center of it.  This changed my art, my approach to painting and my approach to life.
This became the SUBJECT of my abstract paintings.

Five years ago enter a new 9 x 12 spiral bound Strathmore Visual Journal and Bobby Gross’ “Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God.” This book did not offer prayers for the hours of each day, but four short prayers to be used during bible study and a collection of verses for the week. This was more akin to the traditions of my childhood.  

The blank art journal needed a subject and the book was right there so I started doodling the verses for the week.  I liked how it turned out (God nursing, plugging into heaven) so I challenged myself to doodle and draw through Advent. A single drawing for each week mashing all the verses together into one image. My goal was to keep up my bible study and prayers and have fun.     

A couple weeks into the project my illustrator daughter walked past and challenged me to do an entire year. WHAT?!  I had not purposefully ever taken on a project that long and intensive. Challenge accepted AND I FINISHED IT! I was thrilled and relieved until Ruth said,  “Make it a book.”   GASP!    Who raised this slave driver! Oh, yeah-me!

The second challenge was harder than the first so here we are in 2015 and, finally, Liturgical Sketches Journal & Coloring Book is available for purchase.
I set up Liturgical Sketches Facebook page where drawings and insights can be shared. 

While I am hoping the book will earn a profit, I do post the week’s drawing each Sunday on the Facebook page along with the verses. Anyone is welcome to print off the drawing and go for it. Some weeks have two drawings. I started again but could not keep up with the new drawings, my painting and getting the book out. Each drawing takes 15 to 20 hours including bible study and research and a tiny nib on the Sharpie Pens. (I don’t like rushing God unless I have to!) 

I had a grand time with this project. I utilized a mixture of traditional and contemporary images, a little snark and more than a couple of puns. Finding the connection between verse and image is akin to finding Waldo. I do hope that it is a fun project for everyone. 

God and I have a decent relationship. I heard a preacher once say, “God is the kindest person I know.” Well, good for you, Graham. My relationship with God includes lots of heavenly eye rolling followed by a divine sigh.  

 Hey!  Not that different from how my kids roll their eyes and groan, “Mommmaaaa!”

 You can find “Liturgical Sketches Journal & Coloring Book” here: http://drawneartogod.com/LiturgicalSketchesBook.asp

 It is a bible study. It is a journal. It is a puzzle. It is a coloring book.  A way to slow down and wait on God and your heart to sync. 

http://drawneartogod.com/LiturgicalSketchesBook.asp

A childhood friend (from my neighborhood and Baptist church) is now a monk and he sent me an article saying coloring has the same benefits as meditation. Cool beans!  

I know this is a departure from the paintings, but like my paintings, my life is layered and I wanted to share. 

I saw a TED talk about polymaths, read an article about polymaths, heard a radio program about polymaths. I Tend towards polymath. Drawing and doodling has always been part of me since my toddler years. Thank you for all your encouragement and support.

Happy Coloring!

Too good to be true?
NO, and it is yours to discover!
What is this heart healthy, zero calorie find?
What indeed?  The answer:  beauty.   

Beauty comes in a myriad of expressions.  A couple ignoring their electronics and looking into each other’s eyes at a table in the mall food court.  Baby toes.  The memory of a shared secret.  A cool breeze after a long hot summer.   A warm breeze after an icy winter.  A blue feather on a gray sidewalk. Pink pebbles.  Books.  A well worn journal.  Grammies.  

The sky is not the limit but the beginning. 

Freely and often we label people, places and things beautiful.   Still, too often, we fail to recognize beauty.  We confuse pretty and beauty.   Pretty is wonderful in and of itself, but pretty can quickly slide into shallow.  

Pretty requires Photoshop and airbrushes. Beauty glories in imperfection.   Pretty is fleeting.   Beauty endures.   Pretty is skin deep.  Beauty comes from a deep core. 

Both inspire tears.

I aspire to create beautiful paintings.  The process tends towards intimidating because the blank paper itself is quite beautiful.   My mark disrupts the perfection of the pristine paper, the well stretched canvas, the birch panel.  It is uphill from the first mark. 

I changed my diet. No more processed, sugar-coated lies about the frivolity of beauty.   

Beauty is not extraneous.
Beauty is not dessert.
Beauty is the main course.
Beauty feeds the soul.    

Watch for your pink pebble.
Smile at the couple in the food-court.  

Sit with a painting.  Be well fed. 

Next time I will share some of my process and some of my painting vocabulary.  Thank you for sharing your time with me.  

I have two horses.  My horse and my horse’s brother.  We love our stables (Will’s Ranch on Hwy 377 in Benbrook, Texas) and we love our stable director, Cherie.   Over the past three years our families, mine and Cherie’s, have intertwined and we have come to care for each other and we do what we can to be mutually supportive.  Cherie has ceaselessly encouraged me to get my art out into the world.   I have a tendency (HA!) to be more passionate about making art than pushing it out the door.  All artists need Cheries in their lives.

This week I chose to shovel horse pooh.  Our lead worker is leaving to care for a family emergency.   My help this week freed him to finish up specialty jobs before leaving.  (Confession:  I don’t think I would have jumped in if the temperatures were still at Texas summer heights, but Fall is in the air and the breeze is beginning to cool.)

Shoveling horse pooh might sound awful job, but yesterday it was freedom!  My mind took the morning off and my body was the boss.  (Is this why runners run?  I ran once.  Shoveling is better!)  I was so busy trying to keep that stray ball of pooh from falling through the space in my rake with the missing tine that my mind completely forgot to stress over social media, likes, hashtags, or followers.  FREEDOM!

When I paint or write my head takes over and I forget I have a body.   Inside my head, when I am in the zone, hours pass without any awareness of time.  When nature’s call gets too loud to ignore and I am forced to stop painting, I am shocked that my body refuses to comply.  My joints get stiff when my head forgets we are a team.

Presence is a hot topic these days.   Cleaning the horse runs and stalls forced my mind to acknowledge my body and let it lead.  The dance reversed.  I remembered that I am physically strong.  I can’t handle the wheel barrow, but I have wicked rake skills: ambidextrous raking!  The young folks work with headphones.  For me, it was a relief to think about nothing but the task in front of me.  I was present in body and mind.

I had forgotten why I am an artist.   Caught up learning the business side of being a professional artist, I forgot I was an artist.   (My business skills are- um – lackluster.)  Yesterday I remembered that I am and always have been an artist.  I noticed that pooh comes in a wide array of colors.   (Storm’s dropping were the most glorious green.)  Rocks, dirt, feathers, a raccoon skull, shavings, a sprig of grass defying the odds by growing in a dark corner, the blue sky with glorious clouds, the fat chickens, the peacocks and Lobo, the tabby cat, with his yellow belly and paws recharged my observation batteries.  I rediscovered beauty.  For four hours I was immersed in beauty: sans electronic screens.

At home I showered, ate almonds and an apple, slathered aloe vera on my sun kissed arms, took two naproxen and a nap.  Refreshed, and very aware of my forearms, I finished and photographed ten small paintings and started four new ones.   When I did check my computer I realized I had missed two online webinars.  OOPS!  But the important stuff happened.

Is there a moral to the story?  Why yes, yes there is.  All work and no play makes Gwen a dull, creaky, crabby artist.

This week I re-discovered truths I had forgotten.  The body and mind make a great team.  Presence is best served when they work together.  Balance is a requirement not an option.  If you are like me and balance has left the building, stop now and reintroduce your mind to your body.   It works both ways.   Physically demanding jobs (moms with young children, I am talking to you) require you to spend a little time inside your head.  Reading or journaling versus television, computer or radio.  Find your old flute and play your high school fight song.   If you have a head oriented job channel your mom and, “go outside!”  Take a walk.  (Shovel pooh.)  Plant something.  Play with your pet.  Go to the animal shelter and volunteer to love on the critters.

Five years ago, before the horses, I could barely manage stairs because of the pain in my back and knees.  The horses saved my life and transformed my art.  They forced me out of my head and into my body.   www.GwenMeharg.com is a result of that mind/body connection.  I forgot the lessons I learned five years ago when I committed to learn and do the business side of art (master social media) earlier this year.  This week I remembered.

The little paintings are for a project, but if you would like one just let me know.   I am nothing if not prolific and I have three weeks before the deadline.   The original large small paintings (5×5 ish, 5×7 ish) are $75 and the small small paintings (2.5×2.5 ish) are $25.  The ones in this newsletter are free as e-cards and available as prints.  It is easiest to see them on my Instagram account.  I creatively named my account GwenMeharg.  https://instagram.com/gwenmeharg/

Thanks for hanging with me and enduring the mommy lecture.  Surely all of you lead lives with a healthy body/mind balance, but just in case you don’t…see lecture above.