Gwen Meharg: Artist Blog

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.

Early one morning I found a silver screw on the studio floor.  It looked important so I picked it up and put it “someplace safe” so that I could find it later when I discovered what it belonged to.  Screw, secure in the drawer of lost things, I sat down to work on the computer.

My “office” set up consists of a folding bar stool and a work table.  The folding allows me to quickly and easily stash it out of the way.  My work table is a hand crank adjustable standing table from Ikea.  The sorta sitting and sorta standing combination is perfect for painting and working at the standing table.  The added height is easier on my knees.

Perfect harmony.

UNTIL.

I had an epiphany!
Not a slow motion epiphany.  A spine crushing epiphany.
In an instant KNEW where the big silver screw belonged.
It had been holding my folding chair together.

Ouch!

I think I might be shorter now.  I only remember landing.
Legs straight out in front of me, still sitting upright on the wooden seat wondering WHY I had not invested some time finding out where the screw belonged.  Just me and the floor.

I was right.  The screw WAS important! 

The first two weeks my ribs hurt when I laughed or drove or tried to roll over.  The next four weeks it hurt to ride.  Last week I was able to ride pain free!  (I hurt like the dickens the next day, but now WHILE I was riding!)

Perspective change?

I have a clear understanding that procrastination hurts.

May all your screws be tight.
May you follow through with the tiny details.
May all your landings be gentle.