Finding Trouble – Gwen Meharg: Artist Blog

March 27, 2018March 23, 2018

Missing Denial

Dear Ones, Have you noticed how sometimes life is funny? Sometimes it is not. And sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. When I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, I just do both. There has been a lot of both as Winter gives way to Spring. Spring tends transition for me. The North Texas winds always stir up something that is best not stepped in.

So, I was remembering when Jubilee was little. When she was little EVERYTHING was family.

“Oh, a family of trees.”“Look a family of clouds.” “Yummy, a family of broccoli!” “Awe, cute, a family of rocks.” You name it, if there was more than one, it translated into family. This ability to transmogrify just about anything was likely the result of being the adored youngest of six siblings. 24/7 there was someone waiting in line to hold Jubilee and we did not set her down for six weeks after her arrival. Thus, she saw the world as family.

Humans love to personify everything. We give animals, particularly those closest to us: dogs and cats, personalities. While they DO have personalities, sometimes the motives we assign to their actions and expressions push reason

Does that cat truly hate me or is that just resting cat face?

Inanimate objects garner personhood. MY PHONE HATES ME! My car has it out for me. Heck, there are those in our government who deem corporations people, too!

Denial has been a HUGE part of my life.And you know what?I miss denial.I am not certain if I miss denial as a person or a place.Either way, I miss her.
OH! A person.

Lately, I have been considering, reconsidering, and restructuring my relationship with denial. Denial was a safe place to visit, but I planted stakes and built a home.
Ah HA!! A place.

Thinking I was doing myself and those I loved a favor, I camped out (place) with her (person) for far too long.The trouble with living in or with denial is that denial is not a real place nor is she a real friend.

Denial is a protective mechanism, but a false defense. Eventually, the edges fray and it all begins to unravel. (Wow, a thing!I wonder how many metaphors I can incorporate into this sordid tale?)

A recent Friday resulted in a complete unraveling of my delusion. No more pretending. It was interesting because I had already begun gathering my things from Camp Denial. The first draft of the break-up missive had been composed.I was steeling myself for a new reality when the phone rang. I usually cannot find my phone.T his particular Friday it was in dang my pocket.

While I am no longer living in denial, every now and again I remember something and I run back to collect it. The soundtrack of this breakup is Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” which begins, “Hello darkness, my old friend…”Paul Simon said, “…we have people unable to touch other people, unable to love other people. This is a song about the inability to communicate.”

“Alexa, play The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.” “Alexa, play it again.” “Alexa…”It reminds me that things are not hunky dory and that the reality of NOT hunky dory is still better than the delusion of denial.

Denial, person, place, or thing, is an inability to communicate clearly with one’s self. While I miss the pretense of safety and well-being of denial, denial crippled me, estranging me from myself and from people who love me and from people who might love me.

Processing what I miss, I am discovering that what I miss was only a vapor. I am enjoying discovering me. I don’t know how this me interacts with the world. I am nervous about how the after break up me, in a new location, will paint.Like so many artists, there is discovery in the process of painting.

Spring has sprung here in North Texas. The windows are open. The birds are singing. I just saw the largest coyote I have ever seen (my heart claims it was a wolf, but google searches say there are no longer wolves in North Texas). The family, my family, and a dear friend are meeting for a birthday picnic at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. Maybe I don’t miss denial after all. HAPPY SPRING, ALL Y’ALL! Much love, Gwen

December 12, 2016December 10, 2016

Julia: The Burr Under My Saddle. The Bee in My Bonnet.

slide_5 Perky Julia.
The burr under my saddle.
The bee in my bonnet.

Calls every day.
Multiple times a day.
Different phone number every time.
Words dripping of sweet talk and empty promises.
Robo-calling beard.
Shill.

I hate her.

God help the woman behind that perky voice.
May she never cross my path.

(I love this photo. My resting face is fierce. I was not aware until I saw this photo. Makes me look braver than I am. I am 56 January 3rd. My goal for the year is to be as fierce as my resting face!)

December 9, 2016December 8, 2016

I don’t believe in unconditional love

I don’t believe in unconditional love.
I don’t think I ever did.

I grew up Southern Baptist where the term, unconditional love, was bandied about, but they never meant it.

Unconditional love, IF you meet our conditions.

Um? That is the absolute definition of CONDITIONAL love.

Our motto was, “Jesus died, once, for all.”

BUT unless you meet our conditions all does not include you.

If all does not mean ALL, did Jesus die in vain? I asked the preacher after church one Sunday morning.

Shortly after I began asking questions like this I was offered an opportunity to work in the church nursery DURING the Sunday morning service for $$$$! YIPPEE!!!!

Decades later that I realized this golden opportunity kept me from asking the preacher questions about his sermon on Sunday mornings during the exit handshake. (Someone was very clever.)

Do I believe in Jesus? Oh, yes, I do.
Do I believe Jesus died in vain? No, absolutely not.
Do I believe in “once for all?” Yes, she answered hesitantly.
Do I believe all means all? Yeah, I do. And that makes me a bad Christian. I was not very good even before I came to understand that all might actually mean ALL.

Does it piss me off a little bit, all? Well, of course. Some people are horrible and I would like to see them burn in hell for eternity. WOW! Say THAT out loud three times and it will make your toes curl. When I say it out loud, I mean it a lot less.

Apparently what I believe, now, is that no one is too horrible for Jesus. What I really believe is that Jesus can find the image of God in all of humanity. Even the horrible ones. Even, me.

Holding the paradigm of ALL takes more faith than the (un)conditional love I grew up with.

(For the record, I grew up in a decent enough church. FBC San Marcos. Some Sunday School teachers were lacking. Some of our pastors were better than others. There was definitely a “good old boys club” and cliques abounded. (HA! I misspelled clique and it spell check auto-corrected to cliché. There were definitely clichés!) I don’t remember ANTI anyone sermons. Talk about us versus “the other” slated for eternal damnation. Of course, I did spend the last several years of high school working in the church nursery so if things went astray I could have missed it.)

What in the world does this have to do with art?!?

I was getting around to it.

I paint hope. Recently I came to the end of hope for an individual who I attempted I love unconditionally. Those attempts were to the detriment of my emotional, spiritual and physical health. Releasing the illusion of unconditional love was crushing. Immobilizing. I did not paint for five days.

I. Failed. Love.
A love failure.
Surely if I loved enough, loved the right way, just loved unconditionally
everything would be sunshine and roses.

It is not as hard as one might think to blow smoke up one’s own skirt.

My mental wellbeing required that I set down the burden of unconditional love. Sometimes loving from a distance is the best you can do. Sometimes loving from a distance is more than you can do. Sometimes, sometimes, you don’t have to do anything. Not even love. Sometimes being who you are is enough. Sometimes it is all.

We are human. We have victories and failures. If we are fortunate we get back up. Not everyone makes it back to standing. I am back on my feet.

The last several days were difficult. They were also exceedingly enlightening. I know myself better. I am learning to trust myself again. (I sought help quickly.) Clarity is a good thing. Even when what is cleared up is ugly. Truth is tied to freedom in the bible. Truth identifies the enemy within and without.

As I air out my smoky skirt (metaphorical skirt as my only “skirt” is really a pair of billowy pants),and put on my big girl boots and I am getting back to work.

There road is never straight. Detours abound. I was on a detour. I am back onto my path.

For now.

May your detours be short and may you find beauty along the way. Thank you and Much love (whatever that looks like) Gwen

September 12, 2016September 12, 2016

YOU PEOPLE!

Last week I was YOU Peopled!

Can You Hear Them? 22 x 30 watercolor on paper — Can You Hear Them?
22 x 30 watercolor on paper by Gwen Meharg

in the Park Cities Presbyterian Church parking lot.

A woman 10 years older than myself with salon blond hair and an old wine-skin mind-set felt obliged to YOU PEOPLE me as I was leaving the parking lot after delivering art.

I use the old wine-skin metaphor for two reasons. She looked like she had spent a goodly amount of time poolside and/ or in a tanning bed. Secondly, her old-time religious ideas were so firmly set in stone that she felt obligated, or justified, in voicing her disdain for me.

Her designer clothes, jewelry, and very expensive car all said money, money, money.

I am more than okay with people who have money, money, money. Some of them buy art. Some of them lavish their earnings on charities. I hope to join their ranks some day!

Monotype Acrylic on Paper by Gwen Meharg

Money is not the problem.
Money is not the root of evil.
Money is a construct that works quite well.

And it is way easier than hauling around chickens, precious metals, and beads.

What one becomes when one has a good amount of money is where the potential problems lay.

I know “salt of the earth” people with lots of money.
I know “salt of the earth” people with very little money.

Money, having or not having, is not the problem.
The problem resides in the heart.

On a beautiful sun shiny morning last week this woman spoke from her heart and labeled me – wait for it! – liberal.

Her presence in the church parking led me to believe she was quite possibly a follower of Jesus. A sister in Christ.
Her mouth and judgmental words and attitude implies otherwise.
The exact words out of her holier-than-thou mouth were,

Kept 6x6" watercolor sketch on paper by Gwen Meharg — Kept 6×6″ watercolor sketch on paper by Gwen Meharg

“YOU PEOPLE SCARE ME!”

With my eyes popping out in disbelief, I demanded,
“WHO is YOU people?”

Bottle Blond with her right hand raised to her heart and her fingers fluttering spit an explicative, “Liberals!”

And she stomped off in a self-righteous huff. I really wanted to say something ugly but I had been YOU PEOPLEd!
My privileged middle-class white lady position had spared me until that moment. It stung.

What set her off?
My “Black Lives Matter” bumper sticker.

I ordered “Blue Lives Matter” bumper sticker over a month ago and was going to put them side by side. My “Blue Lives Matter” bumper sticker has not come. The Blue Lives Matter bumper sticker people stole my money.

Want to know what is WRONG WITH CONSERVATIVES?
I can clear up a great deal of political turmoil toot sweet.
What is wrong with “conservatives” is that I am no longer considered among them.

Watercolor Sketch 5x4" on paper by Gwen Meharg — Watercolor Sketch 5×4″ on paper by Gwen Meharg

How does one get more conservative than me?

I am a 55 year old white woman. Southern Baptist until Easter 2014. College educated at BAYLOR, a Baptist University. Married 35 years to the same guy who I met in the marching band. Did you catch that? The MARCHING band! David and I both played trombone for God’s sake. Six children. SIX!!! Two cats. Two horses. One large dog. A fish pond, a miniature cricket farm, and a cabinet full of tiny tarantulas. I live in a suburb of a suburb. I scrub horse buckets every Sunday morning. Wear spurs in public. Drive a 21 year old conversion van. Don’t smoke. Don’t chew. Have friends who do. Seldom drink. Own a gun. Get caught with a knife in my purse every time I go to the airport. Actually READ my bible. Pray. Attend church regularly. Read out loud to ALL my children. I have serious body issues but am unwilling to give up popcorn or pie. I home schooled for TWENTY-TWO years!

HOW MUCH MORE CONSERVATIVE CAN YOU GET?!?

The problem is not money.
The problem is not how conservative or how liberal a person is.

The problem is as it always has been, with the heart.

It is so much easier to go to church than to love.
It is so much easier to label than to listen.

I have written and painted about the lie of the easy answer.
You people-ing is an easy answer that covers a world of lies.

Money is not the problem.

Watercolor Sketch 4x4" on paper by Gwen Meharg — **Watercolor Sketch 4×4″ on paper by Gwen Meharg**

Race is not the problem.

The heart is the problem.

Now I am gonna toss out a scripture and see if it sticks:
1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…

It is not about conservative versus liberal.
It is not about haves versus have nots.

It is about love.

It has always been about love.
It will always be about love.

Who you love.
What you love.

YOU PEOPLE,
you have a grand week
and may love inspire you
as you pursue life well-loved and well-lived.

May 3, 2016May 3, 2016

Penis Butterflies and Wonky Boobs

Have you ever NOT seen something that was right in front of your face?

Maybe you were proofing a resume and you had worked so long and so hard on it that you just could not see the looming typo that sunk ANY chance of gaining an interview?

Untitled You proofed and proofed EVER so careful and yet a typo slipped right past your brain.

In a proof-reading fog, believing you have achieved perfection, you gingerly fold the resume, printed on cotton rag paper, into thirds and place it into a matching rag paper envelope with a patriotic stamp. You travel to the post office and pop it into the mail shoot.

Breathing a sigh of relief, you climb back into your car when suddenly your brain awakens from its proof reading coma and – big as day – you see the typo flash before your mind’s eye.

It is too late … the next resume will be better.

(Rag stationary might be from the olden days, but typos still carry the power to devastate, only they devastate much faster these days with email and auto-correct.)

This happens with art, too.
Sometimes there is a penis in the middle of a butterfly painting. Sometimes you don’t see the penis until it is framed and hanging in the group show at the local community center.

Rest assured, YOU might not see it but SOMEONE will!
It will often be the person with the loudest, most shrill voice. Think 9 year old boy. They will notice and point and call others over to see the penis.

Once you and the audience have SEEN the penis you can’t unsee it.
It is all over. Nothing to do but change the title to Penis Butterfly and pretend there is a deep, but not perverted, meaning to the piece.
“Ah, yes,” you mumble and scurry away hoping the cookie table is well stocked. Leave them wondering. And giggling!

Honestly, the painting hung for several years in the boy’s room before anyone noticed. Once noticed the boys thought it was so hilarious that they re-titled it and proudly show it to all guests. SIGH! (I will NOT reveal the child who penned this masterpiece, nor the child who first discovered the penis. (It just doesn’t matter.)

When you are a grown up artist, it does matter.
Before a work of art is sent out into the world most of us take the time to look for things that we did not intend to be there. The big five are: penises, potatoes, boobs, figures, and eyes.

Heaven help the artist who is working from multiple reference photos. It is devastatingly difficult to get things “right.” You want wings on a horse? No problem, just print off a photo of a bird and a photo of a horse, right? Yeah, it would SEEM to be that easy, but it is not easy. It is painfully difficult. The longer you work on the artwork the harder it is to see it as a whole. As each part is perfected the whole becomes lost, even to the greats. (Michelangelo!)

It is easy to miss the image “typos.”
Critique groups and teenage boys are adept at finding artistic typos.

It is ever so easy to paint rocks that look like potatoes. And to paint potatoes that look like rocks. “Those beautiful river rocks, did you INTEND for them to look like a pile of potatoes?” UGH!
“Nice barn. Maybe you should add eye lashes to the windows since they look like eyes.” UGH! UGH!
“Cool phallic image. Interesting colors.” UUUGGGHHHH!
“CLOUD CLEAVAGE!” ugh…….
The human brain is designed to identify faces. It is also quite adept at finding figures and figure parts!

MOST artists would rather discover that something is not READING as intended before the artwork is finished. michelangelo-night
Who hasn’t done a portrait with something wrong with the mouth?
Who hasn’t been in a museum and suddenly noticed that legs are attached to the body at an unnatural angle.
Boobs! Oh my.
What was Michelangelo thinking!

It isn’t a skill issue,
it is a SEEING issue.
As the RockMan said, “You see what you want to see.” screen-shot-2012-04-03-at-11-04-44-am

Dear friends and family.
PLEASE, if you SEE something BEFORE IT IS FINISHED, please let me know.

IF I have attached an arm to a torso rather than to the shoulder, please let me know. If my wings are flapping independently of each other, speak up ASAP! If genitalia is the focal point of my abstract painting, it was UNINTENTIONAL!

Michelangelo Buonarroti TitleNude Woman, Kneeling Work Type drawing Date around 1500 Material pen and brown ink, heightened with white wash, on white paper Measurements 26.7 x 15.3 cm Repository Muse du Louvre, INV 726, recto. — Michelangelo Buonarroti
Title: Nude Woman, Kneeling
Date around 1500
Repository Muse du Louvre, INV 726, recto.

AFTER THE PAINTING IS COMPLETE FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE!
(And feel free to giggle in the corner.)

We all have opinions.

I do a lot of non-objective work.
It is NATURAL to look for SOMETHING in the painting.
IF I do my job what you will find is a memory, an idea or inspiration.

HAPPY MONDAY!

PS There were typos in my last email. EVER SO SORRY.

PPS If you are interested in a small print of my newest work, please subscribe to my occasional email. VIP members receive a small print.

PPPS! If you are already subscribe and want to upgrade, send me your snail mail address and I’ll get the print out to you ASAP!