Category: Uncategorized

It is Friday January 6^th at 4:26 in the afternoon. 
The snow has stopped falling.  
The temperature has dropped back to 23 from a high of 24.
The wind-chill is back to 10 down from a high of 12.
My dog has decided to give up peeing until it warms up.
Poor doggie.
Me, I am inviting the kids to walk the dog so I don’t have to go outside!
BRRRRRR.
Oh, wait, a snowflake floated past.  I think it might have been the last one.
The ground is 40% covered with a wintery mix of teeny tiny sleet balls and snowflakes.  The accumulation is fun and very dry.  Nothing is sticking together.  No grassy snowman for us.
My daughter, Jubilee, took LOTS of snow photos with my phone and she is quite proud of her work so I am sharing it here and on Instagram.  I am not supposed to share stuff unrelated to art on Instagram but I don’t care.  At least I don’t care today.

Today I want to also share with you some new things for 2017.   
SCREEEEEEECH!!!! HOLD THE PRESSES!!!!  NEVER MIND WHAT I HAD PLANNED!
I am so angry right now I could spit, being a verbal processor, welcome to tirade #1 of 2017.

I just received an indignant and angry note in the mail accusing me of supporting abortion.  Why?  Because during a phone call back before the election I called an associate out on a fake news story she was repeating as fact.

The “news” story she was repeating was from a viral face book post claiming that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both seek to establish an abortion “cutoff date” of 36 weeks, and both claim that late-stage fetuses feel no pain and have no rights.

At the time she repeated this story to me as fact I told her it was probably not true and she should verify it before repeating it. 

As a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ I mistakenly believed she was interested in truth.

I looked it up and I sent her what I found.  She was repeating lies and half-truths.  Isn’t that slander and gossip?  The Snopes.com analysis of her story was:  Mostly False.

My old fashioned sensibilities tell me that MOSTLY FALSE is NOT TRUE.

I sent her the product she asked for and the Snopes report with a warning to be careful about spreading half-truths as facts.

Two and a half months later she sends back the report upon which she has circled Mostly False, and scribbled in bright orange, with a star for emphasis, “NOT COMPLETELY FALSE.”

Apparently partially true is true enough for this minister of the gospel.

My recollecting is Not Completely False is still FALSE.

A convincing lie always carries an element of truth.
Consider the adage of the brownies.
Only a little dog doo was stirred into the mix.

Mostly NOT poo.  Have a brownie?

She found, “it SHOCKING that you would support abortion at all.   You should believe in and live out the Word of God & I guarantee Jesus does not support abortion.”
“You should have checked out your candidate a little better before you voted.”

She is correct.
I SHOULD believe in and live out the Word of God.   Maybe I should not have left her in her delusion.  Maybe I should have known that if she wanted to know the truth she would have checked the facts herself.

And I did check out my candidate and I sent her what I found.

She is incorrect in believing that her candidate would have received Jesus’ vote for the singular reason that he claims to be anti-abortion.

I don’t know what Jesus feels about abortion.   Abortion probably makes him sad.
Surely Jesus takes abortion seriously and would prefer it be the exception rather than the rule.   I am pretty sure Jesus loves mommas and the babies and you and me in all our complexities, failures and successes.

I do know that Jesus doesn’t advocate fear or manipulation to set people free. 

I do know that Jesus shared our humanity and understands how hard it is to live as skin and bone and heart and soul and spirit all bound together.

I wanted to tell this minister that voting for Hillary doesn’t make me an abortion supporter any more than voting for Trump makes her a racist.
(I did not say it.  I thought it really loud though.)

She works extensively, almost exclusively, with black churches and told me during our phone conversation, “I don’t see color.”

(Immediately I heard SNL Dana Carvey’s church lady saying, “Now isn’t that special?”)

Whether she was lying to me or herself, I do not know.

I have heard of face blindness and someday I will meet artist Chuck Close and ask him if the face blindness extends to skin color.  When he sees someone does he know, can he remember what color they are?

Race may be bad science, but we do come in a variety of colors, sizes and shapes.  The differentiation of body affects how we experience the world.  Doing the same thing a white man might have a different experience than a black man.  It is not fair, but it is true.   Remember that truth sets us free.  No truth.  No freedom.

Since my associate blames, I mean, CREDITS her actions to Jesus I am wondering how Jesus would react to her claim of colorblindness. 

Yeah, I know what she meant, but I think her words revealed more than she intended.  Jesus would ask each of us to be aware of how we have been enculturated.  To see in each other our humanity and all that entails.  To embrace the image of God in ourselves and in others.   To even see God’s image in a colorblind ministers of the gospel who will vote for anyone claiming to be anti-abortion regardless of their character, morality, or ethics.  (Did I mention she questioned my character?)

God asks us to look upon the heart.  Looking upon the heart is not the same as ignoring the body.  When I see you I see your skin and your hair and I perceive their color.  I can usually identify your gender and height and whether you are thick or thin.  Trouble begins when we bring personal and cultural judgments to this information.  

(Have you ever been on a country trail looking for wildflowers?  You spy one and run over to exclaim concerning its beauty and color and fortitude to come up through the hard dirt and rocks.  It isn’t graded against other wildflowers it is just appreciated in its uniqueness.)

To be blind to another’s physicality is to deny their personhood.
To be blind to another’s humanity is to deny power in the incarnation of Christ.

What would Jesus do?
Do justice.  Love kindness.  And walk humbly. 

And that is what I endeavor to do through my life and my art.
Three simple guidelines.
Simple not equate easy.

How does this rant measure up? 

Justice?  Almost?  I thought through some things that I had not articulated before.  Maybe you thought through some things you had not thought through before.  Justice is long and slow and maybe processing will point me to a more active position the next time?
Kindness?  Absolutely!  I did NOT send this to her!  She is so busy with her single issue god she can’t see anything else.
OOPS!  Completely failed humility with that last sentence!

Now I hear 1970s Meatloaf singing in my head “Two out of three ain’t bad!”
2017 is gonna be a ride.  Hang on to your hat!  

Cowgirl up!
Put on your big girl boots and ride.

What does that even mean?

It means:  DO what needs to be Done!

Monday night I cowgirled upped.

Three weeks ago Blue Skies, my beautiful paint horse, decided to go bat guano crazy.
Well, not that crazy, but crazy enough.  He decided that he no longer wanted to be ridden.

How do I know this?
Every time I rode we would get half way around the arena and BOOM!
Ears flatten.  Body tenses.
He bucks.
I get off!

For two weeks I got off and lunged him into a lather.
(To lunge a horse means to run them in circles hoping he would realize that cooperation was a better choice than running in circles.  He did not get the memo.)

Lunge.
Ride.
Half way around -BOOM- he kicks out and I get off.
Shampoo.
Rinse.
Repeat.

Monday night, week 3, I called in an expert.
With great trepidation and my instructor present I saddle up to ride.

Same pattern.
Half way around ears flatten (his not mine), body tenses, and he bucks until I come to a stop.
BUT THIS TIME IT WAS DIFFERENT.
I did NOT get off.
I stayed on.
Mark, my instructor, was there to talk me through it.

Keep your hands down.
Kick him.  Don’t let him stop.

Keep.
Moving.
Forward.

I wanted desperately to get off.
And I preferred getting off on my own terms rather than flying through the air.

I had to choose between two voices.

The voice of experience, my instructor,
or the familiar voice of fear screaming inside my head, “Sell the SOB!”

One hand on the reins and the other gripping the back of by saddle,
I rode Blue Skies through his pissy bucking fit.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And again four times in quick succession.

AND I STAYED ON.

The next time through the pattern Blue Skies minded his manners.
Sort of.
Ears went back but his body did not tense and he did not buck.

It was not nearly as frightening when I was not alone.

It was a contest of wills between me and my horse.
With Mark’s trained eye and encouragement, I won.
That round.
There will be more battles before the war is won.
But I have tasted victory and I like it.

Was it scary?
No, it was terrifying!

Did I want to stop?
Hell, yes!

Were those tears of fear or tears of victory running down my face?
Both!

What does this have to do with art making and the business of art?

EVERYTHING!  Ramalamadingdong! I STAYED ON!
I rode my horse.
I got off my horse WHEN and WHERE I wanted to get off.
I did not go flying through the air.  I RODE THROUGH IT!
And, looking back, it was not so bad.   (It was significantly bad during.)

I could not have safely navigated the ride without an experienced coach.

And that is the tie-in.  For several years now I have navigated my art career alone.  It was not safe.   When the ride got scary I got off and ran around in circles!

Zip.  Zero.  Nada.  NO FORWARD MOTION!

Earlier this month I hired a coaching team.
We will be working online several times a month setting and achieving goals. 

It is dangerous to ride alone.
From the top of a bucking horse it is difficult to evaluate how precarious the ride truly is.
An experienced trainer on the ground instructing can take in the entirety of the situation and offer advice as to when to hang on and when to bail.

It is still my ride.  I am still the one sitting in the saddle, but I have a new perspective.

When I am paralyzed with fear I now have a team to talk me through the fear.

Steady on the reins.
Set back.
Keep moving forward.
Could I do this on my own?
Apparently not or else I would have already done it.

If you are an encouraging voice and would like to ride along with me the newsletter is just right for you.

When you hear of someone who might be in the market for art that will reflect their hearts and look great with their sofa, tell them about the website https://gwenmeharg.com/.

Family.  Friends.  You never know who might know someone whose life could use a dose of beauty and hope.  I am a “more, the merrier!” kind of gal.

Happy Trails!
Gwen

What to do with the flaming sack of poo deposited on the doorstep of our nation Tuesday night?

For God’s sake,
whatever you do:

DON’T STOMP ON IT!

Let it flame out. 

Prepare now for the ensuing mess and clean up.

Hatred and fear won the election.

As a nation we can NOT ALLOW hatred and fear to define us.

The story is not over.
Just a new chapter.

PS.
I gotta go wash off my shoes.

I have an ipad.
I never quite got the hang of the ipad.
(I kind of hate it,
but I can do Instagram on the ipad so that is good.
Sort of.
I hate Instagram.
Too many rules and not enough suggestions.

The 21^st century has been hard on some of us.

In my attempt to embrace the 21^st century I have my first smart phone!

Last night, after 11, I was trying to read a facebook message on my SMART phone.
Up pops a box that informs me that facebook messages are going the way of the dinosaur
and I need to get facebook MESSENGER.
At least that is how I interpreted it.

I load messenger app.
Waiting for me are four messages that I have never seen before.
One was for the studio opening of a friend!!!!
Another was a Mother’s Day greeting.
The other two?  Well, it was after 11 pm so I don’t remember.

Messenger invitation went out to a few friends.

One wrote back that she just uses the regular facebook messages because Messenger takes up too much room on her phone!

OH NO!
I don’t want my phone taken over by something I don’t need.
I try to figure out how to manage data and storage.
I can’t figure out how to unsend the invitations.
I can’t figure out how to delete Messenger.
I delete everything I can get to that I don’t recognize.
Games, tv, videos, music, all sorts of stuff that I have not a clue how it got there or what it is.

Notification boxes flare up telling me that apps will revert back to what was originally on the phone.  Hmmmmm?
What exactly is an app?
If it came with the phone is it really an app?
I delete a lot.
The ones that say deletion will severely impair my phone I leave alone.
I hope I left them alone.

This morning my phone pinged a few times with Messenger messages.
Now I am trying to figure out how to turn off notifications without turning off the ringer.

A Michael Hyatt article shared a studied indicating
the typical office worker is interrupted every THREE MINUTES!
The resulting productivity loss is
equivalent of missing 5 (FIVE!) months of work a year!!!!!

Just think how productivity would soar with interruptions only every SIX minutes!
Would the average office worker get another 2 ½ months of work done each year?
Would America be GREAT again!

Wrap up?

It was good to receive those missing messages, BUT at what cost?
How DANGEROUS is Messenger to my productivity?
How much room does it indeed take up?
IS facebook messages TRULY going away?

And how did we so quickly buy into the myth of Poverty Culture?
Why didn’t we see the flaws in the study when it came out?
One small village and the results was extrapolated to the world!
How can I make a difference to disperse the myths?

Wait that is another blog. 

FOCUS is a splendiferous thing.

Peace out!

I have a new phone.  Samsung Galaxy 5j.  NOT one of their exploding phones.  (I HOPE!)

I have no contacts as there was an, um, altercation at the AT&T store.
Not so much an altercation as much as the clerk was really pissed that I did not purchase my phone from AT&T so EVERY SINGLE ANSWER TO EVERY SINGLE QUESTION WAS,
“I can’t do that, it is not an AT&T phone.”

Please hear the teenage snark when you read, “I can’t do that, it is not an AT&T phone.”
He was not a teenager so his snarky responses were triply irritating.

After one snarky reply, I was pissed.   Surly clerk.  Surly customer.  BAD combination!

He did not KNOW it was not an AT&T phone when I walked in.
From the beginning he was creepy but with veiled pleasantness.

My new NOT AN AT&T phone uses a micro SIM card.  While transferring the phone number from my old card to the micro card he realized I had not purchased my phone from AT&T.   He has my original SIM card.

The clouds rolled in and darkness and snark descend!
Dum dum duuuummmmmmmmmmmmm.
The relationship sours.

He told me I would not be able to use the internet with my phone because, “It is not an AT&T phone.”
He told me I would not be able to use the date because, “It is not an AT&T phone.”
He told me he could not transfer my contacts because, “It was not an AT&T phone.”

I said something matching his snark followed by “What CAN I do?”

He said, “YOU CAN LEAVE THE STORE.”

And I left.

It was not until I got home that I realized the jerk still had my SIM card.

(Jerk is a judgmental, immature name calling and yeah, JERK!)

I contacted AT&T and told them I wanted my card back.
I have not heard anything other than they really want to, “make this right and keep me as a loyal customer.”

Yeah (snarky tone) RIGHT!

Lesson Learned?
When creepy guy vibe radar goes off:  DO NOT ENGAGE!

May you listen to your “gut” this week. 
May your radar be true. 
May your contacts stay connected.

Cutting.

It was not a thing when I was growing up.
If it was a thing, I was unaware.
It is a thing now.
Mostly girls.
Cutting themselves where, usually, it is not easy to see.

My favorite art show was Declaring Space: Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein  Sep 30, 2007 – Jan 06, 2008  at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2008.

By 2007 I was aware of cutting, but unaware of Lucio Fontana’s slash paintings.

The impact of seeing the paintings was visceral.  The emotion.  The shock.  The direct correlation in my brain between cutting and the paintings.   I remember thinking, “If cutters could see this art, hear his story they would understand what they were doing to themselves and why.”  I remember that if they could deal with issues visually they could stop damaging themselves.

I remember BLURTING all this out during a docent led tour.
The docent was not feeling it.
We moved on.
I was deeply moved.

Space.  Opening up space.  Cutting.

Why do people cut themselves?  I kinda, sorta pass out when the nurse takes blood.
Cutting was not an option for me,
but it was for my niece
and for a friend so I did some research.

Why?  There is not an easy answer.
For any single cutter there is not even a single answer.
What I am sharing comes from my minimal research and my personal experience.

Before I go there, do you see what I have done?
Are you angry with me yet?  You probably should be.
For any single cutter.  I have reduced a large swath of humanity to a single word:  cutter.

Black.
White.
YOU PEOPLE!

Do you see how easy it is to ignore the humanity of the other?
Full, complete, complex human beings who I defined by a single action.  Cutter.

As I am writing that there are no easy answers I found it very easy to use a label.  A single label.
I am sorry.
I will not go back and re-write.  (Okay, I did a little re-writing!)  Let us allow it to be a lesson.
A lesson I will most probably need to revisit again today (and tomorrow and for years go come.)

Why do human beings cut themselves?

• The pain is a distraction from the surrounding circumstances.  Cutting brings the focus, for a moment, completely into the present.
• When there is no control, perceived or in actuality, in one’s life, this is an area of control over one’s own body.
• Power/Secrecy. There is power in having a secret.
• Cutting releases of endorphins.
• ….

So what does this have to do with “Confessions of a Cutter?”

I have never cut myself (on purpose) but I have hurt myself
and my children.

I have cut myself off from things and people I love.
I have done so as a twisted form of punishment/incentive.
I still do it.
I did it yesterday.

We home schooled for 22 years.
This is the first year, Fall 2016,
everyone is either in school or has graduated.
I am focusing on making art and developing a healthy art business.
 (It is way more fun to make art than to make art and run a small business, but I am catching on!  If you knows someone who needs some wonderful art  for their home or office or business PLEASE connect us and I will be forever grateful.)
Too often while home schooling, Instead of doing what we loved FIRST we focused on the drudgery.
Instead of enjoying learning and each other and then getting to the less fun stuff, we did the drudgery at the expense of what we loved.
It was wrong.  Too often we never made it to the fun as we ALL hated the drudgery.

I justified it by saying the fun, our passions, would be the reward, the carrot before the horse.
Rewards.  Carrots.  They might work for some.
It did not work for us.
We ended up tired and worn out.
Without energy for each other or for fun.

I am not saying we spent 22 years mired in hell.
For the most part we enjoyed each other and home schooling.
What I AM saying is that many opportunities were lost.

Too much time was spent cutting ourselves off from the better.
Eat dessert first!
Yeah, veggies, too.  And brush your teeth after.
But eat dessert first.

The business side of things are overwhelming right now.
I am finding myself cutting myself off from what I love
UNTIL I have completed xyz.

I say what I love will be my reward
when really I am just punishing myself.

Cutting myself off from what I love.
Cutting myself off from what I need.

There are a couple hundred paintings in my living room that need to be photographed.
What have I been telling myself?
Gwen, you can ride when you finish those paintings.
Gwen, you can read a book when you finish photographing those paintings.
Gwen, you can spend time with your friends AFTER you finish those paintings.

Guess how long those paintings have been in my living room?
I am not saying it has been a year,
but I COULD say that.

I miss riding.  I miss reading.  I miss my friends.

Last night I walked OUT of my living room and went to this season’s first Tuesday Lecture at the Modern.  It was good.  I did doze off a couple times.  Not because it was not fascinating, I have four pages of notes to prove that it was, but I dozed off because I am wrung out.

Cutting myself off from what gives me energy and inspiration is self-defeating.

I did not self-identify as a cutter until 7:23 this morning.
I was walking Wesley and watching a truly magnificent sky unfold.
As I was watching the sun and the clouds and the blue interact I saw the Lucio Fontana painting from eight years ago.
The memories leapt to the forefront of my consciousness and I knew that the revelation from so long ago was not for cutters, it was for me.

I am a cutter.
Today I begin a new journey.

Today may we all choose to spend a moment with who and what we love.
Peace.
Joy.
Monarch butterflies.