July, Well, August…Missed a month, because of time spent in the sun! – Volatile organic compounds and why it’s worth being aware of them – Looking backwards in order to move forwards – How to pray when we don’t want to pray – In the Garden – Langstone Harbour – The Tide Comes In

This is not the right time of year for writing blogs…

The sun is so hot, and so good at drying paint! (More on that later!)

I have a lot of work in progress… As always!

There are masses of flies in the studio tent, but thankfully they do leave when I come in and work in there.

Not much sign of snails in there even, except in a few damp crevices!

And I have now realised that I do get sun burnt even when inside the tent… translucent tarpaulin is not great at keeping UV rays off the skin!

(Update..And now in August…The rain has come! Much easier to work now!)

 

I am going to keep this months journal entry short, but have to say…

Congratulations NHS!  On your 70th year!  When posting this journal, finally….It’s a long way back.

Thursday 5 July 2018…

And without the NHS I wouldn’t be able to walk or stand as I need to…

It’s freed me to paint and work, and I am grateful every day I wake up with a working knee!

I can carry things, move work around, paint big paintings, and have big dreams.  Before my knee replacement my whole life was starting to run into a funnel, with a very narrow spout!

I’m not going to post lots of images of paintings in progress… I really have far too many and it would become quite pointless.

Because I work in such a piecemeal way, I have to work more on relinquishing the work when it is in progress, rather than tracking it.

I find this more helpful to my self.

It’s an odd way of working.  But I think its about picking up pieces.  And I have so many pieces.  Picked up and put down.  Not normally advised as a good way to work.  For for the abstract painting process it works very well for me.  This also applies to my many notebooks, reading and research.  It’s a constant process of losing and finding things. And unexpected relationships occurring.  With a lot of contemplation in between.

I have toyed with the idea of revealing what I am up to with my work, as it happens, but I need the energy brewing inside with the pressure which comes when something hasn’t been released into the world.  It feels like the minute something is published, it’s partly let go, somehow.  I don’t mind putting the occasional piece of work on here from time to time, but that’s enough.   It feels much better to publish images which I know have stood the test of time.  They have proven themselves able to stand on their own two feet.  Paintings with feet. Now, that’s a thought…

 

 

VOC’s  and painting large abstract paintings in the VERY hot sun

I am very much loving the sol-silicate paint I use from Keim Paints.

It’s AMAZING… and as I am working outside in the very hot sun, it is also very healthy!

I do wear gloves if I know I am going to be handling a lot of paint, because it is very alkaline.

It’s drying quick…I use Soldalit.

Very fine brushes are best, I find, but rollers can be useful.

The light bounces off the matt surface beautifully.

It’s a JOY!

keim soldalit sol silicate paint hand mixing up colours for use in fine art abstract paintings by jenny meehan

It takes hours to make many pots of paint ready for a painting session.  Well worth it though!  I love this paint. It’s heaven!

I first started using Keim mineral paints a few years back.

I do use acrylic paints too, but I wouldn’t use large amounts in the sun anymore.

I did do this a couple of years back…

I could smell the fumes coming off the surface of the paint in the hot weather, and thought to myself, “NO, no NO!”  This isn’t good for me.

As I have to paint large scale out of doors, and very hot days ARE quite handy when drying paint matters, having paint to use where I don’t need to worry about what I am inhaling is just GREAT!

I don’t paint if the temperature is more than 30ºC, as per instructions… and find painting in the morning and evening essential at the moment because it is so very hot.

“Important Note – Materials must not be
applied at temperatures below 5ºC nor those
in excess of 30ºC, nor if it is raining, or if there
is an immediate likelihood of rain”

There certainly are no worries about an “immediate likelihood of rain” at the moment.  (PS  written before the rain came!  In the end, there were a good few days above 30% too!)

I do remember having to be very careful when painting my exterior mural all those years back, and needed to hang bubble wrap over the entire surface to protect it from rain!

I am painting on grey board…it is absorbent, and I thought I would need to use some fixative for the first layer, but I forgot to get some.  It is indicated, but as the area is so small (compared to what it would be if painting a large wall) I am managing without it.  I wish I had got some in order to make the paint layers a bit thinner, but with a fine brush and quick spreading I am getting away without it.

The grey board varies in thickness.  It is a little bit flexible, so not quite the rigid surface required but I don’t mind experimenting…It will most likely crack if bent, but I am not planning on bending it.  And I am currently experimenting on some flexible surfaces with the intention of cracking the paint layer.  So in some pieces I play things safer, using what I know of the materials I work with in order to produce a more predictable result.  And in other pieces I am jumping out, breaking the rules of the usual application of the Keim mineral paint, and enjoying the fact that, as I am not using the materials with the requirements of a building application to be met.

I spent a great deal of time mixing up the colours with the selection of Keim mineral paints I have available.  And now I need to move forwards at quite a rapid pace, because they won’t last forever…Their shelf life is stated as being 12 months.  I have found this varies a lot (and for my purposes, can be several more years, as long as stored carefully)  but once I have mixed up the colours, I guess maybe because of air and some evaporation, I need to commit to some steady application!

I love these paints so much…

Yes, all types of paint have their qualities, but it’s so nice to use paint which is healthy and environmentally sound.  VISUALLY it is pure as pure can be.  None of the plastic quality of acrylic paint.

Yes, acrylics can do many things well…I have not thrown mine out.  But I won’t be using mine in the hot sun again for certain.

But working with the Keim Mineral Paints is fantastic.

When I come to wash out the brushes or whatever, I tip the painty water on the garden.  Don’t need to put anything into the water system.  I am not sure if this is good for the garden but the plants seem happy enough… No complaints as yet!

If there are thicker paint layers in containers, it’s just a matter of letting it set and chipping it out.  That goes on the garden too.

I am also experimenting with the Keim Mineral paint in many other ways, which will no doubt seep out as time progresses!

keim soldalit sol silicate paint initial layer of painting fine art abstract paintings by jenny meehan

Above an example of the early stages of one of my paintings.  I am seriously into circles and squares at the moment.  Rests and motion, drums, drum beats, sound, filling space, boundaries, edges, meetings, ….That’s the poem.

 

 

Volatile organic compounds and why it’s worth being aware of them

For those not familiar with the term VOC, paints used in the home contain ­potentially harmful chemicals such as ­solvents and volatile organic compounds (VOCs),  and when paint dries, these chemicals evaporate into the air where the hapless artist or decorator  inhales their toxic fumes. This is true for both water based (acrylic emulsions) and solvent or oil based paints.  Inhaling paint fumes can exacerbate asthma and ­sinusitis, and because the solvents are absorbed into the lungs, then the blood stream, they can lead to headaches and dizziness.

I have experienced this myself when working with oil paints indoors on a hot day.  I keep my use of oil paints for cooler days, in a well ventilated area, and not on a very large format, where possible. Though I do confess to liking the smell of turps, I also realise that the fresher the air the healthier is my breathing!  It’s worth being aware that when VOCs are inhaled, they can cause eye, nose and throat ­irritation. In large quantities, ­animal ­studies have linked these chemicals to birth defects, cancers and damage to the central nervous system.

Oh er…

So best to breath fresh air!

According to the World Health Organisation, professional painters are most at risk, for they have a 20 per cent increased risk of a range of ­cancers, particularly lung cancer.

That’s a big percentage increase.

So anyone using larger amounts of paint, regularly, on bigger surface areas, needs to consider VOCs and the effect on their health.

There is even a  ­neurological condition brought on by long-term exposure to paint solvents — ‘painter’s dementia’, which I guess isn’t that surprising.  The World Health Organisation has also concerns about the long-term health effects of ‘off ­gassing’.  Off gassing is  the release of vapours over the life of the paint. (ie when it is on your walls).

If you do use a large quantities of paint as an artist, then it’s worth using it as safely as possible.  AND disposing of your paint responsibly.

Keim Mineral paints have given me the freedom I need as an artist to experiment with paint in large quantities, but free from any concerns of impacting the environment, or myself or other people, in a negative way.

If you are using large amounts of oil or acrylic paint, on a regular basis,  then consider using a respirator mask if you want to be keeping your air as fresh as you can, and work in a well ventilated area, taking regular breaks.

Healthy is important.

Now I can walk well with my new knee, I am pleased to say that I incorporated walking into my efforts for a healthy lifestyle.

Still eating a bit too much sugar!

 

Looking backwards in order to move forwards

 

the river within jenny meehan ©jenny meehan

I spend a fair amount of time looking backwards at previous art work. I find it essential.  As well as looking forwards, into all the ideas I have.  But the ideas of the future have no roots, and the past is well rooted.  So I need both to work for me well.  Constantly I find myself filled with ideas which could happen in the future.  But I also find myself finding some ground to stand on in work I have done in the past.  I normally don’t realise where I am going at all with my painting unless I regularly look back, and then I see, like an old friend, a painting waving at me and saying… “See…  this mattered to you then and now it matters to you again!”

So when I found this one, (above)  “The River Within” (quite early…around 2010, I think) I realised another strand…

KAOS open studios jenny meehan paintings

This river business, with arc, is quite clearly something which is going to stay with me.  It’s popping up all over the place.  For myself, the significance of water is life. This feeds into my faith and belief as a Christian and follower of Christ, and should most accurately be read as an expression of that in most of my work.  If someone wants to “read” the “meaning” of my painting in that way.  Hopefully little things I write and say don’t detract from the poetry of the work which is my deepest motivation in creating it.  Water as spiritual life, flowing from the Creator of all, and manifest through the sacramental incarnation of Christ in the world.  Quite a mouthful!

However, for those of you from different faith and spiritual traditions or none, I also, as I play with various concepts in my thinking and enjoy researching many dimensions of things I encounter in life, explore many other angles on the symbolic elements I experiment in my work and all of them add something very great to the whole process, and open many interesting avenues, all resonating in a meaningful way. All faith traditions have many areas of overlap and unity, and it’s vital to appreciate these, share them, and respect differences, accepting the other/s, in the way we would wish to be accepted ourselves.  Love is the most important thing in life.  Love God and love others as yourself.  And communicating viewpoints with respect and peace.

Other Christian people may enjoy the way my faith is centred and rooted, and resonates with their own faith experience, and maybe recognise some themes in my painting practice  which stem from my belief system.  But I don’t tend to describe myself as a “Christian Artist”.  This is mainly because I am not attempting to convey a scriptural narrative or assert my work as specifically Christian, ie for Christians or for a Christian context.  Who I am as a person is intimately connected with my work, but the complexity of a human individual goes far beyond their religious tradition and identity within that.  All kinds of things have shaped my life. And while how my faith religious beliefs shape it is of interest to many, there are many other people who don’t find this dimension of my work of any interest to them.  I paint for myself and, for all who are interested in my work, for whatever reason.  For the purposes of search engines, then it’s common sense to use keywords which include Christian, because many Christians do seek out artwork created by others who share the same faith.  But it is my hope that this doesn’t ever prove a barrier to accessing or appreciating what I do. I am sure many other artists from different faith traditions and belief systems feel the same way.  Art is always there with the aim of opening eyes to new ways of seeing and experiencing the world.  New perspectives tend to enrich life, widening and extending the borders of what we had previously embraced.

Ooops, meandering and slightly digressing again!  Water, and many other concepts and ideas around it, have a long term thread through my visual art practice.  My contemplative practice and the research I do all feed into my painting and help steer the direction of it.

 

How to pray when we don’t want to pray

I found this very useful…See below, the writing in italics. This was published in Formed by the Spirit, The Newsletter of the Southwark
Diocesan Spiritual Formation Group; Opportunities, events, resources and articles on prayer and spirituality Issue 27: February 2016. It is written by Chris Chapman.

How to pray when we don’t want to pray
There are times when we don’t want to pray. We find that we are too busy to stop – but somewhere recognise that our activity is a way of avoiding the pain of silence where we might meet our own raw emotions or unresolved history.
Underneath all, we might not be sure we can trust this God with what matters to us most. We don’t want an answer that isn’t our answer
Or perhaps we are fed up with sitting there in the place of prayer and not getting anywhere. For all our efforts we remain distracted and restless, so far from the place of peace and understanding we desire.

How to begin to pray when we don’t want to pray? Here are some suggestions:

1] Begin from where you are and how you are: So, perhaps your prayer starts ‘I am sitting here unwillingly’ or…’I am not able to trust you’ or …’I am angry with you’…or ’I wonder whether you really care about me’…or ’I am afraid of what you want from me’.

2] Acknowledge that part of you that doesn’t want to pray…look without judgement at this side of your being. Now seek out that part of you that does feel drawn to pray: a sense of invitation that arises somewhere from within, an impulse that comes not as an ‘ought’ but as a longing that perhaps you are not used to listening to. Listen to that desire now.

3] When are you most relaxed: walking, cooking, gardening, knitting, or losing yourself in a book? Imagine yourself sharing this time with God. You are not so much looking at each other face to face as being side by side, comfortably sharing the experience. Perhaps some words flow one way or another, but being alongside might be enough of a beginning.

4] Let go of trying too hard. So, rather than summoning up your concentration, fighting distractions that come, or trying to squeeze wisdom from bible verse that mean little to you…relax. Prayer does begin with intention, and with choosing to place ourselves in a listening, attentive place, but the rest belongs to God. Leave what comes or does not come from your time of prayer with God. Everything is gift.

5] Use you body to help you to pray. Hold you hands closed to make fists. What is held inside there…feelings, experiences, repetitive worries or thoughts? Now open your hands and turn them palm upwards. All those things are still with you but now there is air around them…now you are open to God who cares about you and about what you carry. Keeping your palms open, turn them so they face down. Now you allow what you carry inside to fall away.

6] Be present: When we step into the present moment we also step into the ‘always’ of God. Look up from your work desk and watch the moving clouds. Open your window in the early morning and listen to birdsong. As the sun gathers strength enjoy its warmth on your back. Give thanks for what you receive in that moment.”

All very helpful!

 

 

In the garden

I am spending a lot of time in the garden right now.  It is the largest area I have for painting in and so when the weather is good painting weather it is a priority for me to be there.

I enjoy gardening too.

Here are a couple of poems I wrote inspired by the beauty of creation.

January

to merge – climb – burst forth
written forms vibrate each shoot
trees majestic stand

(Jenny Meehan copyright 2009)

Blossom and Bamboo

curved tips arching low
in stillness dips light-flecked wish
white blossom pleads pink

(Jenny Meehan copyright 2009)

 

Blossom, Bamboo, and Branches all feature in my visual art quite regularly.  Here are a few examples:

 

oriental blossom by Jenny Meehan © Jenny Meehan.

 

and a more recent monotype.  I used cut paper, ink and rollers to create the art work below:

bamboo blowing monotype jenny meehan

© Jenny Meehan.

 

jenny meehan drawing painting uk ©jenny meehan

“Crouched and Facing Bamboo in Light and Shadow”  is an experiment with the shadow of the bamboo in my garden and a drawing of a crouched figure.  It’s still in progress as I am not 100% happy with it, but it has potential.  It’s expressive of struggle, pain, pressing forwards.

Bamboo is VERY useful!

I have a lot in my garden.   It makes very good paint mixing sticks.  It makes useful paintbrush holders.  And it is great for hanging things on.  I love looking at it blowing in the wind.  It’s so strong, and yet bends.  It is spreading year by year.  So I think I need to think up some other uses for it.  I did make some bamboo pens, which worked quite well.

I have a tree in the garden with blossom.  The blossom is beautiful, but delicate, and it does not last very long.  It’s fragile and white. The wind takes it and scatters it like snow. It looks just like snow when its falling.

The London Plane Tree at the front of the house is another source of interest and inspiration .  I’ve moved computers recently and cannot locate the full image digital file, but the purple picture on the top right is “Notation” which is based on an image of the London Plane Tree.  And the blue image on the left is the base image I think.  I took many, so not sure exactly but it looks like it.    I do have extensive archives on hard drives and could locate the image quite quickly but I am so behind on so much I cannot be bothered to do this right now.

Take a look on redbubble.com at the fabric design I created from one of my images of the London Plane outside my house:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/14956416-london-plane-lacewood-tree-pattern-design-by-jenny-meehan?c=389187-jenny-meehan-surface-pattern-and-clothing-designs

And the Fatsia in the front garden…

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/14960095-fatsia-japonica-abstract-design-by-jenny-meehan?p=art-print&size=x_large

 

I also have many photographs of blossom, which I focused on one Spring;

jenny meehan jamartlondon.com photography ©jenny meehan

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon.com photography ©jenny meehan

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon.com photography ©jenny meehan

 

I tend to use ice, glass, frost, snowflakes as metaphors for trauma, and the way that blossom, though soft and beautiful,  looks like snow when it is falling, fascinates me.  Falling snow melts, and snowflakes are beautiful, things can viewed as  one thing soft, and alive, or conversely hard, sharp, painful.  Falling implies surrender, even death.  Healing from trauma when it happens is trans formative.  It changes the way things are seen and experienced.

 

Just a few here shown.  But blossom and bamboo continue to inspire me!

Some information from Wikipedia;

“In Japan, cherry blossoms symbolize clouds due to their nature of blooming en masse, besides being an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life, an aspect of Japanese cultural tradition that is often associated with Buddhist influence, and which is embodied in the concept of  mono no aware.  The association of the cherry blossom with mono no aware dates back to 18th-century scholar Motoori Norinaga.^[11] The transience of the blossoms, the extreme beauty and quick death, has often been associated with mortality;  for this reason, cherry blossoms are richly symbolic, and have been utilized often in Japanese art, manga, anime, and film, as well as at musical performances for ambient effect”

and

“Mono no aware (もののあはれ^?), literally “the pathos of things”, and also translated as “an empathy toward things”, or “a sensitivity to ephemera”, is a Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence (無常 mujō^?), or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.”

Mono no aware…  How beautiful…

Redbubble.com

I really need to put some more of my artwork on Redbubble, but never seem to get around to it.

I get a small royalty when someone buys merchandise on the site with my design on it.

 

http://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/16697304-new-era-geometric-abstract-rainbow-colours-design-by-jenny-meehan

new era rainbow coloured abstract design by jenny meehan ©jenny meehan

Please note, all my images are copyrighted and should not be used without permission under any circumstances.

If you wish to obtain a license to use a work of art by Jenny Meehan, please contact Jenny Meehan in the first instance to clarify your requirements.

This is quick and easy for both parties and is organised either directly with the artist or through a collective management organisation; DACS, depending on nature of use.

 

Good Quote:

“Shortcomings, both real and imagined, when deeply seen and accepted, are an important part of the transformative process of learning to let go. If we do not let go of the need to be perfect, our need to be perfect will get in our way. Likewise, if we do not let go of our fear of failing, our fear of failing will get in the way. But as we learn to let go of the need to be perfect and the fear of failure, the intimate, earthy stuff of being a vulnerable, loving human being begins to shine through. In an ongoing process of learning to let go we bear witness to the great truth that the master limps. The mastery of life is intermingled with the ongoing weaknesses and limitions that gives life its rich and many layered texture and meaning.”
Copyright © 2013 Dr. James Finleyhttp://contemplativeway.org/newsletter/contemplativeliving.cfm

 

Langstone Harbour – The Tide Comes In

This painting is one from the past, but still available to buy if anyone would like it.  It is a rarity in my work, as it was painted outside, as you can see from this image.

langstone harbour painting by jenny meehan

Langstone Harbour lies between Portsmouth Harbour to the west, and Chichester Harbour to the east. It is a tranquil and beautiful place, the heart of a dynamic urban area, and a vital part of an extensive biological system.

The harbour is home for charter fishing boats and commercial fishermen, and hosts two commercial aggregate wharves. Many recreational activities including yachting, canoeing and windsurfing are also well established in its sheltered waters.

Langstone Harbour is recognised internationally for its importance for nature conservation, and is a haven for aquatic wildlife and a myriad of bird species.

The Langstone Harbour Board works to ensure the harbour remains a safe place for work and leisure, as well as an area rich in plant and animal life.   Quoted from the http://www.langstoneharbour.org.uk/

I love water and water appears time after time in my work. As said before!   This painting was a very immersive experience, and as the tide came in, my feet did get wet!  The canvas blew off a couple of times too!  It started off with a very blue sky and then the weather changed for the worse, but I kept some blue in there!

 

Jenny Meehan, of the mud flats at Langstone Harbour 2009

 

Well, better late than never, this post, originally for July, will have to suffice for August as well!

 

I sell my paintings when no longer needed for study and exhibition purposes.  At between £200 and £500 only, they are very good value indeed.  For a high quality original abstract painting, you may need to look quite a long way for something in this price bracket.  I sell my original paintings to enable me to continue to invest my time and effort into the painting endeavour.  Developing my work, materials, research and study all involve time and money.  It’s a matter of passion in the end.  Any support is welcome and appreciated.  Please contact me via my contact page on my website jamartlondon.com if my painting practice interests you and you are looking for high quality contemporary abstract painting by British female artists.   I also have extensive archives of my paintings and photography which can be licensed quickly and easily through DACS.

 

 

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June Kingston Artists’ Open Studios (OS18) – Small World Futures – A CollectConnect Production at the #unsettledgallery – Surface Work Exhibition links – Tiny Bones Poem by Jenny Meehan – Looking back at some paintings

small world futures chapbook

 

I enjoyed taking part in the Small World Futures project earlier on this year.

And look here….. The delightful chap book!

HUGE thanks to Collect Connect for all their hard work!

Title:  Small World Futures – A CollectConnect Production at the #unsettledgallery

It’s published by Sampson Low Ltd, 2018

http://www.sampsonlow.com/

Chapbook 24

LB088

ISBN 978-1-910578-80-3

All rights reserved.

Text quoted from the sampson low website:

“The tradition of chapbook publishing in England is a long established one and here at Sampson Low Ltd we think it’s the perfect format for our most exciting authors and artists. Although small (A6) and relatively brief (16 printed pages) our punchy publications share their ideas with you in one delicious sitting.”   and see here:

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/chapbooks

This wonderful chapbook is the remaining evidence for the exhibition which took place in public spaces around London Bridge.

“Info: Small World Futures is a collection of 38 miniature sculptures depicting what life could look like in years to come. Each of these small artworks will be placed in public spaces (#unsettledgallery) around London Bridge. A writer will also use the worlds as inspiration.
Venue
#unsettledgallery
Starts
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Ends
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Address
London Bridge, London
Location
London
Organiser
CollectConnect” 

I love this kind of thing…  I sometimes moan a bit about not showing my work as much as I would like because of costs involved.  Something like this gets the work out there on the street.  OK, you have to be prepared to loose it.  But that’s not a bad thing now and again.  I liked very much the writing on my work…I am pretty sure I published it here on this Journal a few posts back.

How good to now have this chapbook as a record!   Do go and buy one for yourself.

https://sampsonlow.co/chapbooks/

vibe drome by jenny meehan

 

Kingston Artists’ Open Studios (OS18)

Kingston Artists’ Open Studios (OS18) took place on 9/10th and 16/17th June 2018 from 11am to 5pm each day.

It was a really good year, and very enjoyable.

Here are some images of my paintings in situ…

KAOS open studios jenny meehan paintings

KAOS open studios jenny meehan paintings

KAOS open studios jenny meehan paintings

KAOS open studios jenny meehan paintings

Kingston Artists’ Open Studios is a voluntary group, and we need and appreciate all the support we can get. If you think you could help us in anyway, do contact us via the link below.  Visual art is important to the health of society, bringing pleasure, connection, and space for contemplation.  The value is not easy to measure maybe, but it is always worth investment.

Hope to see you at this even next year, maybe?  !Jenny Meehan

http://www.kingstonartistsopenstudios.co.uk/

http://www.jamartlondon.com/

 

kingston artists open studios jenny meehan  image from 2017

 

Image shows paintings of Jenny Meehan and ceramics by Cressida Borrett  http://www.cressidaborrett.co.uk/

Contact me via my contact page at jamartlondon if you would like more information!

http://www.jamartlondon.com/contact/4569980742

 

Looking backwards and moving forwards…

Or moving forwards and looking backwards?  !!!

This old post from 2012…

This painting…  I liked it, and it was exhibited at The Ark Conference Centre in Basingstoke.  Titled “Sorrow for Myself”.

The narrative:  The weight is heavy. The sun sets. Broken fragments are carried away. Down stream.  This is sorrow.  Sorrow for myself.  Blood is shed, but it is the blood of Christ which covers. God is compassionate.

The reference:  “Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;

it was our sorrows  that weighed him down.

And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,

a punishment for his own sins!”

We think about being sorry for ourselves as a bad thing.  But it’s not what I meant with using the term “Sorrow for myself”.   I have allowed myself  to feel sorrow for myself, and to feel the sadness which I previously did not allow very much room for in my life.  It seems to be for me a process of allowing myself to feel compassionate towards myself.   I picked up this painting last year and decided to continue to work on it.  I have now titled it “Kaleidoscope” …

Not a great image of it…  Main archive image is still in the camera, but this will do for now.

Also I am increasingly deciding to put watermarks over my images.  It’s a boring job to contact websites and get them to remove images they have no permission and/or license to use.  Very boring.

kaleidoscope painting jenny meehan ©jenny meehan

 

The story behind this title is as follows;   I had a  vision while at an Ignatian Retreat Day at the Mount Street Jesuit Centre a while back where I could see I was holding a kaleidoscope in my hands and lamenting the broken pieces in it.  Then Jesus, or rather, Yeshua the Messiah… (Digression!  So many people just use the words “Jesus Christ” meaninglessly, I am seriously wondering if I might be best to use Yeshua, as it’s more in the historical context and I don’t hear people using it carelessly!) Anyway, back to the point.   He placed his hand on mine and told me to lift the kaleidoscope to my eyes and point it at him.  He guided my hand to turn it and as I did so beautiful light and patterns flowed through it, and the patterns went on forever and ever and they were always changing and all completely different.   Both looking at the brokenness, which was a sorrowful process,  and looking through the kaleidoscope, which was wonderful,  are important.   It was hard to allow Yeshua to touch my hand.  Maybe I felt like a leper, as we had been meditating on Yeshua healing the leper?  Maybe?  I wonder if the turning motion was the process of repentance?  It would seem so based on my current reflections and thoughts.  A continual process.   Allowing our Creator God to turn us around?  Writing words about it seems shoddy and clumsy.  But I continue to think about it.  And to title the painting with its continued work “Kaleidoscope” is just right.

Here it is now.  I showed it at this years Kingston Artists’ Open Studios.

I sell my paintings when they have been exhibited and/or I no longer need them for study and reflection. I don’t sell more than a handful each year. It’s great when they find someone to own them.  Makes more room in my house for the new ones too!  I am increasingly not using frames as they take up a lot of room.  I am now starting to work on card and other substrates rather than stretched canvas.

 

Tiny Bones Poem by Jenny Meehan

 

Tiny Bones

I trod on fragments of bone;
Homosexual, Jew and gypsy.
Unknowingly desecrating
precious loved ones,
with my soles.

A heartless, human realisation –
I did not know, until the man told me.
When he spoke,
my world changed.
Brokenness took a new meaning.
Even the tiniest
prejudice
is a terrible thing.

I took one of the splinters –
pressed it
into my skin
and wept.

Jenny Meehan

lasting stones of memory painting by jenny meehan for holocaust memorial day kingston

 

 

“Surface Work”  Exhibition across Victoria Miro’s London galleries  VERY GOOD INDEED!

This was good… VERY GOOD.  When I found out about it it was straight into the diary.  Essential viewing for any female abstract artist. And other folk too, of course!  I wrote about this a little bit in my last post.  But here is more information…

Some text from the website:

“An international, cross-generational exhibition of women artists who have shaped and transformed, and continue to influence and expand, the language of abstract painting.

Information
Private View 6-8pm, Wednesday 11 April 2018

14 St George Street, London W1S 1FE
Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm

Taking place across Victoria Miro’s London galleries, this international, cross-generational exhibition is a celebration of women artists who have shaped and transformed, and continue to influence and expand, the language and definition of abstract painting.”

It included the following female artists:

“The exhibition includes: Rita Ackermann, Etel Adnan, Gillian Ayres, Sara Barker, Lynda Benglis, Suzanne Blank Redstone,
Betty Blayton, Sandra Blow, Sarah Cain, Varda Caivano, Lygia Clark, Prunella Clough, Angela de la Cruz, Jay DeFeo,
Svenja Deininger, Lucy Dodd, Louise Fishman, Helen Frankenthaler, Mary Heilmann, Ilse D’Hollander, Loie Hollowell,
Tess Jaray, Martha Jungwirth, Bharti Kher, Lee Krasner, Yayoi Kusama, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Katy Moran, Annie
Morris, Rebecca Morris, Victoria Morton, Elizabeth Murray, Dala Nasser, Elizabeth Neel, Tomie Ohtake, Betty Parsons,
Howardena Pindell, Liubov Popova, Fiona Rae, Mary Ramsden, Dorothea Rockburne, Jackie Saccoccio, Mira Schendel,
Yuko Shiraishi, Raphaela Simon, Pat Steir, Hedda Sterne, Alma Thomas, Mildred Thompson, Adriana Varejão, Paule
Vézelay, Jessica Warboys and Mary Weatherford”

List of works:

https://www.victoria-miro.com/usr/documents/exhibitions/list_of_works_url/items/45/454bb64bd0bd410bbd30ffb8d4d2b9cb/surface-work-mayfair-walking-list-final.pdf

Quote from press release:

“Surface Work takes its title from a quote by the Abstract Expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, who said: ‘Abstract is not a style. I simply want to
make a surface work.’ The exhibition reflects the ways in which women have been at the heart of abstract art’s development over the past
century, from those who propelled the language of abstraction forward, often with little recognition, to those who have built upon the legacy of
earlier generations, using abstraction to open new paths to optical, emotional, cultural, and even political expression. Historical and
contemporary works shown in dialogue will create a series of conversations across the decades, touching on themes such as the monochrome,
process, geometric abstraction, seriality and gesture.”

News coverage example:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/apr/15/surface-work-victoria-miro-review-women-abstract-painting?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Guide to the exhibition:

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/8554a0b8#/8554a0b8/1

I posted some images last month.

 

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

The painting above, WELL…That’s paint! It’s inspiring!

Adriana Varejão
Azulejão (Moon), 2018
Oil and plaster on canvas
180 x 180 cm
70 7/8 x 70 7/8 in

 

On the way home I sat at Waterloo station and enjoyed the view!

 

 

Romantic Abstract Expressionistic Lyrical Paintings by Jenny Meehan British female painter

When I get to archiving my current work by processing the images and information I promise I will post them up on this journal.  But this time of year is the important and vital painting season for me.  I need to paint now because I use my studio tent and it is most usable at this time of year.  Kitchen and garden are also handy, but as my paints and tools are all out, sorted and ready to roll, painting has to come first.  This is the least piecemeal part of the year… from March to September and  this is because I focus and drive ahead in all respects. Practically it works best.  Image taking, admin, and all the rest are confined to the darker weeks and days, the colder and the wetter times.  Yes, times like that still occur, this is the UK, of course, and I let the weather determine my course of action and artistic activities.  So my website remains a little need in an update, and digital tasks pile up.  Housework piles up.  All piles up, but the most necessary.  It’s actually much easier to structure things this way than try and equalise the process.  I do write this artist’s journal, but that is because I love to write!  However, this explains the lack of new images of more recent paintings.     So repetition of paintings displayed on this artist’s blog is the necessary result.  Never mind.  Cannot do everything!

catastrophe becoming painting by jenny meehan submitted to 100days100women.wordpress.com british collectable abstract paintings ©jenny meehan

 

This is one of my personal favourites.  It’s got a great surface…I am pleased with what I have achieved.  This is one of my best achievements.

seaside details ©jenny meehan DACS

This is a detail from “Sea Side”.  How annoying… The full painting image is on one of my hard drives and not on this newer computer.  I have extracts but no full view available right now to post.  Never mind!

 

seaside details

seaside details ©jenny meehan DACS

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

summer seaside details romantic expressionist lyrical abstract painting by jenny meehan jennifer meehan

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

seaside details

©jenny meehan DACS
romantic abstract lyrical painting british female contemporary artistseaside details

 

All this dancing and prancing around with painting… lyrical and brushmarks, experimentation and exploration.   I am pushing ahead.

 

This is another sound painting.  As it is the seaside time of year here in the UK…As much as possible,  this is a good one to show now. The side side is one of my favourite places.  Both positive memories from the past and current pleasure inform the feeling.  As my childhood was more sad than not, I hold onto the happy parts most keenly because they were gifts and I am glad I received them.

 

british collectable abstract paintings ©jenny meehan DACS
romantic abstract lyrical painting british female contemporary artist

Ah thank goodness for that “Drop in the Ocean” painting is at least to be found in completeness!

These two go very well together. Not surprising really!   I am selling these, so contact me if interested, via my website;  jamartlondon.com

I sell my paintings when no longer needed for study and exhibition purposes.  At between £200 and £500 only, they are very good value indeed.  For a high quality original abstract painting, you may need to look quite a long way for something in this price bracket.  I sell my original paintings to enable me to continue to invest my time and effort into the painting endeavour.  Developing my work, materials, research and study all involve time and money.  It’s a matter of passion in the end.  Any support is welcome and appreciated.

It’s bye bye for now.

Cannot believe it took until the 18th of the month to get this done.

Never mind.

 

 

Victoria Miro “Surface Work” Exhibition – Kingston Artists’ Open Studios – “Business! Mankind was my business!”; Reflection on Artists and what our Business is – “My Muybridge” Exhibition at Kingston Museum; “Mind’s Eye” by Jenny Meehan – Kaleidoscope: Colour and Sequence in 1960s British Art – Goodbye to Llewellyn Alexander Gallery; Remembering “The Upper Room” – “Christ Under the Tree/Contemplation/Garden of Gethsemane” Painting by Jenny Meehan

Victoria Miro Trip – Surface Work Exhibition

 

A quick shimmy around some of the paintings on show!

 

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

 

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

A bit of self indulgent selfies and digital alterations!

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

victoria miro surface works visit 2018

 

https://www.victoria-miro.com/exhibitions/521/

 

You see, I may not be hanging in a gallery like Victoria Miro’s, but I can still hang around in one, and be inspired.  Many muses sit on the shoulders of those who carry a paint brush (or any other paint applicator!)

It was great just to be there…Great encouragement among some of the remains of work done by other women.  The older I get the more wildly I feel I love painting and the more it matters.  Yet I was also thinking very much, and reflecting on the words:

“Business! Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” is a quotation from A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

 

“Business! Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence,

were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the

comprehensive ocean of my business!”

 

Reflections on Artists and what their “Business” is!

 

With all the ambitions in the world, all the hopes of being remembered, and of having one’s painting remaining, after you die, (and hopefully in more than a charity shop), in all of the random thoughts about the significance of the work you do, and whether it would ever have a high value placed on it in the realm of financial exchanges or not…Many of us artists entertain such fancies, even though we might not admit to them.  It seems that in this current time, artists are treated as entrepreneurs, who operate primarily in order to make money.  Yet the vast majority of us, in my opinion, do what we do in order that we might continue to be able to do it.  This is a non-profit making endeavour. The motivation is not financial. It is much, much greater than that. It’s about humanity, culture, depth of experience, connection with others and with oneself. It is creating a vessel for inner life.  The inner life of us as individuals, yes, this is an essential part, and even doing this can be quite a challenge,  but this also applies to a much larger expanse… Our relationships with the world around us and the inner life of not just our own body but humanity in it’s most inter-relational dimension and expressions. Art is essential, not a side line matter, or something to hold status just because of monetary value, or not.   Any trade is always going to be a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.  And I am very glad I have sorted this out in my own head!

Thoughts of success in the business sense of the word are most probably an illusion. For me, personally, I think this is the case, and I have happily dispensed with the ambition, (for it has popped its head in the door on a few occasions).  It’s taken time to sort out WHY I do what I do, and WHY it matters.  Art making is NOT business for me and it won’t hold that place in my life either. It’s been perfectly acceptable for artists in the past to have day jobs and also be an artist, and there hasn’t been any shame in that.  For me, my “day job” is a mother and homemaker, and undervalued in our society as this job is (not even claiming the merit of being a “job” because it is not paid work), it’s an important and worthwhile occupation.  I have to confess to being grateful that as my offspring get older, I have more and more time released for my artistic endeavours!  There is always a (mostly) healthy tension between the two.  Both affect each other and it’s an interesting relationship.  Less frustrating now than it used to be when the children were younger.

For some artists, for their art working to be a business, may be what they want and aim for…It may matter a great deal, and/or it may need to matter. It may just happen; a fortunate combination of the right factors and knowing the right people, having the funds to get where they want to go, or other advantages which pave the way forward.  Or it may be a huge struggle of the most difficult and challenging type with very little advantage or fortune, yet they manage to do it anyway.  Or a bit of both, from time to time. This is all very admirable, and I think it’s great.  It’s not my path though, and I will always be content as long as I am able to work with materials in the way that I do.  For me it is ALL about working with materials, enjoying writing, and loving relationships. That is loving…and relationships, and loving relationships!

I think that even if an artist’s work does enter the business arena, this  does NOT actually make it more valuable in any but material currency.  The value of your work is the value of your work.  It is part of your life story, and it’s significance lies mainly in that.  It is the expression of your very self and that is why it matters immensely.  I read recently somewhere…I cannot remember where it was… that art is “a vessel for the interior life” and I just love this. Love it to bits.  Involvement and commitment to the arts is a humanistic endeavour; it’s about relationships and interactions with other people and our environment.  Ideas, thoughts, new perspectives, spirituality, insights, human development.  Emotional, spiritual and mental engagement, reflection, and creative regeneration.  Now, more than ever, the interior life is in danger of being depressed.  The time to dwell, reflect, and just be… The time of gazing, experiencing, allowing space and light to exist with no other reason to need to be than that they are.  I guess that is my painting popping into my head now.

Artists bring the artistic imagination into everyday life.

Creative expression is a fundamental human right.

Let’s not forget that.

 

We all, naturally, are pleased when people appreciate our work as artists and show they value what we do. We are especially pleased when collectors decide to buy our work and pay money for it, because money is very useful indeed and can open lots of creative doors in terms of enabling us to try out new ideas, develop professionally, and increase our skills.   Unfortunately, this cannot be counted upon.  It isn’t sufficient to keep us to the task we are engaged with.  A lot of strength and determination need to come from within.  If thoughts of public appreciation and recognition are realistic or not, (and it’s always nice when work is appreciated) ultimately, it doesn’t really matter one bit, because indeed, it’s just “a drop of water” anyway, this money matter.  The business of life, in truth,  is much greater.  I find it helpful to remind myself regularly of this though, because I get so caught up in what I am doing it’s easy to loose all perspective!  Such is the problem of any passion, I suppose. This is most probably why I am taking the time to write what I am now.  I write to myself, as much as to anyone else!

So I am content with my selfies in this gallery, with esteemed work behind me, even though not my own!  Great inspirational visit, much appreciated.

Kingston Artists’ Open Studio!

http://www.kingstonartistsopenstudios.co.uk/

Kingston Artists’ Open Studios (OS18) will be taking place on 9/10th and 16/17th June 2018 from 11am to 5pm each day. I will be enjoying the kind hospitality of one of my KAOS artist companions just a short walk from Kingston Town centre, not far from the Kingston Gate of Richmond Park.  I will be part of the KAOS 9 studios which is based at 14 Liverpool Rd KT2 7SZ   Parking available (metered Sat)

It would make a lovely day out to follow a few of the trails in and out of artist’s homes and studio spaces, so do come along!

For more details, please contact me via the contact page on jamartlondon.com. I will put you on my mailing list and send further information as soon as available!

http://www.jamartlondon.com/contact/4569980742

Hope to see you! Jenny Meehan

I need and appreciate greatly your support!  I don’t take part in any other event, so the Annual Kingston Artist’s Open Studios in Kingston Upon Thames Surrey is the only time I get out there and invest time in this type of activity.  Most of my collectors come across me in other ways.  But it’s a good way to meet me and other very talented creatives!

Basically I work on a non-profit making basis, as any money I get from my creative activities gets fed straight back into my creative project.    Materials, professional development, research activities and writing, plus all the associated tasks which are part of my practice all take time and money. I am fortunate that I can work in the way I do, and I never take it for granted.

Like many artists, I don’t have  profit making aspirations, for me it is simply a matter of wanting to continue to be able to do what I do in life. To be true to myself. And share what I have with others, if it helps and enhances their life in any way possible. I sell my paintings when I have spent sufficient time learning from them and when they have been exhibited.

I sell my original paintings for between £200 and £400, which is amazingly affordable.  I do this deliberately because I would rather my paintings be affordable and bring pleasure to others in an accessible way.  If something strikes a chord with you about my work, then follow your instinct and buy one if you can. If your are not able to, then thanks to the wonders of the internet, I am glad you can at least see them that way.

There is such a wide variety of artists and their work.  All so different and wonderfully unique.

So come along and support your local creative community.  Kingston Artists’ Open Studios is a voluntary organisation which supports creativity!

 

joy pain painting by jenny meehan © Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved lyrical abstract expressionist colourful textural art painting spirituality christian religious faith licensable image book covers etc see jamartlondon.com

Joy/Pain Painting by Jenny Meehan .  One of the works which will be displayed as part of this years super Surrey arts event: “Kingston Artists’ Open Studios”. VERY busy at the moment getting work ready for this.

 

“My Muybridge” Exhibition at Kingston Museum

 

At the same time as the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios is the “My Muybridge” Exhibition, flyer below.

My piece is rather dark and delves into the subconscious mind of Eadweard Muybridge as I imagine it might have been.  Work is a funny thing.  We can do fantastic and amazing things, but in the end it is our being which makes the most significant mark of our existence.  What we do matters, of course, but nothing can take the place of happiness, contentment, relationships, love.  It’s very important for artists to remember this, because we get so caught up in our work.  This is lovely, and yet our work is only one little aspect of us in the end.  I guess I felt I wanted to go beyond his work, as this has had its impact, and it’s out there, well known, appreciated, clearly seen. And it will always be seen and noted.  But I tend to be interested in the things which are not so obvious, and while  speculative, and imaginative, it gave me a lot of pleasure to make this painted collage.  I did this after doing a great deal of research on reports and perspectives, both factual and imaginative,  on Eadweard_Muybridges personal life, as much as we know.

If you are not familiar with Eadweard Muybridge you can do your own little bit of research here…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge

 

Here is an extract from my statement about the work.  Unfortunately the artist’s statements are not shown in the exhibition.  This is a bit of a shame I think, as often new perspectives on a subject are made much clearer when the artist’s thinking and approach; their rationale, is at least glimpsed at.

“My creative practice includes poetry and painting and the relationships between the two. My interest in the subconscious provided the foundation for this work which touches on both lack of affect and the murder of a man.

The Mind’s Eye
What thoughts and memories
unsettled
might dwell in the unconscious mind of the artist
as he works?
Projected onto models…
Figures of his own past
laughing
moving
strangers
touching new pain in the mind’s eye?
Shot images…
they infiltrate the heart
yet, even the most animated
leave it
still
so solitary.

Jenny Meehan 2017”

 

Quite a nice change for me to produce something with a particular subject in mind from the outset. Immense amount of research went into the work.

 

minds eye muybridge artwork jenny

 

 

Kingston Arts at Kingston Museum My Muybridge exhibition surrey cultural event 2018

 

Things which make me happy:  Art Collectors who kindly let me know how they feel about my work!

This lovely quote, written by one of my collectors!  It is always a great happiness to sell and painting, and this is not a simple matter of money, though we all need that, it is far, far more!

“I thought your picture was the finest thing in that exhibition — I am very pleased to be acquiring it. I have lots of things in my collection — Terry Frost, Clifford Fishwick, Sandra Blow, Barbara Hepworth, John Hoyland, Keith Vaughan … Also a fin de siecle artist called Charles Conder.”  

I keep the buyer confidential as I am not in the habit of listing other people’s personal possessions, but it’s bringing a smile to my face, of course!  It’s a few years back now.

 

Kaleidoscope: Colour and Sequence in 1960s British Art

1 April 2017 – 3 June 2018

Looks very good!

http://www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk/exhibition/kaleidoscope-colour-and-sequence-1960s-british-art

Text copied and pasted from the website:

“An Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition

British art of the 1960s is noted for its bold, artificial colour, alluring surfaces and capricious shapes and forms, yet these exuberant qualities are often underpinned by a strong sense of order, founded on repetition, sequence and symmetry. Bringing together outstanding examples of painting and sculpture from the Arts Council Collection and other major UK collections, Kaleidoscope examines 1960s visual art through a fresh and surprising lens, bringing into view the relationship between colour and form, rationality and irrationality, order and waywardness.

As the first Arts Council Collection survey of 1960s British art in over twenty years, Kaleidoscope assumes a wide angle, looking across media and movements to find fresh correspondences. From this perspective, the mind-bending surfaces of Op Art, the flattened repetition of Pop, the mathematical order of Constructivism, and the sequential placement of brightly-coloured abstract units found in New Generation sculpture find a common language shaped by sequence and symmetry.

Kaleidoscope represents the work of over twenty artists including: David Annesley, Anthony Caro, Robyn Denny, Tess Jaray, Phillip King, Kim Lim, Mary Martin, Eduardo Paolozzi, Bridget Riley, Tim Scott, Richard Smith, William Tucker and William Turnbull.” 

I am not going to get there to see it in person, but thankfully so many resources online, I can have a very good research session!!!

 

“Christ Under the Tree/Contemplation/Garden of Gethsemane”

It is always a great pleasure to sell a painting.  I find it interesting and exciting to meet those who decide they like my painting so much they want an ongoing relationship with it!!!  Some of my painting I hold onto, (often for quite a while!) maybe because I am still learning something from it, or I am wanting to hold it for an exhibition or event, or I would like to do some writing around it.  I am always happy to let it go… I see this as part of the process in fact, and I have no wish to die under a pile of my own work!  But I do not paint in order to produce.  Bit of a paradox there!  I have realised I need to keep the creation process completely separate from any other journey the work might make.  The painting has a second life, apart from me, and it has the life which has been happening during its creation. The two are not connected. The reason for the paintings existence cannot be equated in any way with what will happen to it.  It must speak only for itself.  And that must be completely enough reason for its existence.

I have painted only a couple of works as commissions over the last ten years.  I don’t doubt there’s a place for this, but it is not my usual way of working at the present time.  The very good thing about painting something for an external reason or purpose,  is it can introduce very specific challenges which are great to get stuck into. The “Mind’s Eye” painted collage was like this.  And I enjoyed it, for the challenge. It involved a lot of research which takes time.  But it is interesting intellectually.  In creating something for a particular purpose things often get more conceptual at a stage when I wouldn’t normally think in clear thoughts.  Usually the thinking and reflection comes long after I have painted something.  So getting all conceptual can be an interesting dimension to a work.  Or sometimes the challenge can be practical, as it was when I created a painting for the company “All Glass”  So I am always open to external reasons for a painting to be.  However focused I am on what I am doing, I think I always need to be open to change, development, challenge, debate, discussion.  But above all,  nothing should interfere with the process of creation, and the relationship I have with my painting needs to be focused.  This seems to be the main challenge in painting, for me I find.  It’s an act of contemplation which takes time and discipline.  It’s great!

 

The painting below  “Christ Under the Tree/Contemplation/Garden of Gethsemane (yes, THREE titles!)

 

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

I am pleased that this has now a new home.  Also such a lovely comment and feedback on it.  As recent I am not going to quote, but as always, thank you.

 

Another Exhibition at Kingston Museum

 

me in front of anagrams kingston museum banner

Gracious!  This was me in 2016… I have lost quite a bit of weight thankfully!  Kingston Museum chose to use part of my painting on their banner which was good, and here I am standing in front of it!  That was before my knee replacement when I couldn’t walk very far or well at all!  Apologies, this is a bit of repetition.  I write in a piecemeal fashion.  Happens sometimes.  Cutting down time by leaving as it is!

You can see some very interesting pieces of art, including my own offering, at the My Muybridge exhibiton!   Details:  Kingston Art 2018: My Muybridge’ exhibition at Kingston Museum 4 May – 7 July 2018 Wheatfield Way, Kingston upon Thames KT1 2PS

 

Kingston Arts at Kingston Museum My Muybridge exhibition surrey cultural event 2018

Ooops! Bit random, already wrote about that.  Must remember not to write my blog in the same way I paint my paintings! Piecemeal!

Wrote that earlier too!  Ha Ha!  More of the same!

 

Studio Tent… In the Spring and Summer it’s a wonderful place!

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a lot of work going on in my studio tent at the moment.  This time of year in the run up to the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios is always full on!  Love it!  Yet I don’t tend to share my work at this stage in the making…It feels better to keep it to myself.  There is a lot of colour mixing going on.  A fair amount of finishing off too.  A lot of preparation for the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios.

So what I can show you now is a few past photos from the archives.  Though I don’t tend to paint from direct observation very much at all anymore,  I still get my inspiration from creation around me.  Everything goes in through the eyes.  I love looking and look hard as much as possible.  Taking in all the wonder and beauty around me.  Endless beauty and design, beautifully expressed.  So much. So immense. So inspiring.

 

©jenny meehan

Creation and nature is so wonderful, I love it!  Cannot bear to copy something like this flower above, because it is so perfect anyway!  Do enjoy taking photos though!  It’s all colour, light and composition which are such a joy.

 

 

A small selection of memory images

I’ve posted these because I don’t tend to show my photography anymore…it’s all paintings I exhibit.  But my archives are full of photographs and my photographs are memories which still beckon in visual directions and serve some kind of purpose for me in reminding me of things which have made an impression on me and which I thought worthy to remember.  Though my photographic output is not what it was, due to the need to focus on painting, I like to share past digital imagery.

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

 

 

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon.com photography

 

As you can see, water is a repeated theme.  In various forms, from ice to unfrozen!  Vast amounts and small amounts.  I spend a lot of time looking at water!  Water is an element which repeatedly inspires! It’s immensely relaxing, interesting, and amazing!

 

 

 

Digging Up Old Posts…Fragment from 2012 Jenny Meehan WordPress Artist’s Journal

I always enjoy a reminisce, and here is one:

“If you are in London this Summer,  take a look at the “Not The Royal Academy” exhibition of original artwork at Llewellyn Alexander (Fine Paintings) Ltd situated very close to Waterloo Station. There is a  varied selection of paintings on show, and seeing them makes me think I really ought to try to enter something into the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition next year. It helps to think that if you don’t get something in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition itself, you could have a chance of getting something on show at Llewellyn Alexander’s “Not The Royal Academy” exhibition instead.

http://www.nottheroyalacademy.com/#salon

The exhibition of paintings at Llewellyn Alexander is changed around every three weeks, so I think I need to go and take another look soon.  The paintings are representational and taking a quick look at the website it looks like the prices are around the £400 mark in the main.  It is a very pleasant gallery, they are always very welcoming and though the space is quite compact, they always seem to use it well ensuring that the do have quality, fine painting on show, rather than paint squeezed out a tube, with a long explanation of what it means!

Thinking about the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition , and possibly entering a painting in it, it is a lot of hassle for a very small chance of success, but on the other hand, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” comes to mind.  You never know.  It’s all a bit random I am sure, pot luck really, but it is exposure and I have realised that I can save some money by reducing the pages on my website next time it comes up for renewal, so I might just re allocate the money saved to enter the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition next year.  If I paint a representational painting, it might get into the Llewellyn Alexander show, so I might just do that.”

I was up in London near Waterloo Station recently and noticed that Llewellyn Alexander was, by all appearances, at the end of its’s life.  And I find it is all done and dusted!

“After 31 Happy years of trading,
the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery
closed its doors on February 24, 2018.

Best wishes to the many customers
and artists who enjoyed our exhibitions.”

Well, all things do come to an end.  But I will miss the gallery immensely.  It was a lovely place to visit…I particularly liked their miniatures and the “Not the Royal Academy” exhibitions.  The year after I wrote the text above I did submit to the Royal Academy and then, rejected in due course, trundled over to Llewellyn Alexander with my painting “Upper Room”.  Interestingly, though it is an abstract painting, they received it and exhibited it, and this is something I am very grateful for.  I felt it  somewhat of a compliment, bearing in mind the work is so abstract.  It’s a great relief when people can see quality in an abstract painting.  For indeed, though bold, abstract and  bright, the painting did involve a sensitivity and discernment which is not always spotted by all who cast their eyes on it.

lyrical abstract painting selected for “Not the Royal Academy” exhibition at Llewellyn Alexander Fine Paintings Waterloo in 2013. For sale.

 

I do still have this original painting, so contact me if interested.  I am normally happy to part with paintings if they have been shown in a public exhibition at least once.  And if I have dwelt and learnt from them long enough, which is the case with this one.   I am happy for it to go to another life now.  It’s a signature painting…What do I mean by that?  I think it marks a decisive point in my creative evolution. It was awareness of presence and the importance of this in a painting which became a clearer goal.   And those glass beads, of course, and pure pigment.  Which continue to feature in much of my painting.   I sell my original paintings, when ready to roll away with the waves and embark on their new life with another person between around £130 – £500.  I would rather have them appreciated by other people than just hanging around here, so keep the price on the low side… Gotta be realistic.  There’s a lot of wonderful art work in the world. A lot of choice.  My prayer is simply that the paintings find a friend they can live with, are appreciated, and that the person that buys them LOVES the painting, and continues to get a lot of solace and enjoyment from gazing at it.  Then it has done its job and I have done mine.  And as long as I can continue to do the work I do I am happy.   Here’s some old text about the “Upper Room” or “The Upper Room”.

Here’s some information on my painting “The Upper Room” which is to be included in the “Not the Royal Academy” exhibition at Llewellyn Alexander (Fine Paintings) LTD.  (I just love to include the “fine paintings” part!   I know I could miss it out quite easily!)

“The Upper Room” is a painting in which I started with no idea of the direction it might take me in, instead responding to each mark and colour as the painting progressed in a process based approach. Using both my instincts and formal considerations, I ended up with this. Emotionally, it made me think of the New Testament account of Jesus taking the Last Supper with his disciples, I think because of the sense of presence and warmth it communicated to me emotionally, (The Holy Spirit, the comforter, “I will be with you”) even though it contains a large area of black. Also, because of the way it is held together with a building type structure; upper and a lower areas, and suggestions of both entrance and exit. Pentecost also happened in an “Upper Room” though not the same one, I don’t think.

 

Well, that is more than enough for this month! I have a habit of continually popping different pieces into place!

PS…

 

If you would like to give money to help support my creative practice I can accept it quickly and easily through the Paypal.me process. Simply put the following in your browser:
paypal.me/jennymeehan and follow the prompts. Please consider supporting my work in this way if it strikes a chord with you and you are able to do so. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way via this system for me to send a “Thank you” to you, so you will need to just simply know that I appreciate it very much indeed!    Putting work into exhibitions does unfortunately cost money, and yet I like to get it out there.  Submission fees are the bane of my life, and I will spare you the moan. Because I have moaned before on this blog and there is no need to moan again!  (The Kingston Museum Exhibition was fine, by the way,  and no gripe with that, very very good arrangements, and very fair,  but so many exhibitions require considerable chunks of cash JUST to submit…)   That’s even before you get your work shown, (or not).

My ego doesn’t matter, it’s not about that. It is NICE to have work selected, yes, it’s a nice affirmation, but only a bonus. An artist makes their work for themselves primarily. The have to hang it in the gallery of their soul and be completely happy for its presence to inhibit them forever!  But when it gets hung elsewhere, it’s great too, because it is shared, and who wants to keep something all for themselves when it can be shared? But It’s the way things are this paying to show your work to others. A right pain.  Sometimes just a small amount.  Not a problem. Just a bit of a shame when money is made out of artists wish to exhibit their work, sometimes so ruthlessly.   As an artist, you just want your work to be seen, because as music is made to be heard, art is made to be seen. Simple as that.

Jenny Meehan on Redbubble.com

Redbubble is a great “print on demand” website and I have some of my images there.  The world is full of fabulous artists and Redbubble is a good place for buying merchandise which is original, exciting and contemporary.  The artists on Redbubble get a royalty payment from any items that you purchase there, so it is one way to support the creative community and help artists gain a little bit of income from their work.  Do take a look!

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams?asc=u

I get around 30% of the price you pay for the merchandise you buy.  Every little helps!

 

 

Spring! Sun! Kingston Open Studios fast approaching -Easter Art Installation at St Paul’s Church of England, Hook – The Soldier and the Cross poem by Jenny Meehan – Signs of the Times geometric abstract prints – Drop in Drawing and Painting, daytime art tuition – Kingston Art 2018: My Muybridge’ exhibition at Kingston Museum “Mind’s Eye” by Jenny Meehan selected

Little Robin Friend

robin my supervisor!

Well, my little robin friend is serving as supervisor in the garden right now!  I go out there just for a look or for a rumble around the studio tent and I hear his chirp, see something flitting through the foliage, and there he is!  Before I know what has happened, I find myself digging around in the earth… weeding, moving pots, filling pots with earth…  I tell myself I am doing this because it needs to be done, but the truth is that while this is true, the most immediate reason is this little robin is telling me he wants me to work in the garden so he can have some insects, worms, and whatever else I reveal!

I am now to be found rustling around myself, not in the foliage but in the studio tent.  This year I am keen on rollers it seems and have an assortment.  I started using them last  year in experiments and now I have gathered quite a few.  It’s good to have new tools to experiment with. So there’s some action happening.  There is a lot of tidying up to be done, and I am grateful for the studio tent.  OK, it has its limitations, but I know of many artists whose studio space isn’t much different, even when “indoors”.  The only difference with mine is that it gets rather damp and wet.  I have extended it now.  It consists of two tarpaulin covered market stalls and has now ventured into the side passage and outhouse.  That’s the wet and damp part, because there is a crack in the ceiling. It’s reinforced concrete.  The good news about having a large crack in your ceiling is that the water does drip down through it.   I’m serious.  It’s better for the water to have somewhere to go than to build up above and then damage the concrete further.  Well, that’s how I have chosen to think about it!

In this new darkened area of my studio tent, or now my studio tent with outhouse extension, is that I can experiment with larger substrates and also light projection.  I have been wanting to do this for ages, so at last a new door is opened.  I have purchased some folding tables too, so I have more table space.  It’s great to have more space.  I cannot quite use it fully yet because of the weather, but it’s not as if I am waiting around to do things.  There is always plenty, and more, to do.

Generally in life I am feeling less frustrated by the demands of the domestic using up time when I could be painting.  It’s always a huge conflict, but acceptance helps a lot.  I am beginning to appreciate the benefits of having my focus fragmented into so many pieces, as it forces a kind of relinquishment which I think probably helps in the long run, even is somewhat frustrating short term.  I have always had workaholic tendencies, and  often found myself doing the work of two people (unfortunately not for double pay!) in past jobs, so I am aware of constantly overreaching and over stretching myself.  This is not a problem as long as one is aware of it.  It needs to be managed, addressed, and disciplined!  And life… Needs to be enjoyed!

I remain secretive, as is appropriate, about current work in progress.  For my eyes only! But always willing to look backwards!

 

Signs of the Times Series

 

© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights ReservedQuick Dip print by Jenny Meehan. One of the Signs of the Times series

 

There’s a great feeling of rest looking at the smooth flat colours of the signs of the times laminated prints…I’d never bother trying to create that surface in paint which is why I continue to appreciate this series.  And the compositions are still teaching me a lot.

 

© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved Rush Hour – Jenny Meehan Signs of the Times Series

 

Rush Hour is one of my favourites.  You can buy a version of it here, on Redbubble.com.

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/13790846-rush-hour-calm-in-the-cityscape-design-by-jenny-meehan?p=art-print&rel=carousel

 

I get a small royalty from any sale on Redbubble.com.  Every litttle helps!

 

Enclosed Garden (Hortus conclusus) Digital Print from Jenny Meehan’s “Signs of the Times” print series. See more at jamartlondon.com

 

“Signs of the Times” hung at the Cornerhouse Community Arts Centre, Surbiton Surrey

 

That was a long time ago!  The good thing about the laminated “Signs of the Times” is they can be hung in bathrooms and kitchens.  I have one which has been hanging in our bathroom for years, and it looks just fine.  No mould or any deterioration.  If you would like to buy one of my own signed versions contact me via my website as I have one or two still around.  I am not planning to print any more, as Redbubble do such a great job of producing good quality prints.

http://www.jamartlondon.com/

 

 

No Cares/Take Courage/Leap of Faith print from Signs of the Times series by Jenny Meehan

This is another favourite of mine…Again, available from Redbubble.com

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/13790986-no-cares-take-courage-leap-of-faith-design-by-jenny-meehan

 

 

 

The night time version of Calm Moment, maybe calm moment in the dark, partner of calm moment in the light!

Here’s an artist’s statement which was submitted with some of the series “Signs of the Times”

Artist Statement – Jenny Meehan

My current body of work, some of which you can see on the enclosed images, is basically a series of experiments with shape and colour. After having worked throughout last year on a series of very lyrical and process led paintings, I realised that I felt the need for more structure in my work. Fuelled by an interest in conveying emotion and thought through elements of abstraction, while at the same time seeking that sense of formal balance which I consider essential to my work, the series of digitally produced laminated prints which I have called “Signs of the Times” relate to my own life and experiences.

The current series will also form the foundation of further paintings in the future, and bring to my painting practice an element of planning. I think that, far from being rigid and inflexible, this will introduce an initial underlying structure which I will be able to use in a very exciting way as I experiment with the relationship between solidity and fluidity in future paintings. Each step in the process of developing my work opens up numerous possibilities, and I cannot be sure exactly of what will happen, which is rather exciting. I do not take a scientific approach to my art, but view it as a process which defies logic, by necessity, and embraces the irrational and spiritual within me.
So these works, though they stand in themselves and I consider them finished, like everything one does are neither an end nor a beginning, but part of an evolving and organic process which I feel pulls me along with it, to some extent. I feel very fortunate to be able to work with visual language and consider it a great privilege to do so. “Signs of the Times” is an interesting experiment in relating thoughts and emotion to visual language in a very direct way.

Jenny Meehan is a Fine and Applied Artist based in South West London/East Surrey, United Kingdom. She works mainly with painting, drawing and digital photography and also writes poetry and an artist’s blog. Jenny also teaches small groups and individual in her studio space. More examples of her practice can be found at http://www.jamartlondon.com .

There are still some “Signs of the Times” in progress, as I work in a piecemeal fashion over periods of several years.  It’s a very enjoyable way of working with shapes and colours!

 

Easter Art Installation at St Paul’s Church of England, Hook

I was very pleased to be able to create this installation in service to the Church and in order to help the prayers and reflections of any who ventured into the building during Holy Week.  I will post some additional images soon when I have worked on them, but this gives you an idea. Other members of the church also created some beautiful places to reflect.  It was well worth the effort.

 

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

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holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

holy week art church of england hook jenny meehan

 

Lots of images!

It all seems rather a long time ago now!

Was a bit last posting up the April blog entry!   Open Studios is rapidly approaching and this is a very busy time of year for me!

Not quite done with the contemplative theme though…

 

The Soldier And The Cross

This is an old poem I wrote a few years back.  I didn’t display it as part of the installation in the church but I have re read it, and edited it slightly.

The Soldier And The Cross

For a moment
I thought you a bit of a wimp…
To turn,
And say to me
“What have I done to you?”

I saw…
In your innocence…
A victim mentality
related to my response to suffering…
A powerless moment

of weakness
and subjection.

And ALL in me,
ALL that grasps onto power…
Felt repulsed
and
disgusted by you.

By the sight of you.

Because…
It was true…You had done nothing,
Yet, I hated you,
and your holiness
frightened me.

 

I,
I am the accuser.
I have raged against you
And despised the look of love on your face.
In paranoid fear
I have threatened you with my wrath
And struck the blow
which tears across your face.
I have hardened my heart
against your love
and pushed you
hard, straight down
against the ground.

In acts of violence
I have hated, and hated more.
I have hated you
More than I dare say.

So  how do I stand?
Do I have  a place to stand against you?
And can I stop your
Love
from breaking me?

If I believe,

just for one
moment

that you might choose to forgive?

 

©jenny meehan

 

 

Drop In Drawing and Painting

I have finished the sessions until September.  I am a trained teacher and I like to use my teaching skills to help people with the development of their own visual expression.

 

 

I will be running some more sessions from September.  I shouldn’t call them “Drop in” really, as I do need to know in advance if people can come.  So if you are interested in these do contact me, and I can send you more details.   They are suitable for all levels, as the input is very much individual.  The advantage of them is that it is possible for people to just come for a “one off” session, rather than needing to sign up for a whole course.  This gives more experienced artists a chance for some input as they feel the need, and in pace with their own work flow.   It gives beginners a chance to experiment creatively with support and a level of input normally only possible with individual tuition.  I don’t plan a structured session, but the structure is determined by the individual needs of the students attending.  I do normally throw a few ideas about for possible areas to explore and experimentation, which all those attending are invited to spend some time on if they wish, though normally people come with existing work, or work in progress, or an idea of what they would like to do, or are trying to achieve.   Contact me via my website if you are interested.  There is sometimes a bit of a waiting list, as I don’t hold many.  http://www.jamartlondon.com/

Time Passes Painting by Jenny Meehan

I have this painting on the wall at the moment and am getting a lot out of it.  It’s an early abstract painting but I am still learning from it.  I might well take it along to the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios event this year.

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images

 

I have started removing some of my canvas paintings from their frames and will sell them unframed now.  It means I can sell them for a bit less, (£180) and I have found that often people either like to select frames themselves or like to display them unframed.  It takes a lot of time for me to make frames, which I have been doing up until now, and it is also very expensive.  As the pace of my painting has increased, I am less inclined to spend time with framing.

Kingston Artists’ Open Studios (OS18) will be taking place on 9/10th and 16/17th June 2018 from 11am to 5pm each day. I will be enjoying the kind hospitality of one of my KAOS artist companions just a short walk from Kingston Town centre, not far from the Kingston Gate of Richmond Park.

It would make a lovely day out to follow a few of the trails in and out of artist’s homes and studio spaces, so do come along!

For more details, please contact me via the contact page on jamartlondon.com. I will put you on my mailing list and send further information as soon as available!

http://www.jamartlondon.com/

Hope to see you! Jenny Meehan

If you would like to give money to help support my creative practice I can accept it quickly and easily through the Paypal.me process. Simply put the following in your browser:
paypal.me/jennymeehan and follow the prompts. Please consider supporting my work in this way if it strikes a chord with you and you are able to do so. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way via this system for me to send a “Thank you” to you, so you will need to just simply know that I appreciate it very much indeed!

 

Upper Room Painting by Jenny Meehan

This one isn’t on the wall, but it’s the one I use for the background of my website jamartlondon.com.

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images

It’s available for purchase if you are interested.

 

Good News

 

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan

I have had my painting “Mind’s Eye”, image above (sorry, not tarted up image yet!) selected for the exhibition at Kingston Museum this year, details are:

Kingston Art 2018: My Muybridge’ exhibition at Kingston Museum 4 May – 7 July 2018 Wheatfield Way, Kingston upon Thames KT1 2PS

Bit of a departure for me in this one, using images.  Like collage..

 

TO FOLLOW THIS ARTIST’S BLOG SIMPLY GO TO THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN, LOCATE THE  “FOLLOW” BOX AND POP IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.  YOU WILL THEN RECEIVE MONTHLY UPDATES. 

 

Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) is a painter-poet, artist-author  and Christian contemplative  based in East Surrey/South West London.   Her interest in Christ-centred spirituality and creativity are the main focus of this artist’s journal, which rambles and meanders on, maybe acting as a personal (yet open to view)  note book as much as anything else.  

Her website is www.jamartlondon.com.  (www.jamartlondon.com replaces the older now deceased website http://www.jennymeehan.co.uk)

Contact Jenny via her website: 

http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/contact/4569980742

 

 

If you would like to give money to help support my creative practice I can accept it quickly and easily through the Paypal.me process.  Simply put the following in your browser:

paypal.me/jennymeehan

and follow the prompts. Please consider supporting my work in this way if it strikes a chord with you and you are able to do so. Unfortunately there isn’t a system in this facility for me to send a thank you.  But if you do use it, then understand that I am grateful!

Another way you could support my participation in the visual arts could be by praying for me, if that’s part of your daily life. As mentioned above, I also put some of my visual art work on the “print on demand” website redbubble.com. People buying merchandise with my designs on through redbubble.com results in my gaining a royalty for the use of the image concerned.

Signing up as a follower on this WordPress blog also helps, as does sharing the posts when you receive them.  Anything you can do to help me is much appreciated!  Time and money is limited for me, and it’s a challenge being a mother-artist in terms of promotion and increasing awareness of what I do.  I put my energy into producing my artwork.  For the rest, I need any help I can get!

Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) BA Hons (Lit.) PGCE  offers art tuition.  Please contact Jenny through the contact form at www.jamartlondon.com for further details.  Availability depends on other commitments.    

 Jenny  works mainly with either oils or acrylics  creating both abstract/non-objective paintings  and also semi-abstract work.  She also produces some representational/figurative artwork,  mostly using digital photography/image manipulation software, painting and  drawing.  Both original fine paintings, other artwork forms,  and affordable photo-mechanically produced prints are available to purchase.

This artist’s blog is of interest to artists, art collectors, art lovers and anyone interested in fine art.  Those interested in British 21st century female contemporary artists, women and art, religious art, spirituality and art, and psychoanalysis and art, will probably enjoy dipping into this Jenny Meehan Contemporary Artist’s Journal.

Art collectors are often interested in the processes, techniques, interests and influences of the artists whose work they collect, and sharing my thoughts and perspectives through a blog is an important dimension of my creative practice.

My main focus is directed towards process led abstract painting, and you can view some examples of this on my website jamartlondon.com.  I encapsulate my painting as being romantic,expressionistic, abstract and lyrical.  Art collectors interested in lyrical abstraction, abstract expressionist, and essentially romantic art, are likely to find my paintings an interesting and exciting addition to their art collection. Art collectors can view a list of exhibitions I have taken part in on my websites exhibitions page; http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/exhibitions/4570944550

Art collectors can see selected examples of my original paintings  organised by year on jamartlondon which gives you a brief overview of the development of my painting over the years:

http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/paintings/4570156802

I am a self-representing artist, whose aim is to ensure  I continue to develop my painting practice in an innovative and pioneering way, rather than attempt some kind of commercial success, and whose aim is also that my work is historically relevant, rather then celebrated in that so called and illusive “art world”.  I hope to add to the number of people who value, collect, and develop an interest in my paintings and to thereby sustain and develop my practice over many years. 

Desiderata written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann – Past Visual Art Work – Henry Moore Quotes -Gum Arabic Preparation and Watercolour Paint -Great Quote from Frank Auerbach

After having left my February post on the late side, I am getting the March post in early!  The piecemeal nature of this journal continues its meandering way, as I do mine, making my way through the vast expanse called life!

 

Desiderata written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann

Someone pointed me in the direction of this lovely piece of writing, which I share with you.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

 

This has been quoted from the following website:  https://www.poemhunter.com/max-ehrmann-2/

Desiderata was written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann, a poet and lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana. The word desiderata means “things that are desired.” Ehrmann said he wrote it for himself, “because it counsels those virtues I felt most in need of.”

There are also many audio versions of Desiderata by Max Ehrmann, for example the following:

 

 

 

This journal; this “meandering discourse”, serves to educate you on what happens alongside my painting and visual artwork. Though I don’t often make direct references to all that inspires me, confronts me, meets me, greets me and generally impacts my life, and therefore my work,  (which is just as well to be honest, because the important meaning in your relationship with my painting is based upon your own life and experience, not mine), however, my painting is one facet of the whole, not the whole, and folk often like to know about the creator behind the art.  Sharing what inspires me, may add a dimension to someones experience of my work, and this is something which can add some depth.  Many artists are also writers, and/or musicians.  It’s good to have different forms to hand.  I think writing for me has relieved me of some pressures, and given me a place to explore concepts through a medium I find best suited to it.  With painting I am relieved of any need to say or sound anything other than the materials I work with, the rhythms of painting are poetic and resonate emotionally, free of any need to be or say anything other than they are.  And that feels good and liberating to me.  So I write regularly and this is helpful.  It is a very useful tool to have, among the paintbrushes, rollers, and collection of materials.  And now I have started to learn hand drumming, which is probably the best new activity I have started for years.  This links in with my painting; the connection being rhythms and resonance, and presence and space and all those things which words don’t quite manage to express!

I learnt one of the rhythms from Sinte last night!

 Kingston Artists’ Open Studios 2018

Getting ready for this year’s Kingston, Surrey Artist’s Open Studios.

Kingston Artists’ Open Studios (OS18) will be taking place on 9/10th and 16/17th June 2018 from 11am to 5pm each day. I will be enjoying the kind hospitality of one of my KAOS artist companions just a short walk from Kingston Town centre, not far from the Kingston Gate of Richmond Park.

It would make a lovely day out to follow a few of the trails in and out of artist’s homes and studio spaces, so do come along!

For more details, please contact me via the contact page on jamartlondon.com. I will put you on my mailing list and send further information as soon as available!

Hope to see you! Jenny Meehan

 

Bits and Bobs

I post past work up from time and time.  I find it helpful to look back fairly often and ask new questions about what I was doing and why.  It also reminds me of what matters to me, and how certain strands have developed over the years.  It’s essential in order to come up with new directions, because in looking back you actually see things anew and recognise the elements of your work which you still like and which interest you.  Like old friends, who know you well, they often offer important insights!  Here is some past work:

 

“Round and Round Inside My Head” Monoprint  by Jenny Meehan

Oil based ink, graphite, and oil pastel on paper.

jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images

I don’t use linear elements in my work so much now, or when I do they are hidden lines formed not from direct application of a media but from edges and the meetings of other forms.  I have recently started using tearings and collage a bit more and this is bringing line into my vocabulary once more.  I have been once again inspired by Francis Davidson, whose work I saw again at the end of last year, and this exhibition was helpful to me.  I likes the strips very much and this has given me a few thoughts about future direction which are very timely.  I don’t tend to talk about my thoughts for the future in any detail as they need incubation time, and it is easy to diffuse things before they have properly had a chance to grow.

I think of Henry Moore saying ” It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work. (Henry Moore). I heard or read that quote years ago and it has stuck with me.  I completely “get” this.   I love writing and have decided to keep the sharing of my work to this Journal, rather than use Instagram.  I did start using Instagram, but felt this “dissolve” immediately.  As far as I understand it is thought best for artists to share their work in progress. Because this is interesting.  People are interested in  how artists make their work.  However this feels like a violation to me.  This is probably due to the way I personally work, because I work in such a piecemeal, gradual, and extended process, with work coming out and being put away, over a period of years. Privacy is part of the process.  It’s not that I don’t share work in progress at all, because I do.  But I don’t want the pressure of feeling I need to supply a stream of my work to other people before it has found itself and feels some degree of its own resolution.

If my work was different, I don’t think this would be an issue.  For example, if I was sketching and making work which went from start to finish in one fell swoop, I don’t think I would feel the same way about using Instagram.  Slightly conversely, this journal gives me a chance to share about my work but in a way which is limited, quiet, and doesn’t have the effect of diluting any of the energy.  I don’t talk about my work very much at all to other people, only quite rarely.  I find it interesting being a visual artist in this current age, where so much is public that would not have been public in years gone by.  It gives me some pleasure that my writing is here for people to read if they are interested, but I see this Journal as being as much a tool for my own development as it may be for “the public” eye.   It is the only organised writing I have, because the rest floats around all over the place, in small notebooks and pieces of paper!   The organisation of it, in the  liquid “stream of consciousness form, may be it’s prime virtue! Kind of not chaos and not order, but between the two!

Below is  “Baptism/Into the Ocean” Painting by jenny meehan

 

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images

It looks equally good rotated to the left and displayed as portrait…  This is available for sale so contact me via my website contact page at jamartlondon.com if interested.  http://www.jamartlondon.com/

It’s got a lot of energy!

“Pillar and Moon”  below is also available.  http://www.jamartlondon.com/

 

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images

 

This digital photographic work below evolved from a photograph taken in Oxshott Woods, one of my favourite places.  I went there each Sunday as a child and continue to make regular walks through the woods!

 

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images

 

Henry Moore Quotes

I quoted Henry Moore earlier and found several quotes from him I would like to take note of:

The important thing is somehow to begin. (Henry Moore)

If an artist tries consciously to do something to others, it is to stretch their eyes, their thoughts, to something they would not see or feel if the artist had not done it. To do this, he has to stretch his own first. (Henry Moore)

To be an artist is to believe in life. (Henry Moore)

Art is a continuous activity with no separation between past and present. (Henry Moore)

 

Jenny Meehan on Redbubble.com

Redbubble is a great “print on demand” website and I have some of my images there.  The world is full of fabulous artists and Redbubble is a good place for buying merchandise which is original, exciting and contemporary.  The artists on Redbubble get a royalty payment from any items that you purchase there, so it is one way to support the creative community and help artists gain a little bit of income from their work.  Do take a look!

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams?asc=u

I haven’t put much up new, but did add this a few months ago:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/29863227-dyno-blue-wall-tapestry-design-by-jenny-meehan?asc=u&ref=recent-owner

It’s called “Dyno Blue”.  Quick burst of activity on the computer, and there it is!  The wonders of technology!

dyno blue tapestry design jenny meehan © Jenny Meehan. All Rights Reserved, DACS

 

Gum Arabic Preparation

I was recently looking over some experimental paintings I had made with  home made watercolour paints.  The paints still look great in their pots.  I made mine to keep in liquid form and put more clove oil in them.  They are keeping very well.  I really enjoyed making them and it much easier to be lavish and generous when using materials which are more affordable.  All the pigments used were mineral, earth, iron oxides or mixes, and and NO FILLER at all!  It is great to have better control possible through being the master or mistress of your own fillers!!!!

I didn’t use honey, (I don’t think, or I may have just put a bit in, cannot remember!!!) but as said, I wasn’t trying to make blocks, and kept it liquid!  Here is the recipe I used but I used my slow cooker.

Gum Arabic Preparation
Ingredients
• 300 grams (10.5 oz) Gum Arabic powder
• 3 drops Clove Oil (optional)
• 1 liter (2.1 pints) of boiled water
The ratio is 1 part gum to 2 parts water. Boil water and pour over the powdered gum, stirring to make sure there are no lumps. Allow the mixture to soak 24-48 hours for full absorption.
Add drops of Clove Oil to extend shelflife. Prepared Gum Arabic must be stored in the refrigerator to deter mold growth. It may be advisable to make small batches so the solution will be fresh rather than storing larger quantities for an extended period of time.
Watercolor Preperation
• Prepared Gum solution (Arabic or Tragacanth)
• Honey (Acacia is preferable) in a 10% proportion to the weight of Gum solution used
• Pigments
Mix all the ingredients and crush them on a glass plate using a spatula to obtain a paste with a thick, creamy consistency. It is recommended that you finish the mixture by crushing it with a glass muller (available at art supply stores). Transfer your paints to saucers for painting. When creating your initial gum, you may wish to addGlycerin as a plasticizer to prevent cracking and brittleness. The ratio would be 1 part Glycerin or less by volume to 5 parts of your prepared gum solution. Add the Glycerin after gum has been completely dissolved but while still warm.

I still have my gum arabic solution in the fridge, over a year later, and it still looks fine.  I use it in my hair at the moment, because I have made myself a single braid, and need to dip the end of it into the solution to make it easier to thread a bead through it!!!  I didn’t bother with grinding pigments….  I like using them a bit coarser, I prefer the way the light bounces off them.  If I was painting miniatures or tiny detailed paintings I guess I would want them finer but why use them finer unless you need to?

Studio Tent

 

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

The image above was taken in the Summer.  It’s still too cold in the studio tent at the moment, but I have started pottering around in there!

Below a few images of work.  These two “Yoga Inhale” and Yoga Exhale” paintings both sold.  I take lots of photographic images of my work, cropping and at different angles and orientations, as it is a helpful way of looking at what I have done.  Details also get forgotten.  Particularly if I don’t have the painting any more.  I use previous paintings for reference points all the time.

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress

New Knee Anniversary!

One year today, I had my knee replacement!  Now I have hit the one year mark I am stopping my piece of writing, which inhibits another page on this blog. https://jennymeehan.wordpress.com/the-very-patient-knee-replacement-story-by-jenny-meehan/

Not going to write much here about the knee, more than mention it.  The project is over!  My life goes on, and it’s a lot better than it was just over a year ago!

Great Quote from Frank Auerbach

I enjoyed reading this interesting article:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/16/frank-auerbach-when-paint-fantastic-time-lots-girls?CMP=share_btn_fb

My favourite part:

“He says the obligation to take account of the art that has gone before carries two demands: “first that you attempt to do something of a comparable scale and standard, which is impossible; second that you try and do something that has never been done before, that is also impossible. So in the face of this you can either just chuck it in, or you can spend all your energy and time and hopes in trying to cope with it. You will fail. But as Beckett very kindly said for all of us, ‘try again, fail better’, and painting just took me over.”

That’s it for this month!

PS

If you would like to donate money to help support my creative practice I can accept donations quickly and easily through the Paypal.me process. Simply put the following in your browser:
paypal.me/jennymeehan and follow the prompts. Please consider supporting my work in this way if it strikes a chord with you and you are able to do so.  If you do this, there isn’t a system for me to contact you and thank you, so you will need to believe you have my heart felt thanks!

Another way you could support my participation in the visual arts could be by praying for me, if that’s part of your daily life. I also put some of my visual art work on the “print on demand” website redbubble.com. People buying merchandise with my designs on through redbubble.com results in my gaining a royalty for the use of the image concerned.

Signing up as a follower on this WordPress blog also helps, as does sharing the posts when you receive them.  Anything you can do to help me is much appreciated!  Time and money is limited for me, and it’s a challenge being a mother-artist in terms of promotion and increasing awareness of what I do.  I put my energy into producing my artwork.  For the rest, I need any help I can get!

Small World Futures – Vibe Drome by Jenny Meehan – Why Abstract Painting Isn’t Music by Dr Patricia Railing in Philosophy Now – The Joy of Keim Silica-sol Mineral paint – Past Drawings from Observation; Rear Access Roads of Chessington, Surrey – A Prayer of Anselm (1033-1109) – Kingston Artists’ Open Studios 2018 –

Well, another month, another post!

Quite late to post February post on the 19th!

The older you get the quicker time flies!  Indeed, I am mid month, and only just posting this entry!  For time may have wings, but I don’t.  Though it’s great to be able to walk now! (March 8th, last year…Total Knee Replacement!!!) This journal serves as a tool for my creative practice.  It’s a reason to write with a deadline, of sorts, and keeps me writing, reviewing, thinking, and having a space to think and reflect, as well as enabling me to share snippets of what I am up to with my visual art practice. I throw in a poem here and there, and chew over random thoughts from time to time.  I share paintings, drawings and photographs, both past and present. Sometimes those in progress and those which seem finished.

Though I keep my website jamartlondon.com reasonably tidy and succinct, on this Jenny Meehan Contemporary Artist’s Journey, I take my meandering discourse wherever it will go. Great fun.  Not a perfected piece of writing but a narrative, partly to myself and partly to you.  A note book of a kind.  A discipline.  A record.  A way of me looking back from time to time to reflect on what I have been thinking and doing, how things have changed, how they are the same, and simply just wondering.

I have always enjoyed the stream of consciousness writing form, so while I do edit this journal a little bit, the overarching idea is I just write whatever I fancy at the time and don’t worry very much at all about structuring it.  It’s a bit of a collage I think.  I hope it serves as some kind of insight into my visual art activities and it provides some release for me in terms of enjoying very much the process of writing, researching and reflecting.  It’s not a solid and it’s not a gas.. It’s a liquid.  Not  order.  Not chaos.  Somewhere in between!

Unfortunately this cannot be said for my studio tent, which does need some attention.  It’s nice for the flowers to have somewhere to grow though!

studio tent jenny meehan

Time to tidy up, before March, when it gets (hopefully) warmer!

“Vibe Drome”: One Small Piece of the Small World Futures project!

Image of the Small World Futures contribution from myself!

Image credit: ©Alban Low

The “Vibe Drome” (My nick name for this world!) is taking part in the “Small World Futures” exhibition at the Unsettled Gallery, London Bridge.  Look out for it, and if you find it, be careful…It may pick you up!

Many other interesting pieces to be found! Hopefully, if they stay there for long.  Let’s hope they do!

Here is some text quoted from the CollectConnect website:

“Here at ColllectConnect we’re starting 2018 with a fascinating little exhibition. Small World Futures is a collection of 38 miniature sculptures depicting what life could look like in years to come. Each of these small artworks will be placed in public spaces (#unsettledgallery) around London Bridge. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these worlds here on the website. A writer will also use the world as an inspiration to create something new and fresh, their words describing the shape of a new world.

In the autumn of 2017 Dean Reddick and Alban Low began cultivating a series of public exhibition spaces around London Bridge called the #unsettledgallery. These include flowerbeds, railings and gates, as well as spaces between bricks, in gullies and beside drainpipes – basically anywhere an artwork can rest and be seen by the public.  Although these spaces change and evolve on a daily basis, several housed artworks for a longer period of time. The Small World Futures will find their homes in these public spaces. They may stay there for an hour or a week. Perhaps they will plant a seed of an idea in the people who see them.”

I did write my own text for the Vibe Drome, but I have kept that under covers so that my own ideas don’t influence anyone else’s.  Take a look at the blog to see more on the project and lots of fabulous future worlds with the writing which they have helped to inspire!

http://collectconnect.blogspot.co.uk/

And here is the delightful poem to accompany it,  by Natalie Low:

Today we discover the Small World Future of…. Jenny Meehan
The year is 5,000,000,000 AD

Twinkle twinkle dying star
No escape from what you are
Hanging limply in the sky
Watching us all wave bye-bye
Twinkle twinkle dying star
Au revoir our ex-solar.

Now your light and fire are gone
Earth’s too cold to live upon
You can’t blame the human race
Off to try another place
Twinkle twinkle dying star
Au revoir our ex-solar.

© Natalie Low

(Included on here with permission from Natalie Low)

I will be going to visit it in person very soon.  Hopefully it will still be there!  It looks like it is worth something due to the shiny parts.  My earnest wish is that a magpie in need of some bling might locate it and take part of it away for its nest.  I think anyone picking it up in search of worldly wealth is going to be very disappointed.  Damien Hirst may well have been able to use real diamonds on his skull, but my sculpture is, quite literally, a world apart.  Some information from Wiki on Damien Hirst’s skull:

“For the Love of God is a sculpture by artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of an 18th-century human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead that is known as the Skull Star Diamond. The skull’s teeth are original, and were purchased by Hirst in London. The artwork is a Memento mori, or reminder of the mortality of the viewer. Costing £14 million to produce, the work was placed on its inaugural display at the White Cube gallery in London in an exhibition Beyond belief with an asking price of £50 million. This would have been the highest price ever paid for a single work by a living artist.^[2]”

Rather than inhibit an interior space, I am hoping that my piece dies a natural death, remains in its place, and looses its worthless jewels in the beak of a magpie.  I have to say, I have never seen a magpie around the London Bridge area, but you never know, there may be a small chance!

Do take a look at Alban Low’s website too.  He’s doing great work in a variety of ways!

http://www.albanlow.co.uk/

He’s busy sketching on the radio at A World In London at Resonance FM nearly every week, as well as plenty of gigs around London. Have a look at http://artofjazz.blogspot.co.uk/

I love his drawing!

Why Abstract Painting Isn’t Music

https://philosophynow.org/issues/50/Why_Abstract_Painting_Isnt_Music

Patricia Railing on the point of abstract art, and on how it works.     I am reading through and reflecting on this.  It’s one of the best pieces of writing on painting I have come across in a long time!

NOTE: I have emboldened some areas for my own notes, this is not in original text.  

“A recent exhibition in Paris at the Musée d’Orsay, entitled At the Origins of Abstraction (Aux Origines de l’abstraction), explained the advent and practice of abstract painting at the beginning of the 20th century as the ‘translation of music’. Thus continues into our new century the widespread misunderstanding of the early abstraction of ‘pure painting’ and of the relationship between painting and music.

Certainly there were composers who wrote scores accompanied by colour-light shows (e.g., Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov) and painters like Ciurlionis who wrote scores as sound compositions of their paintings. This correspondence between the arts issued largely from Symbolism and had been inspired by scientific studies of colours and tones as sensations. The ‘pure’ painters – Vasily Kandinsky, Frank Kupka, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich – who followed after 1910, however, always declared that their paintings were not music, nor that they were painting music. Rather, they claimed that painting’s colours have an effect on the human being just as music’s tones do: the relationship between music and painting is a parallel one, colour and tone affecting and enlivening human feelings. 

Painting and Music Play on the Instrument of the Feelings

It is the feelings, then, that are the ‘instrument’ on which colours and tones play their tunes. The media are different but both set the feelings in motion, giving them a particular kind and quality.  In his 1912, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky wrote: “Generally speaking, colour is a power which directly influences the soul (i.e., the feelings). Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” (Dover Publications, p.25). It was Schopenhauer who had inspired this image of the feelings, writing: “We ourselves are now the vibrating string that is stretched and plucked” by pleasure and pain, by harmony and dissonance. (The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, p.451.)

References to music abound in Kandinsky’s book, and he gave musical titles to three groups of work between 1909 and 1914: Improvisations, Impressions, and Compositions. Frank Kupka also titled a few of his works with the musical terms of Nocturne and Fugue. So critics at the time, standing before works the likes of which they had never seen in their lives, latched on to the musical theme and explained this abstract painting in terms of music. This was so frequent that Kandinsky was compelled to state in a 1913 catalogue and a 1914 lecture: “I do not want to paint music. I do not want to paint states of mind.” Rather, it had to be understood that the “laws of harmonics in painting and music are the same”, to borrow the title of Henri Rovel’s article of 1908 in Les Tendances nouvelles.

This parallelism of the arts of painting and music was based, on the one hand, on their inner creative laws and, on the other hand, on their effects in the human realm of feeling (called the soul). This is neatly illustrated by Kandinsky and by Franz Marc in letters of January 1911 after they had attended a concert of the music of Arnold Schoenberg. Remarking particularly on the composer’s 1909 Three Piano Pieces, Kandinsky wrote to Schoenberg: “The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my paintings.” What Kandinsky meant is made clearer by Franz Marc, writing to Auguste Macke: “Can you imagine a music in which tonality (i.e., the adherence to any key) is completely suspended? I was constantly reminded of Kandinsky’s Composition [see Illustration], which also permits no trace of tonality, and also of Kandinsky’s ‘jumping spots’, in hearing this music, which allows each tone sounded to stand on its own (a kind of white canvas between the spots of color!)”. (In Schoenberg, Kandinsky, and the Blue Rider, Scala, 2003, p.25 and p.21.) Applied to his painting, Kandinsky’s ‘jumping spots’ of colour allow each colour to stand on its own, independent of colour tonality. To feel the content of each tone or each colour, to feel their ‘independent voices’, is one of the essential creative aims of the abstract arts of music and of painting around 1910.

Composition

Why should artists want to tap the feelings in this way? This is a broad issue and part of the Zeitgeist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two aspects of this are particularly relevant. First of all, artists wanted to see behind appearance, or rather, they wanted to see the realities that create appearance, at a time when publications on the new physics were providing a new understanding of creation itself. Secondly, the artists were among the first to explore another reality: that of colour itself and tone itself, together with their effects on the human being. This was based on the many 19th century publications by experimental scientists like Helmholtz, Wilhelm Wundt, Freud, Mach and others. The premise of this work was that the nerve-sense system is a dynamic system in constant movement, receiving and responding to stimulae, called sensations, which are found to directly affect the feelings and hence states of mind. This field of exploration, called psycho-physiology, informed Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kupka’s Creation in the Plastic Arts, Malevich’s writings, and traces are also found in Mondrian’s writings. The metaphor that the feelings are like a musical instrument playing the songs of life allowed artists to take a new look at their media. Scientists were asserting that colours and tones have direct and verifiable effects on every individual, so artists set about exploring the vast artistic realm of sensation and feeling through colour and tone, and this resulted in a new form of artistic expression. Artists could play on the harp of the soul, plucking now one string, now another, now sounding them together. This inner music, “in which tonality is completely suspended,” in which “jumping spots allow each tone sounded [or painted] to stand on its own,” was the touching of the soul (the feelings) directly. The created work was thus pure music or pure painting, having no intermediary and no intrusion from the world of thought in the form of any kind of imitation (mythology, religious philosophy, history or genre). It was the pure music or the pure painting of pure feeling in the artist’s use of colours and tones, stimulating pure feeling in the spectator.

 

All is Energy

But what were the ‘laws of harmonics’ that stood behind the creation of pure painting and pure music and that were common to both? Essential to them is that they were based on yet another component of the early 20th century Zeitgeist: the world-view that all is energy, dynamism, movement. This was asserted by the new physics of Einstein (1905 and 1916), Maxwell’s treatises on electromagnetism (1870s), Max Planck’s paper on quantum theory in 1900, Poincaré’s works, and so many others. Thus, the laws of harmonics – by which is meant the laws of constructing music and painting – are to be found in the laws of movement, dynamism and the expression of energy. The laws of construction are the forming processes of music and of painting, and they are parallel to the forming processes found in all reality. As music is the art of movement itself, and painting had always been thought of as a static art, it was to the language of music that painters turned for want of a traditional vocabulary of movement.

The Constructive Laws of Rhythm

‘Rhythm’ is music’s most basic component. Tone moves according to rhythm, but colours in a painting are also arranged according to rhythm. The same is true for poetry. In How Verses Are Made (1926) the Russian poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky, wrote: “I went along, swinging my arms and mumbling almost incoherently, now slowing down so as not to disturb my mumbling, now mumbling quicker in order to keep time with my feet. That is the way to shape and plane rhythm, the basis of all poetry, which runs through it in the form of a subdued roar. Gradually, you begin to extract individual words from the roar.” And in the same year the German painter/poet/composer/builder, Kurt Schwitters, noted:

“What art is you know as well as I do: it is nothing more than rhythm. And if that’s true, I … can modestly and simply give you rhythm, in any material whatsoever: bus tickets, oil paints, building blocks, that’s right, you heard me, building blocks, or words in poetry, or sounds in music, or you just name it. That’s why you mustn’t look too hard at the material; because that isn’t what it’s all about…. [Just] try, in spite of the unusual materials, to catch the rhythm of the forms and the colours…. Every artwork throughout history has had to fulfill this primary requirement: to be rhythm, or else it isn’t art.” (In poems performance pieces proses plays poetics, Cambridge, MA., Exact Change, 2002, p.229.)

In nature, rhythm is the manifestation of energy in its forming process, and it functions according to one of two fundamental laws: that of progression, and that of the contrast of forces; usually they are found together. Progression is always numerical and/or geometrical, as in the Fibonacci series, while the contrast of forces is the law of polarity, those forces of the centrifugal/centripetal, push/pull, the attraction/repulsion of electromagnetism. In art, rhythm is also the manifestation of energy in the forming, creative process. The law of numerical progression had been the fundamental creative means of classical Western music; in painting it is found in perspective – geometrical – and proportion – numerical. When artists like Schoenberg and Kandinsky began to use the law of the contrast of forces rather than that of progression, music and painting became subject to entirely different rules of rhythm and, hence, to entirely different rules of harmony, made up of consonance, the means according to which the law functions, and dissonance, the necessary opposite of consonance.

In the creative law of numerical and geometrical progression, consonance is determined by adherence to the particular order or structure of progression; dissonance is introduced when that order or structure is violated. When an artist creates using the energy of polarities, the law of contrasts – of tones or of colours push-pulling, attracting and repelling – consonance is that state of balance between the two forces while dissonance is that state of imbalance between the two forces when one or the other increases or decreases its energy. Movement or dynamism then take the place of a state of rest, allowing change to occur. Because of the innate dynamism of polarities, the term ‘dissonance’ became an alternative word for ‘creativity’ for many artists. Thus would Kandinsky write to Schoenberg in his letter of January 1911:

“I am certain that our own modern harmony is not to be found in the ‘geometric’ way, but rather in the anti-geometric, anti-logical way. And this way is that of ‘dissonances in art’, in painting, therefore, just as much as in music. And ‘today’s’ dissonance in painting and music is merely the consonance of ‘tomorrow’.”

It is interesting to note here Schoenberg’s interpretation of the term ‘anti-logical’ in his reply to Kandinsky, writing that it is what “I call the elimination of the conscious will in art.” Around 1910, art was rejecting cultural anecdotes of whatever subject matter, no longer constructing according to linear, intellectual progression, and becoming instead a means of revealing the very nature of the human being, a being that is dynamic, continuously ignited by contrast in the feelings, in thinking and in life itself. Art gave expression to, and extended, the potential of this vast creative realm, the realm from which the human being extends into the world and creates it.

Rhythm is innate to the human being, to the breath and to the heartbeat. It is innate to the very existence of nature and the universe. Rhythm, for so many early 20th century artists, was the heartbeat of all reality and it was the very substance of Frank Kupka’s art. Drawing on Henri Bergson’s Creative Evolution, and on many scientific publications, Kupka made visible the invisible forces of growth in nature, the universe and in the physical human body. These forces – taking the shape of the spiral, the triangle, the vertical and the horizontal – are both the scaffolding of everything that exists and the means of its creative laws. They are so, they are both particle/form and wave/energy, because they are determined by rhythm. Catching the rhythm meant catching the chord which holds together the human body, nature and the universe, meant catching the energy that creates.

Rhythm is not a thing: it can only act through things. For the painting-composer these things are colours and forms, for the music-composer they are tones. We shall consider painting only.

To begin with colour. In their writings, Kandinsky, Kupka and Mondrian all describe how colours function both optically and in the realm of feelings and, therefore, how they can be used to set up many, many kinds of rhythms. As Kupka wrote in Creation in the Plastic Arts, “The radiation of vital energy in nature, and of the same energy which dwells inside us, always manifests itself through the relationships between different vibrations and, therefore, between different colours.” (Liverpool University Press, p.87.) Scientists had shown how long exposure to certain reds made the subject anxious or angry, for example. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art Kandinsky writes that the intensification of a certain yellow “increases the painful shrillness of its note” (p.68). And Kupka says in Creation in the Plastic Arts that violet is “a mixture of passion and reason, is the colour of thought and of bishops” (p.86). Playing the strings of the feelings meant playing the effects of the colours on the feelings. And suddenly, the painting becomes active and activated, the spectator experiencing the light vibrancy or heavy thud of ‘jumping spots’ and, in the case of Kupka, say, a swirling of blues where inner movement is harmonious and pleasant.

Forms, too, affect the feelings. Kandinsky did studies on the effects of shape, concluding that the pointed triangle made a different impression on the subject than the curved circle, and he published his findings in 1926 in Point and Line to Plane whilst at the Bauhaus. Colouring the pointed triangle yellow or red produced yet another effect on the observer, one being harmonious and satisfying, the other like a conflict between two forces and thus producing another feeling. It is precisely in the law of forces, whether they are consonant or dissonant, that the laws of harmonies are found. Rhythm is an expression of these forces.

Painting, then, has a ‘grammar’ of colours and of forms, to use Kandinsky’s word. Simple and straightforward as the grammar itself might be, it allows great complexity of expression, just as the written and spoken grammar of words does. We have only to compare the painting of Kandinsky and Mondrian: Kandinsky’s Composition II (1910, destroyed) was full of colour energies in animated, painterly movement, while Mondrian’s compositions with the primary colours of red, yellow and blue (1920s and 1930s) were made of few colours in flat planes held within a few horizontal or vertical bands. The former work is visually dynamic, the latter are visually static. The former has many loud or breezy rhythms rushing about, the latter have quiet, even silent, rhythms, especially noticeable in the white and black paintings such as Composition II with Black Lines, 1930 (Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven). All these rhythms we feel, played as they are on the instrument of our soul, our feelings. These paintings do not come from music, they are not the translated tones of Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces or any other musical composition. But like anything that makes the soul sing – or weep or jump or dance – they can be called ‘musical’, if that is understood as only a metaphor for organised movement and dynamism.

Pure Painting, Pure Aesthetics

Consonance and dissonance of rhythm in pure painting, the play between contrasting forces and their coherence or unity, was for Vasily Kandinsky the basis of the new ‘harmony’, as he concluded in Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Kazimir Malevich called consonance and dissonance and their unity in the work of art the ‘new aesthetic’, in the opening paragraph of his 1919, On New Systems in Art / Statics & Speed. Malevich writes that this new aesthetic, this new means of affecting the feelings directly through artistic means, is seen in nature by the artist as “painterly masses in motion and at rest, … the unity of diverse painterly forms; … the symmetry and harmony of contrasting elements”, the painter rejoicing in nature’s “flow of forces and their harmony”. Similarly, sitting before his canvas, the painter:

“regulates the flowing forces of colour and painterly energy in a multiplicity of forms, lines, planes; he also creates forms and the different elements of their signs and achieves a unity of contrasts on the surface of his picture. Thus the creation of contrasts between forms leads to a single harmony in the body of the construction without which creation would be inconceivable.” (In Malevich on Suprematism, University of Iowa Museum of Art, 1999, p.55.)

And all this because the contrasts set up by consonance and dissonance produce a harmony of the feelings. Pure painting had led to pure aesthetics, one that was of and for the feelings alone (without the intervention of thinking through mimesis), while awakening consciousness, the mind. This is why artists claimed that art was finally fulfilling its true task.

Since painting had become abstract after 1910, it could certainly be talked about in the same way as Schopenhauer had described music. Abstract painting was rhythm touching the feelings directly so now, it too, like music, was a ‘copy of the world will’. No longer passing through objects of the world but passing over them, no longer depicting only fragments of reality, abstract painting, like music, was independent of the phenomenal world of objects. Abstract painting objectifies the will itself, directly (no longer indirectly through ‘mimesis’, the imitation of the phenomenal world) through its artistic means and their arrangement, also like music.

Abstract painting, however, had taken a further step: because it embodies pure rhythm, which takes place in time, whilst existing as an object in space, abstract art brought time and space together in a way that had been inconceivable for Schopenhauer and 19th century painting and sculpture. Abstract art was a reconciliation of fundamental opposites. As the union of space and time, abstraction was both ‘representation’, or pure forms, and ‘will’, or pure energy, it was particular and universal, it was material and essence – that essence that sings its way through all eternity in every living thing.”

© Patricia Railing 2005

Dr Patricia Railing has published widely on early 20th century abstract art. She is director of Artists.Bookworks which publishes artists’ books and writings of the early 20th century.  See:  https://artistsbookworks.co.uk/

This piece was originally published in Philosophy Now Issue 50, as follows:  https://philosophynow.org/issues/50/Why_Abstract_Painting_Isnt_Music

Included in this blog by kind permission.

I am delighted to find this article and I find it vastly helpful and insightful.   It certainly describes excellently what my painting means to me and how I see it functioning.  It is amusing to me that I have recently started learning African hand drumming and am very excited about rhythm and movement, seeing a connection between the drumming, dancing (which I have often done when painting, often wearing clogs!) and movement in general.  Since my knee replacement and the experience of pain and disability, and of having my movement restricted, the importance is felt even more deeply.  I am very much looking forward to the Summer this year, when I plan to work on some bigger paintings which incorporate recent developments in my practice.

The Smell of Paint!

Walking into a gallery in Cork Street last December  made a big impression on me but not for the reasons you might think!

The SMELL!

Paint fumes!  They had painted the walls with thick emulsion paint, and the sculpture on show was also painted.   I told them about the smell, and asked if it was the walls or the sculptures.  They told me the sculptures had been repainted and that it was that but it smelt like both vinyl emulsion and enamel paint to my nifty nose!

It was the Waddington Custot Gallery,  (Waddington Custot 11 Cork Street, London W1S 3LT) and the show was very good.  Here is some blurb quoted from the website:

“David Annesley (b. 1936, London) received early recognition for his colour sculptures at The New Generation: 1965 show at the Whitechapel Gallery, London. The exhibition showcased a new generation of sculptors who had been taught by Anthony Caro at St Martin’s School of Art in London in the early sixties. The new approach was defined by the placement of sculptures directly on the ground, allowing them to occupy the same floor-space as the viewer; the use of new materials such as fibreglass, aluminium and plastic, which were less expensive and more practical than traditional bronze; and the use of bright colours.”

I enjoyed looking around, and enjoyed the effect of the shadows on the work immensely.  That, and the wonderful experience of three dimensions and all that walking around, back and forth, and playing around with the angles and other joys that sculpture has which the flat 2D plane hasn’t!

https://www.waddingtoncustot.com/artists/150-david-annesley/works/11184/

However, the feeling of space was spoilt for me by the fumes of the paint!

As they had just painted the walls it seemed a bit late to tell them about Keim silica sol paint and how much better it would be if they had painted the walls with it!  The smell from the sculpture was only half of it, I am certain about that!

Paint to love…

The kind of paint you use in your home or work environment is very important.  There is such a thing as indoor pollution, and the experience of walking around that gallery really brought that home to  me.  Indoor pollution is caused by things like building materials, heating, chemicals and cleaners, materials and furnishing, paints and solvents, and mould and bacteria.   Unfortunately we are  not always very  aware of this.  I was thinking of using some blue loo fluid recently in some painting. I wanted to use the colour as it is very violently blue and as I am trying to use materials I already have as I start to experiment with working on a larger scale.  I guessed it has no binders in it, but the synthetic dye itself is very strong and I thought it would be interesting to play with.  Until I found out that it had formaldehyde in it! Among other things.  That put me off the idea, so I let that one go.

I am not thinking I need to ban these chemicals from my life and work entirely, as this wouldn’t be practical.  But it is important to be aware of VOCs, … Volatile Organic Compounds.  VOCs are chemicals like formaldehyde, Benzene, Toluene,  Acetaldehyde.   Conventional paint finishes do contribute to poorer indoor air quality by releasing VOCs.  Sad, but true.  Of course,  I use acrylic paints in my fine art paintings…Yes, like many artists, the event of acrylics has opened up new avenues to us.  Plastics have changed the way we live.  I think of acrylic paints as working with liquid plastic. Not a nice thought, but we live in the age we live in!  There are useful qualities about PVA and acrylics, as there are of all plastics.  Indeed, I am currently spending quite a bit of time experimenting with plastic.  Never thought that would happen!  But at the same time, I feel concern about pollution and the environment.

It was when I started researching for the mural at Trafalgar Junior School several years back, that I spent some time looking into more ecologically friendly paint and this was when I discovered the virtues and qualities of it.  I looked at many different types of paint and materials, and worked on the mural with both Beeckosil and Keim Soldalit.   I preferred the Keim Soldalit, which is a third generation silica sol mineral paint, because of its ease of use.  It was easier to manipulate on the vertical surface of the walls, and I used it for the linear elements.  Silicate paint of all kinds has a much better light reflective quality, and how paint reflects light is pretty much an essential interest for any painter!

Though I have not continued with painting murals due to my knee problem,  now I have my new knee, at least I can experiment again with painting on a large scale and also using my new found mobility in my work.  Action, movement, motion.  Rhythm.   I am liking the sound of it all!   I can now stand as long as I need to.  Even dance!  The only problem I have right now is lack of wall space and lack of floor space!   I did paint a painting on the outside of the house with a roller a few years back, which is nice, but painting the outside of the house is not very transportable work, and I do like to take my work to other places, not just in the home!

I am currently involved in a lot of experiments with more substrates and Keim Optil.   I am thinking along the lines that as long as I know the qualities and limitations of the paint I work with, I will know how far I can push it or not.  And in terms of the pigment looseness on certain substrates and the flexibility, or lack of, of the paint on certain substrates, as long as I know what I am working with, all will be well.  It may be that I produce some temporary paintings, or it may be that I produce some paintings which need to be kept behind glass.  It may also be that I find some options which would not conventionally be acceptable, ie not working to the usual criteria necessary for practical use in other spheres, ie interior or exterior decorative purposes, but which would be interesting and do-able in the arena of fine art.  It is not likely that I will be posting or publicising what I do for a couple of years, as I find it takes a few years to find a direction worth walking in.  Indeed,  I have been using the Keim silica-sol paint in my work for several years already, though often in combination with acrylic paints.

Nothing should be rushed.  Even the newest things need time to die first before they come alive again.  It’s the same with glass.  I have an undercurrent of using that in my paintings which goes back a fair few years now.  And I have only just begun. The trouble and delight of using different materials in painting is they open up so many different avenues that it is quite possible to get lost very quickly.  Hence the necessary reserve and holding back on quickness to display what I am up to! Besides, it’s a tender process, this painting matter.  It’s all quite vulnerable at first, new ventures.  I think it will be interesting to relinquish my need for permanence and to produce some work which may be of a temporary nature.  The main thing is that the nature of the work is clear.

I am actually quite a pedant when it comes to materials.   I take great care in ensuring my paintings are light fast, sealed, with no loose pigment, unless displayed under glass. I think about the practical considerations for a person who collects my art work and wants it to last as long as possible, and too be cleanable, practical and enduring!  Yet I am thinking new thoughts also, about an openness to exploring in some different ways.  With paintings which I may not keep, or which may not last maybe?   I may experiment with that as well.  I think as long as an artist knows the material they work with, they can risk playing around!  And I certainly know my materials.

Using recycled materials as much as I can, is something I plan to do.  Even in my house, I have plenty of materials to hand.  I was disappointed to find out that my local borough does not have a community paint recycling scheme!  A lot of needless waste is created by the lack of such schemes.  I have written to the local waste department, and to their credit, they are looking into the matter.  I am going to need to buy a little bit of vinyl emulsion for sure, but I would like to buy as little as possible.  Well, I cannot actually afford to buy very much, but this doesn’t matter.  It is probably just as well!   Using  mineral paints is my preferred option  and is much nicer to use, looks beautiful and holds a lot more promise.   I like the inorganic oxide pigments much better.  Having said that, I am currently also experimenting with the synthetic dyes available a lot, though obviously NOT in the silica sol mineral paints!  It’s getting interesting seeing the different directions I am being taken in with these two very different types of paint and pigment!

Keim  silica sol mineral paints are environmentally friendly and sustainable, VOC and solvent free, odourless and non-toxic, anti-bacterial and breathable, and basically brilliant!

https://www.keim.com/en-gb/

For my purposes,  acrylics and vinyl emulsion paints are OK, in small quantities only!

Plastics etc are very useful, but we don’t seem to be handling them very well in terms of looking after our environment and our lovely world.

My oil paints seem to have been put aside for the time being.  I have nowhere to dry oil paintings!  This is another problem with not having an interior space of dedicated use for painting.  The studio tent is still rather too cold to work in right now.

Not Drawing…

Yeah, I am not drawing much of late.  I like drawing from life.  But I have other tasks which just seem more pressing.   But not drawing doesn’t mean I am not looking.  It’s making that mental space to dwell on what you see.  It can be recorded and interpreted, or just taken in.  But the main thing is the looking.   I guess.  Will, it will have to be, for me right now, for the time being!

Here is some past drawing.

The rear access roads in Chessington were a bit of a refuge for me, and a very good place for drawing!

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

rear access roads chessington art jenny meehan

Sitting outside and drawing was lovely, and I still remember the very kind lady who gave me a sweet, and the worried looking cats whose territory I was invading!  But these drawings in no way convey the feeling or the desolation I felt.  The grief and the void.  They cannot convey the place I was in, even though they depict it.  They were enjoyable enough to produce, and I do like a bit of drawing from time to time, but they don’t reveal any strong interest.  The visual experience which held me fast and touched me, which sung out for the future and which offered a sense of direction, was all to do with paint, surfaces, texture, and some beautiful revelation possibly neatly summed up particularly in  two photographs I took.  Though they were just two of many, for I took photograph after photograph of my observations in the rear access roads of Chessington, it was “Wall Painting” and……

 

insert

Speaking Out Project

Just realised that there is this record of one of the projects I was involved with a few years back.  It was an excellent project, so do take a look:   Speaking out.

It was a fantastic privilege to be involved in this. As someone who experienced violence from a very young age and who has done a  lot of work in psychotherapy to recover from the trauma of it, my involvement in the project, while challenging, did serve as a means to focus thoughts in a way which it would have been easier to avoid. While no one wants to be re-traumatised, I have found in my own creative practice that working visually, and with poetry, can help me come to terms with what has happened, and helps me make something positive from adversity.  I hope this may serve someone else in some way, who has had a similar experience.  Articulation, be it written or visual, can sound a sound and resonate in another human being in a way which can help facilitate healing. Maybe it is just bringing some kind of order into being?  A sense is felt.  It’s a comfort in itself maybe? A recognition? Because though we are all completely different, we do share in our suffering.   For in understanding a feeling, there can be a meeting of sorts.  I don’t know.  I am not a theorist.  But it’s good to wonder!

What is happening this year?

Well, the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios!

I will be taking part once more.  So pencil in your diary!

OS18 will be taking place on 9/10th and 16/17th June 2018 from 11am to 5pm each day

Open to all artists and makers living or working in the Kingston area
Kingston Artists Open Studios is a group of artists and makers based in and around Kingston. Our main annual event is our open studios when we open our studios to the public for two weekends in the summer. But our members are active throughout the year, taking part in exhibitions and events both nationally and internationally. See: 

http://www.kingstonartistsopenstudios.co.uk/

http://www.kingstonartists.co.uk/

A Prayer of Anselm (1033-1109)

 Jesus, like a mother you gather your people to you;

you are gentle with us as a mother with her children.

Often you weep over our sins and our pride,

tenderly you draw us from hatred and judgement.

You comfort us in sorrow and bind up our wounds,

in sickness you nurse us, and with pure milk you feed us.

Jesus, by your dying we are born to new life;

by your anguish and labour we come forth in joy.

Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness;

through your gentleness we find comfort in fear.

Your warmth gives life to the dead,

your touch makes sinners righteous.

Lord Jesus, in your mercy heal us;

in your love and tenderness remake us.

In your compassion bring grace and forgiveness,

for the beauty of heaven may your love prepare us.

Amen.

 

Such a beautiful prayer. 

Redbubble.com

Redbubble is a great “print on demand” website and I have some of my images there.  The world is full of fabulous artists and Redbubble is a good place for buying merchandise which is original, exciting and contemporary.  The artists on Redbubble get a royalty payment from any items that you purchase there, so it is one way to support the creative community and help artists gain a little bit of income from their work.  Do take a look!

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams?asc=u

See some of my paintings on my personal website jamartlondon.com

 

 

January 2018 – Oil Paintings “Poetic Landscape/When Trust Breaks” and “Alabaster Loving” – Pat Steir Painting Video – Poetry by Jenny Meehan -Suburban Meditations/Painter’s Development – Painting and Photography – Theological Wanderings – Virgin Birth and Sinless Christ Questions; Do Christians have to believe in the virgin birth and Do Christians have to believe that Jesus Christ never sinned?

Happy New Year!

I continue with my experiments with materials and a little bit of finishing off of paintings in progress.  I never work on one thing at a time.  I always need to have several paintings going on at once.  However, as I currently have well over 20 paintings on the go, I feel it would be a good idea to narrow down the range a little bit.

Though my plans are to paint on a bigger format, I still enjoy working on smaller pieces and I can see that continuing into the year.   I am mad to work on a bigger scale in so many respects, financial and practical.  But I cannot resist the temptation.   I feel that my painting is something that people should be able to immerse themselves in in the way that I enjoy immersing myself in it.  Making it bigger makes that easier I think.  So much is thrust at us visually.  We are completely bombarded with images from all angles.  Bigger in NOT better.  No way.  But it’s what I want.  It presents more challenges, and to be honest, I am so grateful for my mobility, that I feel if I don’t do it now, as the years go by, I cannot take for granted that I will be able to make bigger paintings later on.  Yet I must make bigger paintings which don’t take up too much room.  Because I don’t have enough room as it is!

I am also thinking about my oil paint.  I have a lot of it but am not using it in the way that I used to.  I am going to try and make some oil sticks with it, to use with my acrylic paintings.   I like making paints and enjoyed making my own watercolour paints a couple of years ago.  Making oil sticks will be fun too.

Here are some past oil paintings:

Oil Paintings “Poetic Landscape/When Trust Breaks” and “Alabaster Loving”

These two oil paintings are linked intimately with two of my poems, and I have enjoyed reviewing both the paintings and the poetry which accompanies them.

Part of coursework on a short course at West Dean College 2010© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

 

OOOps!   Due to moving things around on various hard drives I cannot locate the poem for the above painting right now!  Another time!

“Alabaster Loving”  is slightly later, finally resolved in the following poem:

Alabaster loving

I have hardened my heart.
Made a cave
within which I can hide away my flesh, bruised and dark.
Sobs in silence, surrounded
still
alone.

You came later, bearing gifts from afar…
Some nativity story you said, in recognition of me being the chosen one. Redeemer, and Saviour of your soul.

My love, holding the hope you hungered for…
But I could not carry it.
Each little spark of faith, placed religiously in rapid motion,
layer upon layer, tear upon tear, and sorrow upon sorrow.

You looked to me, and believed your self would define your better being
in a little child…
But I could not carry it.
“I wish you were like other mummys.” I say.
And you are sadder still.

I see them, with their children laughing.
I wish for my own fairy godmother,
able to transform rags.
Cinderella’s dress is blue with a bright bodice
Joy is not squeezed out of her, she lives.
Reality on the cover of a single book.

I am sorry for my hard heart. I know now
it must have hurt you, the reality.
I pulled myself together in such a tight knot
in order to preserve my life.
I did not mean to make a stone of it.

I remember wanting you on the coach back from Bexhill.
Lumps in my throat…(I had mumps),
but also bumps of sadness.
Looking out of the window, and seeing you in the distance
though you were not really there, as we had not got back yet.
I wanted to buy you some flowers, they were “Gypsophila”
(Commonly known as “Baby’s Breath”)
Small, white, and dry,
but pretty.

Then you were there,
I was glad to see you. You felt like my Mummy, and you looked after me.
But it didn’t seem to last very long.
The flowers, quite possibly,
may have outlived you.

I must be forgetting so many good times,
I am sorry for that. I know they are there.
But I cannot help wrapping the gifts in the paper you gave me.
It was not soft pink tissue, but earth brown, and protective.
I wish it were different.
Maybe it’s just too hard to think of the colours,
for they may only make the darkness darker?

“Commonly known as Baby’s Breath”

In tight knots of white
fight, outward
Tight
Clutch your bunch, in little hands
Finger strands reach
as thin fine stalks
balancing flowers
in air.

Know ” Gypsophila ” means gypsum- loving
Gypsum white
hard.
I’m making my dry flowers soggy
But my flesh is warm.

I think you are in heaven now,
It being a safe place, I know you are fine.
I know your maker knows you
and holds your story within his own flesh,
bound in holy suffering,
complete,
divine.

I know he knows my story, too…
Incomplete, but unravelling.

Unravelling as self-seeded flowers
Small and unpretending,
moisture loving, in the childhood garden.
Ever living little eyes, meeting mine.
No need of nurture, and
only spread by finding crevice or gap
in which to place and plant their fragile root.
Forget – Me -Nots
Lay their cloud-like carpet over the earth
winking dots of timid,
almost blue.

“The Creator thought he had finished giving the flowers their colours
he heard one whisper “Forget me not!”
There was nothing left but a very small amount of blue
but the forget-me-not was delighted to wear such a light blue shade.”

I can hold my stone, I need not throw it…
… hold it,
…bury it.
Not re-membered, exactly,
but neither
forgotten.

 

 

 

Alabaster Loving – Abstract Painting by Jenny Meehan. Relates to the Poem “Alabaster Loving”.
Painting the Poetic is probably the whole point of things for me! © Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

 

 

Pat Steir Painting Video

While overcoming my jealousy with respect to the size of her studio, I loved watching this video.  I use some dripping paint in many of my paintings and love what it can bring to a painting,  and so I found seeing what Pat Steir does on a large scale working just with dripping fluid paint very interesting.

http://painters-table.com/blog/pat-steir-painting-vermont?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Painters+Table+-+Weekly+Update+-+October+10+2015&utm_content=Painters+Table+-+Weekly+Update+-+October+10+2015+CID_98eca7c15fb24f505654ebd1fb7159ac&utm_source=PT%20Email&utm_term=View%20the%20full%20post%20at%20Painters%20Table#.VhoewvlViko

St Paul’s Church of England, Hook, Surrey in the snow with blossom.

I cannot remember when I took this, but I love the combination of blossom and snow!  I think it must have been one Spring a couple of years ago.  This is my local church and we have been going there for  years now!  How time flies!

st pauls church of england church hook in snow

 

The Other Side of Chaos by Margaret Silf

Great quote:

“When we are in transition, depending on how serious the breakdown is, we may feel as though almost every aspect of life has been disrupted. The old certainties, the old habits and comfort zones, have been dive-bombed. The old home, the old job, the old “me,” may be almost gone. It may be the time to ask, “What is that essential core of who I am that remains through all this upheaval?” This is an important question, because it is this remnant that will be the starter for the new stage of our growth.
The thing about this remnant, this core of being, is that we often don’t discover it until the force of change has stripped away the outer layers of past certainties and securities. Just as the seeds of the eucalyptus trees in Australia can’t germinate until they are exposed to the intense heat of a forest fire, so, too, there may be deep parts of ourselves that are activated only when the shallower layers are stripped away.
And it isn’t just about survival; it is about growth and transformation. The new you that comes through the blast of change will not be just a shadow of your former self, but truly a new you, with deeper layers of your personal potential exposed and invited to grow and flourish. For example, through apparent disaster you may discover skills you never knew you had. You may discover qualities that had never previously been called upon, such as resilience, patience, ingenuity, empathy with others going through similar upheavals, and even a sense of humor to laugh through the tears and glimpse the rainbow through the rain.
—Excerpted from The Other Side of Chaos by Margaret Silf
– See more at: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/19469/the-challenges-of-life?utm_source=emagislist&utm_medium=email&utm_content=201509&utm_campaign=emagis#sthash.2sf1vNEK.dpuf

Singing in the rain

It is rather wet, dark and very January!   This thought brings me to a fairly recently completed painting “Singing in the Rain”.  The joyous dance of colour along with the running paint marks makes a nice combination here.   I also often do a fair bit of walking backwards and forwards if I am at a turning point when painting, and I need to think about moving a painting forwards in a more definitive way, but am not sure which way to go.  A bit of dancing breaks up any dead ends too! Now I can do this pain free there is every reason to be singing in the rain, even when indoors!

Singing in the Rain abstract expressionist colourist lyrical painting by jenny meehan jamartlondon

This makes me think of the past painting “London Downpour” which is now in the hands of a collector:

London Downpour- Jenny Meehan painting abstraction at The Strand Gallery London as part of “Lines” visual art exhibition. Lyrical and geometric abstraction painting southbank london from the imagination! painted in a process-led, intuitive guided fashion, external impressions from regular trips to London appear to have seeped into my subconscious!

 

 

I like looking back on different strands in my painting.  It seems to evolve in a cyclical way, with different strands being repeated on quite a regular basis.  This is why it is important to let your painting develop naturally and not artificially confine it, but spend time reflecting on what you have done in the past, while being willing to try completely new directions as well.

I think I posted this one before, but no harm in posting again.  It’s acrylic on canvas, mounted on board and framed under glass.

 

clog dance/sacred dance abstract paintings colour

This Clog Dance/Sacred Dance is oil on stretched canvas.

It’s more structured and painted in oils which has changed my relationship with it a lot.  It was done while dancing in my clogs.  I like to dance when I paint, it helps a lot.  This one is still available.  If you are interested please contact me through my website jamartlondon.com.  There is a contact form there.

I have started posting some recent paintings on my website.  As I complete paintings this year I will post more up.

http://www.jamartlondon.com/

I need to think about what I will show at this year’s Kingston – upon – Thames,  Surrey based “Kingston Artists’ Open Studios”

It’s a nice event to take part in and if you would like to visit me and see some of my work, along with lots of other wonderful artists, then do pencil it in your diaries!  Time whizzes by!  This years Kingston Artists’ Open Studios  will be taking place on 9/10th and 16/17th June 2018 from 11am to 5pm each day.  It is open to all artists and makers living or working in the Kingston area.  Registration is happening right now!

A bit more about Surrey’s wonderful opportunity to meet artists and makers, from our website:

“Kingston Artists Open Studios is a group of artists and makers based in and around Kingston. Our main annual event is our open studios when we open our studios to the public for two weekends in the summer. But our members are active throughout the year, taking part in exhibitions and events both nationally and internationally. See the events page for more details. For more information about our members please visit our artists pages.”

http://www.kingstonartistsopenstudios.co.uk/

 

Photography Examples – Jenny Meehan

I use photography as a type of creative meditation, and through the act of composing an image, the finely tuned observations I make inform and educate me with respect to the natural world.  Indeed, these representations serve as reminders to me and speak the abstract language of art just in their very being, enabling me to get to the root of natures meanings (in a mysterious, and felt sense). I then  hopefully retain some given aesthetic sensibility, which I can then use in my  paintings.   The beauty of natural forms is inspiring and I find it helpful to have images to hand of things I have seen from times I remember.  Even though I don’t translate the images directly into my paintings, it is the looking, seeing, noticing, and taking in of nature, and the creative inspiration behind all creation, which inspires my paintings and fuels the desire to carry on painting.  I have a lot of photography in my archives, and haven’t done very much with it, so I will share a little bit here with you!

 

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images

 

These lovely day lilies were seen at West Dean Gardens, when I was on a course at West Dean College a few years back.

jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images

 

Suburban Meditations/Painter’s Development

I’ve been reviewing fondly many images I took in what I will call my wilderness years… The years when increasingly the sense of life disintegrated  and while life carried on externally pretty much as normal, internally I became increasingly aware  of that gaping void, the one we avoid…The depth of the personality which we sometimes fear investigating, because it is harder to face our innermost being than it is to focus on the frontage!   It seems wrong maybe to use the term “wilderness”  because I think that by wandering in the dry and difficult places of life, we often find that the source of life, the spring, the waters which take us into new places, come unexpectedly up from the hard ground.  Though I haven’t sorted through these images yet, and I will probably think further and arrange them with others into several collections,  I enjoyed reviewing them recently in the light of my present preoccupations with painting…I can see how that seed began to grow.  As I look at the images, and the instinct which led me to dwell so deeply on the fences, pavements, walls, and all the other places I walked through,  I can see myself gathering the matter which enchants me now as I experiment with painting in the way that I do.  My intense  desire to paint in the way that I do is surely founded on those walks and the way that I let myself become so absorbed with the surfaces which met me and which I took note of  by means of a camera shot.  The images vary in quality, and should be seen more as a personal record than anything else.  They are meditation, and meditation carried out at a time of searching and of internal turmoil.  I think I found some reassurance in the way that beauty could be discovered in the most unlikely places.  A sense of order, through experiments with composition. Beauty even in erosion, wearing down, and breakage.

The following images were taken as I walked around my local suburban area, often through rear access roads and alleys which offered alternative routes, and were less on the beaten path (or pavement to be more accurate!)  These are a few examples.  Many were taken as I took the children to and from school, aided by the slowness of toddler-walking and pushchair pushing, which is very helpful in encouraging observation!

suburban meditations painters development series jenny meehan

 

suburban meditations painters development series jenny meehan

 

suburban meditations painters development series jenny meehan

 

suburban meditations painters development series jenny meehan

 

suburban meditations painters development series jenny meehan

 

Looking intently at all those surfaces is something which certainly has influenced my approach to painting.  I think texture is very important in painting, and even more so at this current time, when we are so accustomed to smooth device screens, which we view so many images on.   Light, colour and image viewed on a screen is a completely different experience to having light bounce off textured surfaces.  I know that goes without saying, and I still find the smooth surface of a printed digital image pleasing, but I do think it is sad sometimes that our eyes are drawn to a screen more than they are to the effects of light bouncing around all over the place!

 

Frost From the Heavens

© Jenny Meehan. All Rights Reserved, DACS

Needless to say, you cannot see this painting at all well on the screen…It has tiny glass beads which reflect light very decisively!

 

Virgin Birth?  Or Not Virgin Birth? And Does it Matter Anyway?

Some theological wanderings!

Read this with interest:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/24/story-virgin-birth-christianity-mary-sex-femininity

Christmas is finished with for another year…Decorations put away, lots of rubbish thrown out, and more things to fill the space, which in our house, isn’t much space at all!  As I was ill with some kind of flu bug in the run up to Christmas, I had plenty of time lying in bed unable to do much, and resorted to some theological wanderings, which I do enjoy. On the topic of the virgin birth.  It bugged me last year… this matter of the virgin birth….  A question popped into my mind regarding did it matter?  I thought about it a year ago and left it, but during the run up to this most recent Christmas it popped into my mind again, so I gave it some attention.

Now, firstly, I have been a Christian since the age of 18…That’s a long time.  And in time, a lot of things change. For example,  I was brought up, in my early Christian walk, with the penal substitution theory of atonement.  Urgh?  Here’s a short quote from Wiki:

Penal substitution (sometimes, esp. in older writings, called forensic theory)^[1][2] is a theory of the atonement within Christian theology, developed with the Reformed tradition.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} It argues that Christ, by his own sacrificial choice, was punished (penalised) in the place of sinners (substitution), thus satisfying the demands of justice so God can justly forgive the sins. It is thus a specific understanding of substitutionary atonement, where the substitutionary nature of Jesus‘ death is understood in the sense of a substitutionary punishment.

Yes,  and then, many years later, when I thought more deeply about it, and got to know the character of our marvellous Creator God a little bit better, (as much as I was able, in my limited capacity!) and got to sort out a little bit more of my own internal mess, I realised that there were problems for me with this stance, and the biggest problem being that this theory didn’t fit in with my understanding of God as being a God of love, mercy, justice and compassion.  So quite a few of my ideas changed, as did my approach to the Old Testament books of the Bible, with the character of God they tended to create in the imagination.  I changed my approach and started to see that the image of God shown there was indeed the image of God perceived by the people at that time…BEFORE CHRIST.  Christ being the full revelation of the character of God puts a whole different light on things.  What a relief, because the image of God I was getting from the old Testament, even with dollops of mercy and patience and even a bit of femininity thrown in here and there,  was violent, schizophrenic, and predominantly masculine.

I am not quite sure what relationship this has to my rethinking on the virgin birth,  but I guess it served as an invitation to be willing to think over once again certain aspects of faith and belief which I had taken for granted, on face value, in the past, without allowing myself to think them through again. Lots of researching, while very ill in bed with flu before Christmas, led me to the point where I have no issues with believing that the Lord Jesus Christ was conceived naturally in the usual way, and also, conceived of the Holy Spirit.  One need not be exclusive of the other, and natural ways don’t suddenly erase the holiness in life in my opinion.  It doesn’t make Jesus Christ less a member of the Trinity.

I am a firm believer in the truth of God as three in One, Father (also “Mother” is helpful for many, for the term “Father” is used as a matter of following Christ’s terminology, which was what he himself was brought up with), Holy Spirit, and Son.   It doesn’t make the significance of Jesus any less, or make God less God, or anything like that at all.  Surprisingly, I have found in my own experience, the alteration in my belief has made Christ even more significant to me. I have been blessed by this change of understanding.  My relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ has altered in a very good way. God did not abhor the flesh in any sense in the incarnation. The womb of my life is thoroughly human, but still Christ resides in it. I am not unclean to my Creator, his Holy Spirit resides in me.  (Lot’s of work to do there, but still, God is faithful!)

I think that previously I had kind of placed Christ in a  superior position to me with respect to his humanity.   I guess it may have sprung from the idea that he wasn’t quite human in the way that I am.  What with being God.  (It is hard to comprehend, well, impossible, that Christ could be fully God and fully human.  It is, as many things, a matter of faith and choice.)  However, believing that the Lord Jesus Christ is, and was, fully human and fully man, hasn’t changed for me. Even with a change of mind about the virgin birth.  His position in the Trinity hasn’t changed.  When asked by Christ “Who do you say I am?”  My answer will always be “You are the Son of God”.  Christ is part of God’s wonderful plan to BE IN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH US.  But something has changed for me.

I don’t believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was just a prophet, a teacher, or someone particularly gifted and enlightened.  I do believe that he is exactly who he said he is.  But his humanity has changed for me.  Well, this started a way back for me, a few years ago,  when I understood that he understood both doubt and fear. Fully.   That God, my Creator understood MY doubt and fear. Even at the point of it being completely overwhelming. Completely. That it wasn’t a sin to feel they way I did.  Just part of being human. But still something which God understood. Really understood.  But still, even in and through his complete humanity, Christ chose to believe God.  He did not curse God. He held onto the love of God, though all suffering.  In and through it. Yet he knew the experience of FEELING forsaken. Though he was not forsaken, he wasn’t somehow immune to the full human experience of life and death.     That was a liberating realisation!  I think I used to think it was easier for him because he wasn’t quite the same as me in his humanity.

Side line: Maybe the link between the “penal substitution” idea and the “virgin birth” idea, and the idea of Christ being “sinless” (in the sense this is taken at face value by many folk) is the basic concept that Jesus Christ had to be a “perfect” sacrifice, to take the perceived punishment for us?  Yes, there are references in Hebrews for this, but this was a very specific context.  (By the way, to those not into this theological wandering, this may seem a waste of time, but I am re-thinking over layers of assumptions, many of which have been presented to me in the past as being the truth, with no further thinking or questioning to be encouraged!)

But to now… As I slide down the slippery slope, maybe?

Reading the article on the birth of Christ got me thinking about what isn’t recorded in the New Testament.  (PS  I don’t personally believe the collection of books we call the Bible is inerrant…that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it’s not a crucial part of a Christian’s life, or that it isn’t inspired by the Holy Spirit!)  The different gospel writers had their own angles and own approach, and brought a different flavour and emphasis to their narratives,  which all provide a vital perspective and record of the life of Christ.  But while there is a lot that they do write about, there is a lot which is not included as well. Not everything could be written down!  It could not be a perfect account (if perfect means  complete), because it has limitations, as every written record has.  (And the limitations of such as I, in reading it!).  So I got thinking about the parts of Jesus Christ’s life which we don’t know anything about, because the New Testament doesn’t say much about them.  I began to wonder if Jesus was normal?  Was he a normal boy? A normal teenager? What was he like? It seemed silly I had never thought about this before.  To start to think about the Son of God needing to grow, develop, evolve, into the person that he was.  To start to imagine that he would be subject to all the usual psychological and emotional, as well as physical developmental stages.  I had never done this before. Don’t know why!

I had put him in a separate category to myself.  Human but not really human. And his holiness, and fully righteous, mature and Godly character, which is communicated so well and so beautifully expressed within his humanity through the images we get from reading the accounts of him in the New Testament… Was this how he ALWAYS was, right from the point of birth?  Years back, if someone had asked if Jesus Christ was “sinless” for the entirety of his life I would have said “Yes”.  Not sure why.  Must have just picked it up from the Christian cultures I inhibited!  I wouldn’t have even thought about it.  Indeed, many people feel the question a foolish and pointless one.  Maybe even irrelevant.  But nowadays, not thinking about it isn’t an option for me.  Thinking about things in a questioning and analytical way isn’t opposite to faith.  It can open doors into a great depth, and things can be thought about  with always an openness for change, held along with the thinking and the believing!  Plus, when you have flu and all you can do  is look on your tablet, it gives you something to put your mind to!

So I have a slightly different understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ during his time on earth now.  I am not going to go into all the reading, thoughts and theories I read.  It’s enough to say, I did some research, and found a way through it suitable for myself.   There is room for him to experience sinfulness for some of his life.  Why not?  Would this make him somehow less who he said he was?  That he needed to grow and evolve in obedience and perfect submission to God?  That he was not fully enlightened, perfect in holiness, for the entirety of his life, but just a portion of it?  Does being perfect ( whole, complete,  fully obedient, attuned, enlightened, submitted to God, letting God define your very being) for a few years of a human life make it any less amazing, divine, significant, or noteworthy?  Does it make the achievement of Christ’s way, the path he honed out, the extent of how God was revealed in him, and the work of the cross and the resurrection, any less?  Some would hold the opinion that it does diminish Christ to perceive things in the way I do now, I imagine.

But for me it doesn’t. It makes Christ’s achievement all the more inspiring to me, and gives me strength.   I don’t see a conflict in the idea of evolution, and the way that  things are evolving and developing  and the will and purposes of a Creator God. Or of divine things happening through natural human means.  Or of God’s ways revealed in natural and supernatural events.  Sometimes happening at the same time.  Sometimes overlapping.  Meeting.  God in all things, and the eyes to see and heart to believe, is an important principle for me in the way I live my life.  So not embracing the idea of the virgin birth isn’t a case of me not believing it would be possible. Oh no, I don’t have any issues with the fact that our Creator can do what he-she wants.  My understanding is that Christ put his deity aside, and was fully mortal. That all that is hard for me about life was also  hard for him.  For me, the idea of him being conceived naturally (as well as divinely) makes more sense and actually feels more profound and amazing.  No natural process shunned, but integrated divinely.

This is the difference for me in my present understanding and approach.  Christ was fully human. And also (at a point in his life) fully God.  That full measure of the Holy Spirit at his baptism, marked the beginning of his work and his full identity.  It is amazing that God himself understands humanity in a way that would otherwise not be possible without Christ. From a place of complete powerlessness and vulnerability, weakness and fragility.   God is WITH us, in and through Christ, in a way which can be experienced  in a wonderfully liberating and powerful way.   In placing our faith in Christ, as who he is, as the full revelation of God, placed both in history and time and beyond it, it is the case that a whole new way of relating to our Creator opens up.  This kind of makes arguments about a virgin birth, or not, feel a bit trivial I guess.  But I am not here to argue theology, just to share my current perspective.

What matters is who God is.  The Trinity is always going to be well beyond any human comprehension.  So that’s the biggest step of faith I guess.  In the end, we are left with Christ’s question “Who do you say I am?”.  The question and the answer are going to resonate  slightly differently for every person, because we are all unique and God knows each of us entirely.   Some will say Jesus Christ is God, others won’t.  What Christ means for different people is variable, because what the character of God is understood to be, will vary from person to person.  What Christ said about himself will be taken in many different ways.  For myself, as a Christian (a follower of Christ) I find in Christ a way which opens up the love of God to me in a life changing way.  The way we perceive God’s character (if we have a belief in God)  is vastly affected by our own developmental experiences.  Part of my journey so far has been casting off a very negative view of God, and letting the love and consolation of God flow into those places which previously only held desolation. Christ offers me a route into experiencing and relating to God in a way which has proven itself to me, through experience, to be life giving, life enhancing, liberating and revolutionary in many respects.

To entertain this newer idea of the Lord Jesus Christ has been helpful to me. To think that Christ could experience sin is a good thing, because he knows the feelings of guilt and shame which are part of being a human too. I see no need to assume that Jesus Christ was a really disobedient child, wildly rebellious, and rather immoral before he took on his mission.  It would make a good film drama, but not a lot of sense.   It sounds from what is in the New Testament that he was gifted and intelligent, and I do think there would be a serious inclination towards the ways of God from a young age, which would make him a pretty “good” boy, I should think in terms of morality and social behaviours and actions.  I think he needed to apply himself very diligently to learning and growing in the ways of God.  I find it very conceivable that from his baptism onward, in the later stages of his mature life and the time of his ministry, he could later be accurately described later by New Testament writers as being “sinless” and “perfect”.  What these words actually mean in the context they are used in probably quite interesting, and  Jewish and Greek scholars would have a much better grasp of things than I can have.  If “sinless” means “spot on”, and right on the mark, then I am very content to settle for that. A man of total and complete integrity, as I believe Christ was/is, is someone to be believed.

I think the character of Christ would speak, and still does speak, for itself.  My personal issues with Christ being thought of as completely sinless, I think,  is that the idea, in my thinking, seems to have come from an underlying belief that Christ had to be sinless, because if he was sinful AT ALL he couldn’t do the work he needed to do, in redemption. But now I tend to feel this is not the case. A man fully with God, immersed in the Holy Spirit,  is capable of perfect listening and perfect obedience, to the way that his Creator directs him.  A true servant.  Able to fulfil the word of God completely.

I also think, as I did before all this re thinking,  that  “sin” cannot be thought of as simply what goes on on the outside of our lives.  God knows the heart, and a lot happens inside of ourselves totally unseen by others.  The most morally upright and law abiding person, apparently perfect on the exterior, may have a lot of hardness inside.    It is hardness of heart which turns us away from God. And God is Love.  Choices, sometimes unconscious ones,  become part of our personalities and  sometimes have the potential to close us down to God working in our lives.  For most of the time we are pretty clueless as to what is going on in there!  I think of Jesus Christ as having a person hood which, in full maturity, continually said “Yes” to God.  A man with a truly repentant heart, constantly turning, constantly choosing, even though extremely hard…to the point of death on a cross.   I am certainly thinking that, rather then focusing on whether Christ ever sinned or not,  it may be wiser for me to ask what the heart of Christ was like, and take that as the point for focus.  And simply ask Christ to teach me the way he walked.

The heart of Christ. It must have been a thoroughly repentant heart, in the greatest and truest sense of the word. Constantly turning, softening, changing, learning.  Always opening up to God the Father. To change this beautifully repentant heart simply into a mind that never entertained an wrong thought for a second doesn’t seem necessary.  And I have to ask myself, “How can a person be fully human, without  a sinful nature, even if “wrong” (ie faulty) thoughts are never translated into action?”  This idea doesn’t mean that it wasn’t possible that Christ WAS completely sinless by the way,  if by sinless we mean in terms of actions, for a significant portion of his life.  Righteous is not the same as sinless, but one who acts correctly in all respects.  But surely the ability to bear the tension we all feel between what is good and evil and what is right and wrong in life, is the very place where we would both want, and need to meet our Creator? Where we would need to find him there, with us, and to experience the work of Christ, in that place in our lives?

I think I have had some old misconceptions nagging at the back of my mind, which I am chewing over, underneath this all.   I have confused “sinless” with blameless, for a start.  And for some of my Christian walk, in the early years,  I did think that God was expecting me to be sinless.  (Well, easy not to  manage that one!!! Lol).  Must have been that part of me that really didn’t believe I was acceptable to God, unless I was absolutely perfect, and caused no trouble at all!  That’s a cruel load to carry.   Ideally we should not sin, (I mean in actions) of course, but I don’t think avoiding sin should be the focus of the Christian walk.  We are called to be blameless – living above reproach and not creating stumbling blocks that turn others away from Christ.  Holiness is not merely the absence of sin, but having the nature of God and living according to that.  It’s a subtle difference in perspective, but an important one.

Christ summed up  what mattered:

(Gospel of Luke)
“And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.”

— Luke 10:25-28

I am certain that Christ loved completely,  in a way which blew people away when they encountered him, and to an extent to which his set apart-ness, his holiness, was clear to all he encountered.  That cannot of made life easy for him.  And I don’t quite know why I have never thought about the assumption of complete sinless-ness for Christ before. Or even if it matters or not.  I feel a bit of a twit really, for imagining a non-developmental pattern for the life of Christ.  Whatever place he inhibited throughout his ministry, I never cast my mind to the time before that. Oh well, questions asked now! Things do change as time moves on.

Was Jesus Christ always successful, did he never fail, never make a mistake? How did he learn, or did he not need to learn? In his entire life, from toddler-dom  onwards?  H’mm.  Really? We all have to start somewhere surely?  Is a plant less a plant because it starts as a seed? Does the unfolding nature of God within Christ, evolving and developing within the boundaries of time, make it any less holy?  Any less sacred?  Is there room for normal human development in the person of Christ?  Common sense would say “of course”! And Christ grew, to full stature!  That is amazing!  Fully who he was!  And what is more, he took on a task ordained for him, and one far more difficult than any  other living being could imagine.   What was hard for us, would be even harder for him I think.  Because the forces of darkness and evil would fight all the harder against the divine revelation of the Love of God. God incarnate.  How aggravating Jesus Christ would have been to many people.  How wonderful at the same time for others, if they received him with open hearts when he was walking the earth.   The “virgin” or “not virgin birth” will divide opinions for certain, but fades into insignificance in the light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to my thinking. The more central point for a Christian to believe is the resurrection and the reality of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, and to believe, and continue to believe, what the Holy Spirit testifies about Christ.

Well, all this theological thinking is part of the background to the poem I wrote before Christmas, which I hope you enjoy. As for differences of opinion, they are part of the wonder of being on this earth, and I certainly don’t intend any offence to anyone.  I just share my own thoughts and ideas.  Just that.

Just before Christmas I wrote the poem below.  Bit clumsy and not my best, but it was challenging at least!

………………………..

I’ve written a Christmas poem…it’s pretty much all I can do, but it was fun!

Would Jesus take my toys? Mummy?

A mother and her child talk, while tidying the child’s room.

Would Jesus take my toys? Mummy?
If he came to play?
Because frankincense and myrrh
Are not much good for you
when you are six!

Would he want, what I have got?
And would he want to play?
Or would he simply look to God
Hold his hands in prayer, to pray?

I think you know the answer, sweet,
You know what I will say!
Jesus isn’t perfect, so
He might take them,
and play!

But when he sees your sorrow, sweet,
Or sadness he has brought,
Well, he’ll quicker, faster, sooner,
than other friends
Open up his truer heart.

You’re very good friends…you’ll work it out!
I can help you, if need be.
Don’t worry about Jesus coming to play
There’s room enough
for BOTH of you!
(And hopefully, IF we do this task…
Maybe even me!)

As she picks up the toys…

Your little play friend isn’t perfect
(Which is just as well for you!)
You kind of jumble on together
In this messy life, don’t you?

BOTH of you are perfect, well…
So, a mother’s heart would say
But as for him, he has a task
Beyond ALL comprehension.
(I dare not even ask his mother!)

She puts a toy in her child’s hand.

We don’t know what his life will be
Anymore than we know yours…
He still needs to learn the ways of God
While doing household chores.
He needs to trip and stumble
And maybe even hit his head?
He’s just a little boy, you know,
Whatever people said.

She pauses for a moment.

But there is something…
A depth of beautiful insight…
It’s like the brightest star…

The child throws the toy into a box.

Oh mummy! Do you love Jesus more?
And wish that I was just like him?
Because he is so very good
And hardly ever sins?
If you could have a child like him
Why would you want to keep one like me?
I groan when doing household chores
And I’m often quite naughty!

But mummy looked,
And mummy smiled,
And mummy took
The little child
Then in, when in her arms, she said,

THE KINGDOM OF GOD BELONGS TO YOU!

Your friend and you, are one of a kind,
Just hold his hand,
You’ll understand,
And when his work is done, there will be no
Comparison
IN YOUR HEART
He’s only just begun!

His humility will touch you,
His obedience, show the way,
His acceptance, open up your heart,
To the fullest light of day.

And now, my little sweet heart,
Let’s just PUT THOSE TOYS AWAY!

They laugh.

 

I’m glad I invested the time into that. Yet I need to focus on the following:

Gospel of Matthew:

“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

— Matthew 22:35-40

and:
Gospel of Mark

“And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

— Mark 12:28-31

Gospel of Luke

“And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.”

— Luke 10:25-28

 

I feel all the better for addressing my questions, and not just ignoring them.  Minds are handy, hearts are vital!  The bottom line is, that unless I was there, and asked the Lord Jesus Christ personally if felt himself he was completely sinless, and if so, what exactly that meant,  (or if he even wanted to be perceived that way!) I cannot speak with any authority. It is amazing how certain many people are about this idea though,  and it matters a great deal to them.   I fall on the “Of course he wasn’t and he never claimed he was” side of the matter.  Some people say Jesus Christ never sinned, and others say that he did.

I guess all this thinking has at least settled in my own perspective where I stand. It’s taken some chewing over though! I tend to feel the Lord Jesus Christ was clearly aware of his own humanity and his own human nature, and was someone who was very aware of how we deceive ourselves by judging things externally, while not fully acknowledging the mind and the subconscious.   “Sin” as in action,  is clearly a different realm to an understanding of the errant quality of human nature, and the distortions and perceptions of our minds.  I am ignorant of  the Jewish context, understanding and traditions, which inform the text, and of the culture at that time.  I only offer up my own musings as part of my own faith journey.  I can embrace the idea of Christ doing no wrong and “committing no sin” for the period of his active ministry.  I cannot stretch that to a  totally sinless life from A to B with a strange, detached humanity, which wasn’t rooted deep within his very being in the way that mine is.  To be fully human and fully God, I see a Saviour who possesses all of that which marks my own human existence.  Including personal growth and development. And yet, manages to be fully obedient in all respects when anointed in his mission.  This may not be simply equated with being “sinless”.  It is possibly (?) easier to pass over a sinless Christ, in terms of actually applying his work, and way, to our own lives?

For me personally, it’s been fruitful to throw off the idea of perfect Jesus, in the way I had previously understood perfection. For someone else, this might be an unhelpful and disturbing way of approaching Christ.   So apologies to you if this does offend. It’s not meant to.  I don’t share it by way of feeling I want to convince anyone either way, but just because this is where I am right now.  I won’t be entering into any debate or argument about it, because I have not interest in putting my energy that way. As I get older I tend to take the approach that “I cannot know anything for sure” but can only know what feels true, and can only choose to believe what feels right.  It’s wandering in the dark for me, and yet, my personal experience of Christ in my life has brought me where I am, and of that, I need not doubt, because this is the life I have lived and still live.  My story unfolds on the very foundations of my faith, which is rooted in Christ, my God, and all I can do is pray that I listen to the Spirit, and be as open as I can, to any way I might grow in Christ, who is Love, and God incarnate.

Sometimes this may mean chewing over things I have thought before in a new way, and sometimes I will change my mind.  It is the fully human aspect of Christ which I find so inspiring right now.  What he did with his humanity, and his human nature, which is something we share and relate to.   For the character of Christ is something I know just a little of, and that itself surpasses all other.  I just need to immerse myself more in that!

For those of you who read this Journal more for the visual art content, my writing has always been part of my creative output, and while not seeming relevant to what I do visually, it’s another dimension of my work which grabs me from time to time.  It’s so dark and cold in the studio tent right now, that January has mostly been spent with writing, domestic tasks, and admin!  Come to think of it,  I should possibly christen  the Winter as  as my writing season, because it’s not the first time I have turned to words rather than images at this time of year!

And for those of you who are more proficient in theological wandering than I am, be merciful!  And for those of you who find what I write offends your faith in some way, then even be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, and know that God loves both the “right” and the “wrong”!   There was a time, a long time back, when I would have thought that if I didn’t believe Christ was sinless, and I didn’t believe in the virgin birth,  I couldn’t possibly call myself a Christian.  Obviously I don’t hold that view now, but I fully appreciate that some will, and mutual respect is due, whatever stance one holds.

 

No Problem/Moving On sign of the times series jenny meehan (jennifer meehan) now at SWLEOC

 

No Problem/Moving On – Geometric Colour Abstract Print by Jenny Meehan jamartlondon.com

One of the “Signs of the Times Series” by Jenny Meehan

This artwork design conveys a positive attitude, and is the fruit of my interest in positive psychology and personal mobility challenges. A “can do” attitude in the face of resistance and difficulties is the only way to move forward. The design has something of my own experience of exercising in a gym with motion suggested through various formal elements, of varying speeds and a sense of progression.

Do you like this print?  You can buy it easily and safely through Redbubble.com, just follow the link:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/20507601-no-problem-moving-on-geometric-colour-abstract-print-by-jenny-meehan-jamartlondon-com?asc=u

Briefly…On the knee

Well, I will save the big post for the one year mark and put that on “The very patient knee replacement story by Jenny Meehan” but things are great!  I love being mobile and I don’t miss my sticks!

Tidying up old research, I found this reading:

https://healthskills.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/its-there-and-im-stuck-with-it-chronic-knee-pain-after-knee-joint-replacement/

It’s an excellent read about pain after TKR.   I am very happy with my results, at 11 months now.  Yes, you do get a bit of an ache sometimes, but it is NOTHING compared to the experience of frequent constant pain before TKR.  And when you are able to live your life, pain in itself is no bother at all. Before my knee replacement I wasn’t able to live my life as I needed to.

It’s a good article, well worth reading.  I think anxiety is a major issue after a TKR for a lot of people.  There is such a vast variety of types of pain you get after the surgery as the soft tissues and bones are healing!  It’s very easy to focus on each one and worry.  I found it best to take a “I will wait a couple of days and see what it is like then” approach.  By the time a couple of days had past, there had been some change, and even if that change was a different pain,  the point was the initial worry had past!  I think it helped me that I did not have an expectation that I would be pain free necessarily, but that I would be mobile and have less pain.  Actually, my post surgery experience has exceeded my expectations, and I feel normal again in a way I did not expect.   I do worry a bit that I may wear it out, because I am whizzing around, but the reality is, even if this only lasted five years, I would consider it worth it.  Having said that, I do expect longer!!!   Keeping the weight off, and respecting the knee is the way forward I think.  I won’t be running or jumping up and down, unless I am in water!

Interesting Read

I found this blog interesting, as I was just sorting out some old emails and found I had been approached by the “It’s Liquid” venture.  I just chuck that kind of thing in the virtual bin, but it is often tempting to consider such invitations.

http://badartbad.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/luca-curci-and-artexpo-scam.html

I don’t have very much disposable income to throw away, so it makes this kind of decision easy for me.

It’s best for artists to create their own exhibition opportunities if possible IMO.

 

About Jenny Meehan’s Paintings

This process led painting…romantic, expressionistic, abstract and lyrical, is simply the result of my own contemplative practice, which I work through in many ways. Let by instinct and intuition, inspired by my own life experiences, and several much loved artists, including Klee, Hitchens, Claude Venard, Matisse and Kandinsky, it provides the ground for the viewer’s own interpretations and responses, and will be whatever you want it to be. My own titles reflect my own interpretation/,sense of meaning, but the beauty and openness of non objective painting allows you a place in the process exclusively yours!

The image doesn’t show the extent to which texture, and various surface finishes are used in the painting, for example, I use tiny glass beads for their effects on light hitting the surface of the painting. Maybe they could be seen as a dance of light and colour? Certainly, as the light in the day changes, the appearance of the painting changes considerably, with different parts being emphasised and other parts sinking into the background. This painting is one which responds, and I hope you get pleasure from viewing it! See more at http://www.jamartlondon.com

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright in all images by Jenny Meehan is held by the artist.
Permission must be sought in advance if you wish to use images by Jenny Meehan. In the first instance, please contact Jenny Meehan. Copyright for all works of art by Jenny Meehan is managed by the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) in the UK.

Francis Davison at The Redfern Gallery – Spontaneous Side of the House Painting – Attempting to get into Edward Muybridge’s head; “The Mind’s Eye” Collaged painting and poem by Jenny Meehan – Slow Motion/We Get On – Abstract Print Design by Jenny Meehan – Positive Psychology -Imagined Worlds Exhibition – Dadirri – Art and Psychoanalysis by Maria Walsh – Mindful Eating

Francis Davison at The Redfern Gallery

What a great show this was!

I took many visual meanderings across the surfaces of the many collages on show.

As I plan to bring my own work onto a larger format, I found the size of the work on show very pleasing…Large enough to be easy to enter into, but not so large as to be impractical.  Though wall space nowadays is a problem for many people…Unless you have plenty of walls, what do you do with this superb, intimate yet impressive work?  Both bold and delicate, strong and fragile.  I like this.   But I lack the wall and floor I need to work at this scale at the present time.

Just one wall.  Just one floor.  And I will be happy.

I did resort to painting on the side of our house a few years back…

jenny meehan spontaneous side of the house painting © Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

You cannot see this anymore because I have erected my studio tent in front of it.  It was painted with rollers and I called it “Spontaneous Side of the House Painting”.  It was indeed completely spontaneous, with no planning, just a sudden urge with a roller in hand and some left over silicate mineral paint!

But to today!

I am currently  experimenting with different materials to use in my own paintings.  I had started to introduce collaged elements a while ago, so it seems a natural progression to maybe use the process of sticking things on…

Indeed, with the need to work a bit larger, to have areas I can just stick on will be useful…

Especially as I plan to experiment with both planned and unplanned paintings.  It will be useful to be able to move large areas around if I need to.

And I like sticky things… Mmmm.

Brought rather a lot of tape recently.

Maybe something to do with wrapping up presents?  But not sure I need hazard tape to do that…?? Or non slip gripper tape, or double sided tape or…  Off on another meander…!

I would combine collage with paint I should think.  However, before that, loads of experimentation with surfaces needs to happen.

And what a pleasure that is!

Back to Francis Davison…

Looking around The Redfern Gallery at Francis Davison’s collages at the Private View was not enough for me, and besides, people, lovely as they are, get in the way!  So I re visited and took in a little bit more deeply what was happening there for me.  Seeing the work generated all kinds of new ideas in my mind, really, so many I needed to take notes.  The art now for me will be restraint…To hold back yet give all, at the very same time.

https://www.redfern-gallery.com/artists/47-francis-davison/

I also enjoyed the Jasper Johns exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Here is a quote from the Royal Academy website:

“One hopes for something resembling truth, some sense of life, even of grace, to flicker, at least, in the work.” Jasper Johns, 2006.

Widely known for his iconic images of flags, targets, numbers, maps and light bulbs, Jasper Johns has occupied a central position in American art since his first solo exhibition in New York in 1958. His treatment of iconography and appropriation of objects, symbols and words makes the familiar unfamiliar, achieving this through the distinctive, complex textures of his works. Through his ground-breaking paintings and sculptures, Johns established a decisive new direction in an art world that had previously been dominated by Abstract Expressionism.

Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ is the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s work to be held in the UK in 40 years. Comprising over 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, it reveals the continuities and changes that have occurred over the past six decades and the curiosity and experimentation that Johns continues to apply to his current practice. During the 1960s Johns added an array of household and studio objects and imprints and casts of the human figure. The works of the 1970s are dominated by an abstract pattern, referred to as “crosshatchings”. During the 1980s and 1990s Johns introduced a variety of images that engaged with the ambiguities of perception and ongoing themes involving memory, sexuality, and the contemplation of mortality. From this time, Johns increasingly incorporated tracings and details of works by artists including Matthias Grünewald, Pablo Picasso and Edvard Munch. By the early 2000s Johns had embarked on the pared-down and more conceptual Catenary series which, along with other recent works such as 5 Postcards, 2013 and Regrets, 2013, shows the rich productivity and vitality of this late phase of his career.

The exhibition brings together artworks that rarely travel from international private and public collections and new works by the artist. It follows in the Royal Academy’s tradition of celebrating its Royal Academicians, continuing the strand of programming that has showcased some of the most significant living artists including Anish Kapoor, David Hockney, Anselm Kiefer and Ai Weiwei.

Working in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition is co-curated by Dr Roberta Bernstein and Edith Devaney.

There were a few pieces which I liked, but lots I didn’t feel drawn to.  Not the same kind of experience as the Francis Davison exhibition for me, however I am still very glad I went.  I have a kind  friend who is a friend of the Royal Academy, and so I went with her and could get in free of charge.  Target, 1960 and Jasper Johns’ 1962 painting known as Fool’s House stood out for me, and I liked much of the monochrome paintings and prints.  I think I may experiment more with black and white myself, as it will enable me to focus on the mark making without the need to perform the balancing act of colour!

Here is a short video on Jasper Johns:

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/jasper-johns-video-60-seconds

Christmas is coming!

If you want a religious, traditonal Advent Calendar, watch out, as they seem to be very expensive!

It seems you pay more for wanting the Nativity story depicted on your little cardboard feast of doors to open.  If you choose an advent calendar with nothing to do with Christ, it will be much cheaper!  This is sad.

I’m not keen on the run up to Christmas…It’s so dark, I don’t like all the emphasis on material goods, and I always feel I should be in hibernation.   I like Christmas Day itself, quite like Christmas Eve, love Boxing Day and I feel increasingly Christmassy AFTER Christmas!   As a committed Christian I do celebrate the coming of Christ into the world, and I do enjoy that part of things, naturally.  But the rest is burdensome.    Some glimmers of pleasure here and there, but not much!   However, I will wish all who read this a Happy Christmas, with all my heart, because I am not totally Humbug!   I hope you have got some pleasure from dipping into my ramblings and seeing some of my art working, which I am grateful to be able to share with you.

So “Happy Christmas!”

all saints church angels project design angel abstraction holy holy holy image jenny meehan

And “Holy, Holy, Holy” is the most Christmassy piece of work I have done, so here it is as my Christmas Greeting to you!

 

Edward Muybridge

Kingston Museum are planning an exhibition of work via an open submission process.  It is sometime next year. As usual I have enjoyed taking many photographs of the work I am working on! That itself becomes a process of experimenting with composition.

 

 

© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan © Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

 

minds eye edward muybridge kingston musuem exhibition jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

 

I make a habit of examining my work in detail with the aid of a camera.  Something about a viewfinder helps me to look carefully!

I did a lot of reading around,  and in the end, couldn’t get away from the fact that the man was a murderer and if he wasn’t a man, he probably wouldn’t have got away with it!  I ended up feeling more a sense of tragedy for his wife and child.  There were all kinds of routes I could have gone down, including the interesting way in which it was fine for men to look at the female body for the purpose of art, (and supposedly science) but it was not OK for women to draw from life until years later. But in the end, it was the idea of playing around with what might be triggered in Edward Muybridge’s mind as he went about his work which I found fascinated me, hence “The Mind’s Eye”.

With this collaged painting comes the poem I wrote which is part of it:

The Mind’s Eye

What thoughts and memories
unsettled
might dwell in the unconscious mind of the artist
as he works?
Projected onto models…
Figures of his own past
laughing
moving
strangers
touching new pain in the mind’s eye?
Shot images…
they infiltrate the heart
yet, even the most animated
leave it
still
so solitary.

Jenny Meehan 2017

 

This work has been submitted but I don’t yet know if it will be accepted or not.  But whatever happens, I am sure the exhibition will be very good and I look forward to seeing it.  I don’t think I have dates for the exhibition, just that submissions need to be in by sometime in February next year!  But will keep you posted!

Positive Psychology

Back again to my interest in positive psychology.  Bit about it here, quoted from Wikipedia:

Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi define positive psychology as “the scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life.”^[8] L.M. Keyes and Shane Lopez illustrate the four typologies of mental health functioning: flourishing, struggling, floundering and languishing. However, complete mental health is a combination of high emotional well-being, high psychological well-being, and high social well-being, along with low mental illness.^[9]

Very small snippet, but referencing for further reading.

I added this work to my Redbubble.com facility a while back.  It is another of the  “Signs of the Times” series.  I have revisited the work in the light of recent experiences of restricted mobility due to osteoarthritis/knee replacement surgery, the experience of physiotherapy, and working my way forward into increased mobility.  This theme of motion and mobility, and freedom of movement,  has been a theme for a while.  I sense some future work, both in the graphic/geometric and expressionistic/lyrical painting realms, may be ripening itself for release over the next year or so.  I have become quite passionate, as a result of my experience of pain and disability, to express the liberation I feel now I have freedom of movement.  I would like to use physical actions and movements in my painting more, and paint on a larger scale.

 

“Slow Motion/We Get On” Digital Print by Jenny Meehan This ink-jet print is laminated and mounted on Foamex. It can be purchased with or without a frame. Bold, bright, geometric composition from British female fine and applied artist Jenny Meehan jamartlondon.com

 

Artist’s Description

Slow Motion/We Get On – Abstract Print Design by Jenny Meehan

Progress is sometimes slow in life, however, a positive attitude can take us a long way forwards. This contemporary abstract design is from the “Signs of the Times” series of art work. Inspired partly by my interest in Positive Psychology and also personal mobility challenges, this design is gently dynamic, with a sense of light inter-playing with darkness. Often we don’t see the “light at the end of the tunnel” but may be aware of nuances of light and dark through each day as it comes.

Jenny Meehan
jamartlondon.com

And the other one, which you saw above I donated to SWLEOC…. Here it is:

 

No Problem/Moving On sign of the times series jenny meehan

Artist’s Description

No Problem/Moving On – Geometric Colour Abstract Print by Jenny Meehan jamartlondon.com

One of the “Signs of the Times Series” by Jenny Meehan

This artwork design conveys a positive attitude, and is the fruit of my interest in positive psychology and personal mobility challenges. A “can do” attitude in the face of resistance and difficulties is the only way to move forward. The design has something of my own experience of exercising in a gym with motion suggested through various formal elements, of varying speeds and a sense of progression.

www.jamartlondon.com

 

Osteoarthritis –  The way it comes and runs off with your life

Well,  yes, it is all very positive, the psychology and the art.  But make no mistake, the time before my TKR (total knee replacement) was a very difficult time for me.  There was no doubt at all that the quality of my life diminished!    The worst thing for me was not being able to walk freely and the way it was affecting my painting and artistic practice. It was always  a challenge to balance different aspects of life, but it got even harder. Pain is very wearing.

I have very little pain now, and if I do (If I have really done a HUGE amount) it is very minor and no trouble at all.   In 2016 I found this, which I wrote before writing “The Very Patient Knee Replacement Story by Jenny Meehan”:

“Thoughts for potential artworks are jotted down with a Physiotherapy theme. “Being stretched to the Limit” is an attractive title.  Rather amazingly, the long awaited appointment with a surgeon is at eleven o’ clock in the morning.  Bearing in mind the phrase “the eleventh hour” this holds some  resonance.  For “the latest possible moment” is how it feels to me, even though the appointment has come quite quickly since I have been referred.  The last 16 months have been so restricting, frustrating, and basically disabling.  It’s been a long journey…not over yet. I will probably need to write about it here in the future, particularly in relation to my thoughts about age and access to knee replacement.”

How funny, and little did I know I would get so carried away with writing!

I think I need to write a booklet or some other kind of more concise text about knee replacement next!

Life is just great now though!  Movement and rhythm seem to be two of my most favourite things!  I had a fantastic time at “Drum Dance” which was organised by Kingston Arts in November.  I have even brought myself a little Bongo drum.  Small and cheap but OK for me.  I had such a brilliant time, dancing around for hours on my new knee, I couldn’t quite believe it.  And drumming away!  The best time I have had in ages.  And the next day, no soreness, pain, or any problems with my knee.

I am seriously thinking about incorporating movement into these bigger paintings I plan to do next year.  I need more room!  I need more space!

Dadirri

I found this interesting.  Always very into water.  Just excerpts of it:

Dadirri – A Reflection By Miriam – Rose Ungunmerr- Baumann
NGANGIKURUNGKURR means ‘Deep Water Sounds’. Ngangikurungkurr is the name of
my tribe. The word can be broken up into three parts: Ngangi means word or sound, Kuri
means water, and kurr means deep. So the name of my people means ‘the Deep Water
Sounds’ or ‘Sounds of the Deep’. This talk is about tapping into that deep spring that is
within us.”

“…this quality is called dadirri. It is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness.
Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls to us. This
is the gift that Australia is thirsting for. It is something like what you call “contemplation”.
When I experience dadirri, I am made whole again. I can sit on the riverbank or walk
through the trees; even if someone close to me has passed away, I can find my peace in
this silent awareness. There is no need of words. A big part of dadirri is listening.”

“There is no need to reflect too much and to do a lot of thinking. It is just being aware.
My people are not threatened by silence. They are completely at home in it. They have
lived for thousands of years with Nature’s quietness. My people today, recognise and
experience in this quietness, the great Life-Giving Spirit, the Father of us all. It is easy for
me to experience God’s presence. When I am out hunting, when I am in the bush,
among the trees, on a hill or by a billabong; these are the times when I can simply be in
God’s presence. My people have been so aware of Nature. It is natural that we will feel
close to the Creator.”

She talks also about waiting and how the Aboriginal culture has “taught us to be still and wait”.

“We don’t like to hurry. There is nothing more important than what we are attending to.
There is nothing more urgent that we must hurry away for.
We wait on God, too. His time is the right time. We wait for him to make his Word clear
to us. We don’t worry. We know that in time and in the spirit of dadirri (that deep listening
and quiet stillness) his way will be clear.
We are River people. We cannot hurry the river. We have to move with its current and
understand its ways.”

 

Yes, we cannot hurry the river!

Imagined Worlds Exhibition Images

This was an exhibition I took part in towards the end of 2016 and beginning of this year. It was a super project, brilliantly organised and I was very pleased to be part of it!

Here are some images from the “Imagined Worlds” Exhibition curated by Jon England in collaboration with Somerset Art Works.  All Photos: Jon England.

imagined worlds coleridge kubla khan inspired art exhibition somerset

imagined worlds coleridge kubla khan inspired art exhibition somerset

imagined worlds coleridge kubla khan inspired art exhibition somerset

imagined worlds coleridge kubla khan inspired art exhibition somerset

imagined worlds coleridge kubla khan inspired art exhibition somerset

imagined worlds coleridge kubla khan inspired art exhibition somerset

Imagined Worlds – A touring exhibition of artworks inspired by the poem ‘Kubla Khan’ written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1816. This is a celebration by the Friends of Coleridge supported by Somerset Art Works, working in partnership with the National Trust, CICCIC Taunton, and Art at the Heart, RUH Bath.

My work shown in the third image… Close up reminder:  Title:  Alph, the Sacred River 1

imagined worlds exhibition alph the sacred river coleridge kubla khan jenny meehan

And we must have the poem, of course….

Kubla Khan
BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

 

 

Interesting Book: Art and Psychoanalysis by Maria Walsh

“Often derided as unscientific and self-indulgent, psychoanalysis has been an invaluable resource for artists, art critics and historians throughout the twentieth century. Art and Psychoanalysis investigates these encounters. The shared relationship to the unconscious, severed from Romantic inspiration by Freud, is traced from the Surrealist engagement with psychoanalytic imagery to the contemporary critic’s use of psychoanalytic concepts as tools to understand how meaning operates. Following the theme of the ‘object’ with its varying materiality, Walsh develops her argument that psychoanalysis, like art, is a cultural discourse about the mind in which the authority of discourse itself can be undermined, provoking ambiguity and uncertainty and destabilising identity. The dynamics of the dream-work, Freud’s ‘familiar unfamiliar’, fetishism, visual mastery, abjection, repetition, and the death drive are explored through detailed analysis of artists ranging from Max Ernst to Louise Bourgeois, including 1980s postmodernists such as Cindy Sherman, the performance art of Marina Abramovic’ and post-minimalist sculpture.

Innovative and disturbing, Art and Psychoanalysis investigates key psychoanalytic concepts to reveal a dynamic relationship between art and psychoanalysis which goes far beyond interpretation. There is no cure for the artist – but art can reconcile us to the traumatic nature of human experience, converting the sadistic impulses of the ego towards domination and war into a masochistic ethics of responsibility and desire.”

I will need to put this on my reading list..  Maybe on my Christmas list!

“understand how meaning operates” 

” psychoanalysis, like art, is a cultural discourse about the mind in which the authority of discourse itself can be undermined, provoking ambiguity and uncertainty and destabilising identity.”… interesting…

“There is no cure for the artist – but art can reconcile us to the traumatic nature of human experience, converting the sadistic impulses of the ego towards domination and war into a masochistic ethics of responsibility and desire.”

Mmm, interesting with respect to the sadistic impulses of the ego…  Not so sure on the ethics of responsibility and desire, as don’t quite get why linked with masochistic….   But then, have not read the book yet.  

Introduction
Chapter 1 | Distortion and Disguise: The Dream-Work
Chapter 2 | Uncanny Eruptions
Chapter 3 | Refashioning Fetishism and Masquerade
Chapter 4 | Female Fetishism in the Expanded Field of Narcissism
Chapter 5 | Eye and Gaze: Restoring Body to Vision
Chapter 6 | The Evolution of Abjection
Chapter 7 | Black Narcissus
Chapter 8 | Repetition and the Death Drive
Chapter 9 | Returning to Melanie Klein
Chapter 10 | ‘Real-Making’: A Transitional Phenomenon
Chapter 11 | New Skins for Old
Select Bibliography
Index

Text above is quoted from: http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/The%20arts/The%20arts%20general%20issues/Theory%20of%20art/Art%20and%20Psychoanalysis.aspx?menuitem=%7BE0961D02-3441-46BB-AC01-8728897BEF72%7D

Maria Walsh is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Theory at University of the Arts, London.

As well as all this brain stretching stuff… I am very much interested in interpretation…Someone’s personal interpretation matters just as much as any academic theory or analysis.  But it is good to keep my mind working!

 

Mindful Eating

I lost a lot of weight in the last couple of years.  Still working on it though!  I found mindful eating helpful.

Information quoted below is from this website:  https://zenhabits.net/what-is-mindful-eating/

“Simply put, my approach to mindful eating is learning to pay attention. Instead of eating mindlessly, putting food into your mouth almost unconsciously, not really tasting the food you’re eating … you notice your thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

You learn to pay attention to:

Why you feel like eating, and what emotions or needs might be triggering the eating.
What you’re eating, and whether it is healthy or not.
The look, smell, taste, feel of the food you’re eating.
How it makes you feel as you taste it, as you digest it, and throughout the day.
How full (or sated) you are before, during and after eating.
Your emotions during and after eating.
Where the food came from, who might have grown it, how much it might have suffered before it was killed, whether it was grown organically, how much it was processed, how much it was fried or overcooked, etc.

This is a skill, a form of meditation really, that you don’t just acquire overnight. It takes practice, and there will be times when you forget to eat mindfully, and there will be starts and stops. But with practice and attention, you can become very good at this.” 

 

“The Benefits of Mindful Eating
The benefits of eating mindfully are amazing, and it’s important to know these benefits as you consider the practice.

I’m going to go over just a handful of the most important benefits, though as you learn the practice I’m sure you’ll find many more. Many of these are from personal experience, but many of them are supported by research (I’ve linked to some of the research when I had the link handy).

My favorite benefits:

You learn to eat when you’re hungry, and stop when you’re sated.
You learn to really taste food, and to enjoy the taste of healthy food.
You slowly start to realize that unhealthy food isn’t as tasty as you thought, nor does it make you feel very good.
As a result of the above three points, you will often lose weight if you’re overweight.
You begin to sort through the emotional issues you have around food and eating. This takes a bit longer, but it’s important.
Social overeating can become less of a problem — you can eat mindfully while socializing, with practice, and not overeat.
You begin to enjoy the eating experience more, and as a result enjoy life more, when you’re more present.
It can become a mindfulness ritual you look forward to.
You learn how food affects your mood and energy throughout the day.
You learn what food best fuels your exercise and work and play.
Again, there are other benefits, but these are some of the most important, in my experience. “

I am rather rushing around at the moment, as I can now do so.  It seems I have a burst of energy I haven’t had for years and I think that now I am mobile and pain free, I am intent on making the most of what I have while I have it.  I don’t think I will ever take walking for granted again!

This looks interesting, on another tangent:

http://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/about

Contact Jenny Meehan through the contact form on her website:

http://www.jamartlondon.com/contact/4569980742

About Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) 

Jenny Meehan is an established artist who has been exhibiting for over ten years, mostly in the UK. Notable exhibitions include, most recently being selected for the Imagined Worlds touring exhibition of artworks inspired by the poem ‘Kubla Khan’ and inclusion in “Building Bridges, the Female Perspective” at Tower Bridge Victorian Engine Rooms in 2016. Jenny has been a keen supporter of various charity art exhibitions over the years including the National Brain Appeals ” A Letter in Mind” at Gallery@oxo, South Bank, London and the “Anatomy for Life” Exhibition for Brighton Sussex University Hospitals Trust in 2015

Selected by a wide range of judges in open submission exhibitions, her work appeals to the aesthetic and emotional discernment of many, and has been displayed in many prestigious galleries. These include the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, in 2015, as part of their Open Exhibition, and the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex, as part of the Pallant House Gallery/St Wilfrid’s Hospice Open Art Exhibition in 2010.

Jenny Meehan’s work has been included in several academic projects and and publications including “Speaking Out – Women Recovering from the Trauma of Violence” by Nicole Fayard in 2014 and the ongoing “Recovery” Exhibition project – Institute Of Mental Health/City Arts, Nottingham University, also in 2014. While her romantic, lyrical, expressionistic, abstract paintings offer a contemplative space free from cares and concerns, other strands of her practice engage with subjects ranging from violence, trauma recovery, psychoanalysis, and mental health.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Wetin You Go Do? ” at Tate Modern – Big Brainstorming – Research – Artists Exhibiting – Open Studios of the 18th Century- Painters in search of their public -Second Prize in the Chester Art Centre Open Exhibition 2017 – Moral Rights Information

Thinking, Thinking and Thinking a little bit more…

I am still thinking about the installation”Wetin You Go Do? ”    I saw last month at Tate Modern.  Large concrete spheres with rope which ran  through them.  Like large beads!  I couldn’t get a ball and chain out of my mind while walking around the installation.  How heavy those beads looked.  I could identify with that heaviness, and for me the experience resonated of the heaviness of not being able to move. Because beads and orbs must roll around mustn’t they?  Made to do that.  But no movement there.   As I have experienced in some degree reduced mobility over the last couple of years, it was an experience which  hit my core.

As a child I loved dancing, and I wanted to be a ballet dancer.  Dancing was my freedom, and as I was  growing up in  a household which was oppressive in many respects, and in which I did not feel free to be myself, movement has always been something which matters with a force of feeling I am very conscious of. The associations I have with dancing and ballet are all good.  That was my space, my being, my freedom, my territory.  So walking around “Wetin You Go Do? ”  2015, the work of  Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga was profound.  The fact that I was able to walk around it, with no stick, no pain, and with the freedom to walk around and around, as many times as I wanted, is great.  It made the immovable nature of the concrete orbs even stronger in my mind.  To be created in a form which is meant to move, and to not move, seemed the uppermost idea in my mind.

The text on “Wetin You Go Do? ”  says that it “integrates voice and sculpture to reflect on contemporary anxieties”.  It was quite beautiful to listen to and there was movement in the voices and the sound.  To have the overlapping sound was almost healing in effect.  Like water.  The sound was edited and layers, and each sphere represented an imaginary character.  The cross over of the voices meant they never quite met, even though linked together.  I guess this is something I understood personally as symbolising that there is no escape from our own unique individual experience. Our own narrative, story, is our own.  We can tell it and say it, and it may be heard or it may not.   However linked we are, there is an overlapping which means some of our voice is missed.  I cannot remember if there were points at which there was a meeting of the voices ( I mean, a small space left so that one voice seemed to respond to another) but I think there was at times.  I did go back to dwell in the space again the week after my visit, but it had finished!  I would have gone back every week if I had known about it sooner.  It meant that much to me!

The soundtracks in “Wetin You Go Do? ”   were partly narrative and partly song.  As well as some statements in English, French and Nigerian Pidgin, there were the watery poetic meanderings (and you know how much I like meanderings!) of a stream of consciousness narrative . Meandering monologues!   I am very fond of the stream of consciousness narrative mode, which I first encountered when studying Mrs Dalloway, a novel by Virginia Woolf, as part of my Literature degree.  “Stream of consciousness”  describes a literary form where a person’s thoughts and conscious reactions to events are perceived as a continuous flow.  The term was introduced by William James in his Principles of Psychology (1890).

Though the dialogue in “Wetin You Go Do? ” was improvised by the artist on the subject of reflecting on life’s difficulties, so in emotional expression, steeped in anxiety; I found it oddly soothing.  I suppose maybe it’s kind of wonderful when emotion is expressed.  Expressed anxiety is shared, and the installation as a whole did hold a huge sense of interconnectedness which is comforting and made the space very expansive even though enclosed.

I went back to see it a second time, but it had finished!

I have made several trips to Tate Modern recently.  I am getting a lot out of it.  Now I can walk freely, I can fill up with visits to galleries!   This is very good and very important to me.

Big Brainstorming!

I am enjoying brainstorming and having a very productive time in the thought department.  While my painting is rather “finishing off” orientated.. not that there ever is an end to a painting… but what I mean, maybe… is just visually resolving a few of the painterly footsteps I make as I meander through life!  But alongside the current of traces of paint, snail like trails which follow behind me, there is a lot going on.  Being very inspired!  I had a FANTASTIC three hours at the Barbican for the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition.  I have been seriously shaken up and stirred!  I knew I would, which is why I went!  And the fantastic day ended with the amazing “Interchange” experience:

Text from website:

“Friday Tonic: Interchange

Part of EFG London Jazz Festival
See an exciting new jazz dectet comprising ten of the nation’s most innovative jazz composers and improvisers.

Ten of the UK’s leading female musicians combine in a new initiative led by Issie Barratt, playing new music from women composers representing a breadth and diversity that crosses generations and cultural backgrounds.

Interchange’s programme of ten new works keenly explores the full emotional spectrum while collectively pushing the composed and the improvised to the max.

Because of Interchange’s diverse cultural background combined with their mutual experience across all genres (jazz, pop, classical, world music) they’re a very genre-fluid ensemble. For example, Shirley Karen is a regular member of both Mike Westbrook’s big band and the Ballet Rambert, while Carol’s either touring with Seal or playing on TV soundtracks. Shirley’s equally at home playing jazz, Middle Eastern or classical cello and Yazz is as comfortable working with the LSO as with the LJO making for an eclectic and vibrant mix.

Issie Barratt is supported by PRS for Music Foundation”

While they were playing several small children were moving to the music…At times with beautiful expressive movements, among the general running, jumping and chasing each other around.  It was delightful. I took note of some of their moves, though unfortunately, mobile as I am, I am not sure I can quite do all of them!!!

Research

I am currently doing a lot of research on materials and textures.  And colour, of course.  Also, though I do love my iron oxides, earths and other metal based inorganic pigments, I did succumb to the violent modern dye based experience over the year with “Water Fight/Mad Moment” and I also succumbed to the lure of plastic gloves!  This may be a sign of things to come!

… as you see here:

I don’t always dress like  this…It was a special occasion!  Look at those arms!  Swimming arms and good for holding big heavy paintbrushes!

 

jenny meehan waterfight mad moment abstract painting jamartlondon

I have tended to refer to acrylic paint as “liquid plastic” and I don’t like the feel of it all that much.  Well, not as much as silica sol mineral paint or oil paint.  But it dries quickly, and with just a studio tent and no other permanent space solely devoted to being a painting area, it does have its benefits.  No I am getting very interested in increasing the size of my painting, this brings with it many practical issues.  However, as I think I have written before, “Necessity is the Mother of Invention”.  Well, it can be.  Sometimes it is just a pain in the arse and annoying.

So I am doing a lot of experimentation at the moment with more affordable substrates than stretched canvas.  As I want to paint larger, I need to change the materials I use.  I have a lot of materials around me in my domestic environment.  I have a lot of sheets and tablecloths, pillow cases and lots of other materials which I could use.  I am keen to recycle the materials I already have.   I enjoy experimenting and researching… I spent at least six months when I was looking into silica sol mineral paint…So this is going to take some time.  I am also considering, alongside my usual emphasis on ensuring my materials are compatible, stable, long lasting and as permanent as possible, using some materials which are temporary and experimenting with painting which is temporary.  I feel as long as I know what I am doing in terms of the materials, I can do what I want.  What is distressing is when artists use materials which they don’t know the properties of.  For example, doing work in biro which they want to last and think will last, but not checking if the ink in the pen is permanent or not!!!

I am also thinking very much that I need to move myself in to the moment more.  It is so easy for me to think about my production and what I produce, but lose the value of the moment, of the very act of being and doing something for its own sake.  There is a ritualistic aspect to my painting.  I sometimes dance or move, listen to music, exercise… the list goes on. It is relatively easy to produce a pleasing painting.  It can be harder to shed the mental shroud of it needing to matter.  In the end it is a simple entering into an experience of life giving interaction with materials and movement.  It is the movement which now interests me.  Probably because I feel so very very grateful for it.

I do need more space.

I need a room of my own.

My studio tent is full.

And it’s very COLD at the moment.

I do have my kitchen table.

I am constantly aware of the restrictions on my art working in financial and practical areas.  But I am happy too.  Because I am blessed to be an artist. It is a calling in life for me.   I was grateful many years ago to someone I spoke to who reminded of this.  I was moaning about financial restrictions, and they simply said about their own painting “I am so grateful that I have the gift I have.”  And I am so grateful to them for reminding me.  It’s very easy to fall into being negative.

So as I seek to enlarge the area of my painting, I can utilise what might hold it back, and enable it to move forwards.  No problem.

Jenny Meehan/Jennifer Meehan SWLEOC art donation image 2017 No Problem/Moving On

Yes!  No problem, again!  I have popped this in because I saw it in it’s place today when I was at SWLEOC for the Patient Forum.   It really does look like it was made to go where it is placed.   They did a good job of finding its home for it, because it certainly looks at home!

 

 

“Wisteria Trellis” Print by Jenny Meehan

 

wisteria trellis by jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

Above is “Wisteria Trellis” another print.  This was exhibited at “Bah Humbug” KAOS exhibition Cass Art 2016

My thoughts on it at the time:

More aware of the value of support systems in daily life, the motif of a trellis as a support for growth is an important one for me. Collage as a technique has started to sneak into some of my paintings, and is not new to me in terms of digital imagery, but with the introduction of a graphic plant motif, combined with experiments with printed colour, the production of small printed images provides an interesting strand of my work which I am able to do while seated.”

I was needing to be rather more seated than I wanted!  Now, with my nice new knee,  I have to remind myself to sit down from time to time!

And my supports, in the form of crutches and sticks, have lain unused for months!

I am now 8 months post op from my TKR.  I will be posting the update on “The very patient knee replacement story by Jenny Meehan” soon.  It is getting quite hard to fit that additional writing in!  I have given up on including images.

 

Second Prize in the Chester Art Centre Open Exhibition 2017

I now need to sort out some more printing because I won 2nd Prize in the Digital Art section of the Chester Art Centre Open Exhibition this year, with “Leap of Faith”.

 

Leap of Faith…This time paid off!

leap of faith jenny meehan (jennifer meehan) geometrical abstract design artwork fine art print to buy

You can buy unsigned prints of “Leap of Faith” on Redbubble.com  It is under its first title “Take Courage/Leap of Faith”.  I like two titles!

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/13790986-no-cares-take-courage-leap-of-faith-design-by-jenny-meehan

It was printed as part of the Chester Art Centre Exhibition and the framed print was purchased.

I am very pleased about winning £150 worth of printing,  because I no longer have an A3 printer (it broke), so it is rather timely!  I have a series of prints I am working on still which I would like printed.   I don’t tend to produce limited edition prints very much, but just sign and number them, as it gives me a lot more freedom as an artist to do what I want with my imagery in the future.  As I don’t spend much time producing prints this means all my prints are limited in number!  There are also open edition unsigned prints available of some of my selected images at Redbubble.com.   Now is the age of printed matter all over the place.  No point in artificially limiting numbers for most of the things I print, in my opinion.  As long as I get my royalty and people don’t use my images without my permission, I am happy.    They have LOTS of merchandise you can have printed with my images!

One example:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams/works/21152134-trellis-wisteria-floral-design-jenny-meehan-jamartlondon?p=poster&rel=carousel

Take a look!

 

Moral Rights Information

Here for my own information!  As I have said before, I use this blog as a bit of a notepad!

Quoted from DACS Newsletter September 2016

 https://www.dacs.org.uk/latest-news/copyright-uncovered-moral-rights?utm_source=DACS%2BGeneral%2BMailing%2BList&utm_campaign=4c1d8e013c-DACS_newsletter_Sep_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_de159500fe-4c1d8e013c-222682597&mc_cid=4c1d8e013c&mc_eid=747412c6ec&category=For+Artists&title=N

Whereas copyright allows you to control how your work is reproduced and distributed, moral rights protect your name and reputation – so it is important to be aware of them.

There are four moral rights under UK law:

• The right to be identified as the creator of your work – known as ‘the Attribution Right’
• The right to object to derogatory treatment of your work negatively affecting your reputation – known as ‘the Right of Integrity’
• The right to not be identified as the creator of a work created by someone else – known as ‘The Right to object to False Attribution’
• The right to not have photographs or films that were commissioned for private and domestic purposes exhibited, broadcast or issued to the public – known as ‘the Right of Privacy in certain photographs and films’

 

Artists Exhibiting – Open Studios of the 18th Century- Painters in search of their Public

I found the following read charming… And discovered  that my kitchen and living room space, which serves as a display area for a selection of my paintings,  has some historical precedence, of which I knew not!

The Illustrious Academies: 17th and 18th Centuries (The painter in search of his public: the commercialization of art) …  quote from  Chambers Arts Library “How to read Paintings 2- The secrets of the artist’s studio”

“A change was occurring, particularly in France at around the time the Academie was founded, whereby the distinction between artists who “peddled their own wares” and those who (at least in an ideal sense) painted or sculpted out of love for their art (receiving the thanks of delighted clients who where able to appreciate their talent and the time they had devoted to their work) became even more clear-cut.  Thus in his petition to the king, Martin de Charmois asked that anyone who ran a shop be prohibited from calling himself a painter or sculptor.  There was doubtless a good deal of hypocrisy in this.  Whether they belonged to the guild (whose members were allowed to deal in art) or the Academie, artists had to earn a living, and in reality it was fully acknowledged that they had no need to limit themselves to salaries and privileges – which were growing in number but still only benefited a minority of artists – provided they sold only their own paintings and went about it discreetly.  In 17th- century France, therefore, transactions tended  to be carried out not in workshops that opened onto the street, but in the upper rooms of the house in which the artist worked or in a room disguised as a sitting room adjoining the artist’s studio (as in the room in which Poussin painted himself in the Louvre self-portrait, which was probably at the back of the courtyard of a private mansion or at the top of  building.)

The same arrangement was usual in 18th-century England.  The most famous artists maintained a showroom – a sitting room or private gallery – next to their studio.  During the second half of the 18th century, Joshua Reynolds had his studio in Leicester Fields in London.  The painter showed his own paintings here, taking care to recreate the hushed atmosphere of a private apartment.  He also offered curios and old masters for sale, the latter in order to increase the prestige and therefore the price of his own work.  Angelika Kauffmann, a Swiss painter who settled in London in 1766, also maintained an exhibition room next to her studio in Suffolk Street, not far from where she lived.  She described the arrangement as follows : ” I have four rooms, one in which I paint, another in which, in keeping with the custom here, I hand my finished paintings… People come and sit here – to visit me or to see my pictures; it would be out of the question to receive the public in a room which was not handsomely decorated.”

 

And so, indeed it would!  However, I trust the room need not be spotless, because it is very hard, or maybe even impossible, for a artist with an additional domestic/home management role to have time to do both her painting and a sufficient amount of housework.  !!!!  And, I may “peddle my wares” and paint for love, I trust.  Indeed, in order to paint for love, finances are needed.  I need people to buy my work… In doing so, they ensure I am able to continue.  Resources are limited.  Just love this..

“People come and sit here – to visit me or to see my pictures; it would be out of the question to receive the public in a room which was not handsomely decorated.”   

I do agree.

My kitchen space, and sometime studio, and my studio tent, and sometime greenhouse, are NOT handsomely decorated one little bit.  But the welcome is there!

 

“The Very Patient Knee Replacement Story by Jenny Meehan.”

Well,  I need to get on with writing the 8 month update on “The Very Patient Knee Replacement Story by Jenny Meehan.”  It is certainly not the sort of writing I thought I would be engaged in, but little did I know what would happen with my knee!  I feel it is worth investing my time into it, as major surgery is a very challenging experience, and I wanted to do something which may help other people going through the same operation!  Everyone has very different experiences and everyone’s situation is very different, but I felt by sharing my experience it might prove useful in some way.  Because I have an ongoing interest in trauma recovery, it seemed to add another dimension to my existing interests.    I am also working on an abridged version, as the full version is rather long.  But writing it kept me sane as I had a project to work on which I could do throughout the whole period.  I will stop writing it at the one year mark.

https://jennymeehan.wordpress.com/the-very-patient-knee-replacement-story-by-jenny-meehan/

 

https://jennymeehan.wordpress.com/abridged-version-of-the-very-patient-knee-replacement-story-by-jenny-meehan/

 

TO FOLLOW THIS ARTIST’S BLOG SIMPLY GO TO THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN, LOCATE THE  “FOLLOW” BOX AND POP IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.  YOU WILL THEN RECEIVE MONTHLY UPDATES. 

 

Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) is a painter-poet, artist-author  and Christian contemplative  based in East Surrey/South West London.   Her interest in Christ-centred spirituality and creativity are the main focus of this artist’s journal, which rambles and meanders on, maybe acting as a personal (yet open to view)  note book as much as anything else.  

Her website is www.jamartlondon.com.  (www.jamartlondon.com replaces the older now deceased website http://www.jennymeehan.co.uk)

Contact Jenny via her website: 

http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/contact/4569980742

Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) BA Hons (Lit.) PGCE  offers art tuition.  Please contact Jenny at j.meehan@tesco.net or through the contact form at www.jamartlondon.com for further details.  Availability depends on other commitments.    

 Jenny  works mainly with either oils or acrylics  creating both abstract/non-objective paintings  and also semi-abstract work.  She also produces some representational/figurative artwork,  mostly using digital photography/image manipulation software, painting and  drawing.  Both original fine paintings, other artwork forms,  and affordable photo-mechanically produced prints are available to purchase.

This artist’s blog is of interest to artists, art collectors, art lovers and anyone interested in fine art.  Those interested in British 21st century female contemporary artists, women and art, religious art, spirituality and art, and psychoanalysis and art, will probably enjoy dipping into this Jenny Meehan Contemporary Artist’s Journal.

Art collectors are often interested in the processes, techniques, interests and influences of the artists whose work they collect, and sharing my thoughts and perspectives through a blog is an important dimension of my creative practice.

My main focus is directed towards process led abstract painting, and you can view some examples of this on my website jamartlondon.com.  I encapsulate my painting as being romantic,expressionistic, abstract and lyrical.  Art collectors interested in lyrical abstraction, abstract expressionist, and essentially romantic art, are likely to find my paintings an interesting and exciting addition to their art collection. Art collectors can view a list of exhibitions I have taken part in on my websites exhibitions page; http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/exhibitions/4570944550

Art collectors can see selected examples of my original paintings  organised by year on jamartlondon which gives you a brief overview of the development of my painting over the years:

http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/paintings/4570156802

I am a self-representing artist, whose aim is to ensure  I continue to develop my painting practice in an innovative and pioneering way, rather than attempt some kind of commercial success, and whose aim is also that my work is historically relevant, rather then celebrated in that so called and illusive “art world”.  I hope to add to the number of people who value, collect, and develop an interest in my paintings and to thereby sustain and develop my practice over many years. 

I am also keen that my  art work is appreciated and accessible to as many people as possible, and am aware that not all art lovers and art collectors can afford to buy original paintings or limited edition prints.  For that reason I grant licenses for the use of my imagery. (See Redbubble.com and DACS information below). 

To be placed on Jenny Meehan’s  bi-annual  mailing list please contact Jenny via her website contact page:  www.jamartlondon.com

Also, you could follow the Jenny Meehan Contemporary Artist’s Journal at WordPress and keep informed that way. 

Note About Following Jenny Meehan Contemporary Artist’s Journal 

TO FOLLOW THIS ARTIST’S BLOG SIMPLY LOCATE THE  “FOLLOW” BOX AND POP IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.  YOU WILL THEN RECEIVE MONTHLY UPDATES. 

 

Website Link for jamartlondon:  www.jamartlondon.com 

A selection of non objective paintings can be viewed on pinterest:   https://uk.pinterest.com/Jamartlondon/

 

Help me continue my practice/art working:

 Jenny Meehan art images on Redbubble and Image Licensing through the Designer and Artists Copyright Society

If you would like a way of helping me in some small way, while benefiting from my art working yourself, then scoot along to redbubble.com where you can buy various products with my imagery on them.  It is a good company and they produce and sell their products with my images on.  I get a small royalty payment when something is sold.  It all helps a little. Here is the link to the pages on Redbubble.com which show prints with my imagery on them:

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/jenny+meehan+prints?cat_context=u-prints&page=1&accordion=department

My prints and some merchandise which uses my artwork can also be purchased safely and easily through Redbubble.com

Here is the link to the main Jenny Meehan portfolio page on Redbubble.com:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams?ref=artist_title_name

 

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

All content on this blog,  unless specified otherwise,  is © Jenny Meehan.  Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts of writing and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jenny Meehan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Images may not be used without permission under any circumstances. 

Copyright and Licensing Digital Images Information – Jenny Meehan

www.jamartlondon.com

Copyright in all images by Jenny Meehan is held by the artist.
Permission must be sought in advance for the reproduction, copying or any other use of any images by Jenny Meehan.

Copyright for all visual art by Jenny Meehan is managed by the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) in the UK. If you wish to licence a work of art by Jenny Meehan,  you could contact Jenny Meehan in the first instance to clarify your requirements. There is a contact form on my website www.jamartlondon.com.  Alternatively you can contact the DACS directly;  https://www.dacs.org.uk/licensing-works

Licensing an image is quick and easy for both parties and is organised through the Design and Artist Copyright Society. (Note, my images are not shown on the “Art image” selection on the Design and Artist Copyright “Art Image” page. This does NOT mean you cannot apply for a license to use an image of my work from DACS… They simply have a very limited sample selection of work in their “Artimage” page!)

I have extensive archives of digital imagery, and keep records of all my art work, so  if you require an image similar to something of mine you have seen on the internet, it’s worth contacting me to see if I have something suitable for licensing if need be.  Use the contact form on my website jamartlondon.com to enquire:  http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/contact/4569980742

About Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) 

Jenny Meehan is an established artist who has been exhibiting for over ten years, mostly in the UK. Notable exhibitions include, most recently being selected for the Imagined Worlds touring exhibition of artworks inspired by the poem ‘Kubla Khan’ and inclusion in “Building Bridges, the Female Perspective” at Tower Bridge Victorian Engine Rooms in 2016. Jenny has been a keen supporter of various charity art exhibitions over the years including the National Brain Appeals ” A Letter in Mind” at Gallery@oxo, South Bank, London and the “Anatomy for Life” Exhibition for Brighton Sussex University Hospitals Trust in 2015

Selected by a wide range of judges in open submission exhibitions, her work appeals to the aesthetic and emotional discernment of many, and has been displayed in many prestigious galleries. These include the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, in 2015, as part of their Open Exhibition, and the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex, as part of the Pallant House Gallery/St Wilfrid’s Hospice Open Art Exhibition in 2010.

Jenny Meehan’s work has been included in several academic projects and and publications including “Speaking Out – Women Recovering from the Trauma of Violence” by Nicole Fayard in 2014 and the ongoing “Recovery” Exhibition project – Institute Of Mental Health/City Arts, Nottingham University, also in 2014. While her romantic, lyrical, expressionistic, abstract paintings offer a contemplative space free from cares and concerns, other strands of her practice engage with subjects ranging from violence, trauma recovery, psychoanalysis, and mental health.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Basquiat – Rags to Riches” – Chester Open Art Exhibition 2017 – “Becoming” Painting and Poem- “Dark Night” Painting – Female Abstract Expressionist Perle Fine – Yoga and Christianity – “Mending” Painting and Fixer Type Personality Thoughts – More Paintings and Prints from a Mother-Artist

Interesting Television Programme

I have watched the “Basquiat – Rags to Riches” programme recently. Several times.

Here is the text about the programme:

“The recent Sotheby’s auction of a Jean-Michel Basquiat Skull painting for over a hundred million dollars has catapulted this Brooklyn-born artist into the top tier of the international art market, joining the ranks of Picasso, de Kooning and Francis Bacon. This film tells Jean-Michel’s story through exclusive interviews with his two sisters Lisane and Jeanine, who have never before agreed to be interviewed for a TV documentary. With striking candour, Basquiat’s art dealers – including Larry Gagosian, Mary Boone and Bruno Bischofberger – as well as his most intimate friends, lovers and fellow artists, expose the cash, the drugs and the pernicious racism which Basquiat confronted on a daily basis. As historical tableaux, visual diaries of defiance or surfaces covered with hidden meanings, Basquiat’s art remains the beating heart of this story” 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b098pd3q

What an interesting programme and it’s opened my eyes up.  Not sure quite what the results will be, but feeling very inspired.  

The exhibition looks good too, must get to see it!  I have booked to see it in November.  This is very exciting!

Here is some information on the exhibition:

“The first large-scale exhibition in the UK of the work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960—1988).

Discover the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the pioneering prodigy of the 1980s downtown New York art scene. This unprecedented exhibition brings together an outstanding selection of more than 100 works from international museums and private collections. Engage in the explosive creativity of Basquiat who worked with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Blondie, among others. Featuring rare film, photography and archive material, the show captures the spirit of this self-taught artist, poet, DJ and musician whose influence, since his death at 27 in 1988, has been enormous.”

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2017/event/basquiat-boom-for-real

Chester Open Art Exhibition 2017

One of my prints is still on display and has just been sold!  It was made available for sale as part of the Chester Open Art Exhibition 2017.  I have suddenly realised I don’t think I posted this up as a news item on this blog!  Better late than never!

How the months fly by!

leap of faith jenny meehan (jennifer meehan) geometrical abstract design artwork fine art print to buy © Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

https://chesterartcentre.co.uk/chester-art-centre-open-exhibition-2017/

Information about the venue…

Joseph Benjamin is a Chester restaurant owned and run by brothers Ben and Joe Wright. The idea behind the restaurant is simple – top quality food and drink in a comfortable and relaxed environment, prepared with honesty and integrity and served with care and attention.

Joseph Benjamin opens at 9am for coffee and breakfast. Lunch is served from noon till 3pm and then, on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday, dinner is served from 6pm.

David Gill, Jenny Meehan, James March, Michele Landel, Susan Welsby, Liz Fitzgerald-Taylor, Ian Hill Smith are the artists with work on display.

The work looks very nice indeed!  I did have a nice image of it in situ but cannot locate it right now, however will post when I have found it!

Becoming – Painting and Poem by Jenny Meehan

“Becoming
light and colour.
The poetic space
coming together.
In one, long, moment
I will take you there,
and you will see
beauty in brokenness. ”

Jenny Meehan

© Jenny Meehan  All Rights Reserved

 

catastrophe becoming painting by jenny meehan submitted to 100days100women.wordpress.com british collectable abstract paintings

 

I have submitted the above work for an excellent project by author Henry Martin.  Who knows if anything will come of it or not, but I actually feel so glad that such a project is being done that I am delighted to submit whatever the outcome may be.  And thankfully no charge involved to submit.   That’s always a blessing.  Here is some of the call out text:

“To celebrate the launch of the biography Agnes Martin: Pioneer, Painter, Icon (published March 2018) author Henry Martin will promote 100 women artists on the blog 100days100women.wordpress.com from November 2017–March 2018.

Painters, sculptors, textile artists, illustrators, graphic designers, ceramicists; artists of all practices are invited to send their work for consideration. Selected artists will be featured alongside invited artists including:

Ying Ang, Elinor Carucci, Eleanor Crow, Suzanne Dean, Milena Dragicevic, Joy Gerrard, Jenny Grigg, Anne Jordan, Polly Morgan, Adrian Piper, Aidan Salakhova, Karen Schiff, Heidi Specker, Clare Twomey, Jo Walker, and Bettina von Zwehl.

Henry Martin says, “100Days100Women is a corrective measure I can take as a biographer and art writer, to not only educate myself on contemporary art practice by women artists known and unknown to me, but also to fight against historical precedent in the disappearance of art by women in art history books, the marketplace, and human consciousness.”

The feminist writer Jill Johnston once said of Agnes Martin: ‘During every terrible decade it’s a pleasure finding a great woman.’ I believe that we live in such a terrible decade, but we are lucky that there are many great women still to find and champion.

Submissions can be made on 100Days100Women.wordpress.com, and followed on Facebook at @100Days100Women. “

 

I look forward to seeing the project unfolding.

 

Before Knee Replacement…

Do you know, I STILL look back sometimes to what life was like before my knee replacement.  With a sigh of relief it is over.  Now over seven months post op I can now RUSH around.  That’s new.  Good exercise, walking fast.  Fantastic to be able to make plans to see exhibitions in London with no doubts that I will be able to get where I need to go!  While the weeks and months after TKR are a huge challenge, I still hold to the precept that the time period of a year (at least) before was far worse. Because of going nowhere, and not even going nowhere fast.  Going nowhere SLOW.  And sometimes going nowhere at all!  The lack of mobility was killing me.

Had a bit of a dark phase before my TKR..Paintings at the end of 2016 went very dark…

Dark Night Painting by Jenny Meehan

This painting which I did put up on jamartlondon.com is still standing its ground.

dark night of the soul abstract painting jenny meehan jamartlondon

Dark Night Painting by Jenny Meehan. Available for sale, Please contact Jenny Meehan via the contact form on my website if interested in adding this work to your art collection!  http://www.jamartlondon.com

http://www.jamartlondon.com

I am standing around a lot too…  Kind of useful for painting!  Climbing up ladders and all sorts!  Back in action!

Female Abstract Expressionists

Terminology is crude, but I guess I would fit into that bracket.  I like to call my work “Romantic, Expressionistic, Abstract, Lyrical” painting.  But too many words for everyday use!

On the abstract expressionist theme, I have now taken some time to look into some female artists whose style can be defined as being in the abstract expressionist camp.  Abstract expressionism can reek of male dominance in my imagination… and there is possible a reason for this, as many female abstract expressionists seem to have dissolved more into the wings of the art theatre…

But women all over the world are completely immersed in the wonders of expression through non-objective painting…  And always have done…and always will!

Perle Fine is one painter I have looked at recently…

http://www.perlefine.com/collections.html

Quote Marika Herskovic:

“Perle Fine belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist Artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic including Paris. New York School Abstract Expressionism represented by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and others.”

Few nice quotes by Perle Fine:

 

“Feeling is what we are involved with” and

“I don’t paint to sell and I don’t paint not to sell”

I will keep that in mind!

https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-perle-fine-12709

From the transcript, quote I find most interesting right now:

“PERLE FINE: Yes. Well, after leaving the Hofmann School—well, of course this was happening all the time I was at the Hofmann School—I realized that there was no such thing as semi-abstract painting; that one couldn’t be semi-abstract any more than you could—well, it’s like saying I feel a little bit strongly about something, you see. Because for a thing to be abstract meant to me that you had to feel strongly enough about it to turn your back on realism and do everything necessary in an abstract way to put across a feeling which meant being totally abstract or non-objective.”

And very interesting reading on her process.

 

Perle Fine was married to the photographer and art director Maurice Berezov.  Despite her innovative exploration of Abstract Expressionism, which she fused with an interest in the pure forms of Neo-Plasticism, Fine was not included in the Whitney’s 1978 show “Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years,” which she contested in two letters to the museum.  She later became a renowned professor at Hofstra University.

A quote from Perle Fine I find inspiring:   “I never thought of myself as a student or teacher, but as a painter. When I paint something I am very much aware of the future. If I feel something will not stand up 40 years from now, I am not interested.”

 

The “Very Patient Knee Replacement Story” goes on, and on, and on and on…!

Well back in September now I wrote my latest update. Waiting for the eight month mark for the next update, but cannot resist a little narrative here!

In September I focused a lot on post operative depression and also on how I found yoga very helpful in my rehabilitation.

I am most grateful that I discovered the practice of yoga through the Our Parks scheme, because it has made a huge difference to my health and happiness. When I started doing it a couple of years back it made me aware of how limited my mobility was, helped my limbs to keep moving and to be as flexible as was possible, and helped all my soft tissues both pre and post op. It generally re-introduced me to the joy and importance of movement, something I had lost somewhat over the years. I realised how integral movement is to my sense of self. It brought an appreciation of how an embodied contemplative practice is so very beneficial and facilitated my general orientation towards the contemplative way of life, including the practice of mindfulness, which was something I had already started to embrace.  So three hundred cheers for Our Parks!

https://ourparks.org.uk/

On the subject of yoga,  a collector recently brought the two “Yoga Inhale” and “Yoga Exhale” paintings.  I am pleased they are still together.  They look great in her home.

© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reservedyoga inhale yoga breathing inspired abstract painting by jenny meehan

 

© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reservedyoga exhale yoga breathing inspired abstract painting by jenny meehan

I love it when my paintings find owners!

I have very real space issues here.  Living in a two up two down (well, three down!) house and being an artist presents some problems.  I am currently in the process of trying to organise all my work, equipment, materials and resources a little better.  Unfortunately this means that for a couple of weeks I have not done any painting at all.  I am getting irritable and cross.  However I will reap the rewards of being able to find things easier when it is done.  I now have quite a good system for locating particular paintings which is good because when art collectors are interested in buying one of my paintings, it helps a great deal if I can find it quickly!!!

 

Crossing Over, Letting Go and Entering the World of the Other

abstract lyrical expressionist british paintings jenny meehan

 

Crossing Over, Letting Go and Entering the World of the Other Painting by Jenny Meehan, available for sale please contact if interested. 

Available for sale, Please contact Jenny Meehan via the contact form on my website if interested in adding this work to your art collection!  http://www.jamartlondon.com

http://www.jamartlondon.com

The direction in my thinking on this painting above:

Deep Dialogue
Professor Leonard Swidler, in collaboration with Professor Ashok Gangadean, helped delineate the ‘Seven Stages of Deep Dialogue’ to describe the potential for dialogue leading to transformation. This narrative was intended as a meditation. This painting also: “Crossing Over, Letting Go and Entering the World of the Other”.

54x44cm external frame. Acrylic on Hardboard. Sealed with a protective layer of acrylic varnish. Light natural wood frame.

See more of this group of paintings on my website, jamartlondon.com.

http://www.jamartlondon.com/paintings-2017/4592780606 

Above is link direct to page.

 

In a bit of a fix…

A lot of my photographic art work involves images of fixings and fastenings of different kinds.  Images taken of buildings, mainly small out buildings like garages or beach huts, or garden gates or the backs of buildings seen from alleyways and rear access roads.  Most of these photographs were taken between  2007 and 2012, a period of five years which were for myself a period of certainly feeling I was falling apart, so maybe not surprisingly the orientation towards fixings was meaningful to me.   The need to hold myself together, though falling apart, is necessary for a mother who has care of others but needs to carry on functioning in life!  So the felt need was great!  In a big way, having responsibility for others can be helpful, even if tough times, as long as the strain is not too great.  Because you have to keep going.  But one needs to get help when falling apart from the inside.

It also occurs to me that the interest in fixings, which has translated itself into many of my paintings… mainly those with a structural, building type feel, like for example the “Nelson Square” painting, and it’s more recent “Nelson Square Two ” (which I am still working on, still in progress); this interest also says something maybe about my experience of having a bit of a “Fixer” relationship pattern.  I can see it more now, and am more aware of it, and it’s pitfalls.  Of which there are many!  But it is interesting as a creative… that love of putting things together, drawing together, uniting, balancing, melding things which are apart.  Articulating.  Joining. Building structure, and formation generally!  So positive and wonderful.  I spend myself and give myself through the process.  And this is rewarding.  I love it and find it fulfilling.  But to try and do this with other people is not good at all.  To try to do for others what is their own responsibility is very negative indeed.  As with many of our drives and urges, there is a positive and negative aspect.  It’s helpful to recognise both!  And so…

What is the  Fixer Relationship Type?

Note: Firstly, when categorising, it is important to realise that we are all rather piecemeal…The category is clumsy and only gives an approach to a personality…It is not there to confine or restrict but just to serve as an aid in thinking, and that alone.  The reality of each one of us is that we are far too complex to fall into any one category!!!

It sounds good, being a “fixer” but most people who tend this way learn their fixing behaviours in childhood, maybe by being burdened with inappropriate amounts of responsibility, in various ways, for example caring for siblings or even parents,  in “role reversal” where the child switches places with the adult.  It’s not good, but happens.  It’s hard to get out of the habit and so one tends to take it on into situations beyond childhood,  even seeking others to administer to!!!

This has an effect on the fixer’s adult relationships, as because one is looking for someone to fix, one tends to be drawn to those who maybe are not so able to participate in an equal relationship…The fixer may end up propping up the relationship more than is healthy and may get none or few of their own needs met.   This can also be limiting for the fixer, who may tend to believe that they will only be loved for what they do and not for the person they are.  Those who, in childhood, should have loved and taken care for them unconditionally, were not able to do that, and so the child was overburdened and understood that only if they do what their parents need them to do, may they have their own needs met.

So now, if you are a Fixer type, when you’d like to have a give and take relationship with another adult who is your equal, it is hard often to know how to let that happen. It can be scary to risk letting another person learn to love you for you, without you doing anything to bind that person to you for the care taking or other things you can do for them. Instead of rescuing someone or protecting them from themselves, you let them grow into their own personal sense of responsibility and you do the same for yourself in a way which has clear boundaries and which respects both yourself and the other person. The dynamic of you trying to fix things all the time can then stop, and if they are in discomfort or upset, you can feel their suffering, empathise, be compassionate,  but you don’t take responsibility for it.   Healthy boundaries are really worth developing!  You may choose to help in some way, but it won’t be because you are trying to earn their love.  And it is much easier to say “No” when you need to.

So from “fixing” to “mending”… A related activity, for sure… Beautiful mending, in the drawing together of different elements on a piece of board, using paint and card.  This is a healthy form of fixing activity!

“Mending” Painting by Jenny Meehan.  Available for sale.  Please contact if interested! 

abstract lyrical expressionist british paintings jenny meehan

This original painting is available for sale, Please contact Jenny Meehan via the contact form on my website if interested in adding this work to your art collection!  http://www.jamartlondon.com

http://www.jamartlondon.com

I think I may have only posted this painting up recently, but never mind.  It’s good to look at it again, while mulling over the interest in fixings!!!

 

Poem to accompany “Mending” Painting – Jenny Meehan 2016

 

I scream out to be fixed

because I have fallen apart

And everywhere I see fixings fixed on

panels and walls and buildings

And I, flat faced and dropping into my feet

Cannot stand the sight which draws me forwards

Because it testifies to the problem I face

Surrounding me, encapsulating me

with  horror struck security

But there is no comfort

Because nobody knows anything deeper than

my own panels

paint stained panels

painted

by rain

inside

and out.

 

© Jenny Meehan

Best FIXING experience of 2017 – Total Knee Replacement!

Well, my best fixing experience recently has been my TKR (Total Knee Replacement) surgery of March 2017.  It may have been painful but definitely worth it.  I need to be on my feet a lot.  Now I can be.  Surgery is a wonderful thing.  Mind you, I have been splitting my sides watching the BBC series “Quacks” of late.  It has me falling over with laughter. (The only falling over I am now doing!)  I don’t think I would want a surgeon let loose on my knee in Victorian times.  Thankfully, wonderful developments in modern medicine, healthcare, surgery and hospitals make something like knee replacement possible.

It is odd how my interest in trauma and recovery, which started orientated around the psychological and emotional type of trauma, took a leap into the physical realm with the TKR.  Surgery is traumatic for the body, and the body is connected to the mind and emotions.  I always dislike people referring to knee replacement surgery as “brutal” because while it is major, I don’t associate it with brutality.  (Maybe in Victorian times this would be apt!)  There is nothing cruel about surgery…it’s not violence.  Having experienced physical violence as a child and teenager, it becomes very important to recognise the difference. If one gets the two mixed up in the brain, it does not help healing or recovery one little bit. I was quite surprised in the bulk of my TKR recovery (ie first four months) how positive (mostly) I felt.  Yes, the body is traumatised and the surgery invasive.  But it is completely different when you willingly place yourself in a situation which is designed and intended to to heal and help someone.  It still isn’t easy.  But it is no way brutal.  I was so much wanting and needing the surgery, that I guess I was “up for it” in terms of my mindset.  Dealing with it is hard. Yet for me personally, the experience was much better than the longer term disintegration of my life which was falling apart due to the effect of long term pain and increasing physical disability.

It’s not gentle though!  Rather like being a bit of woodwork with all those saws and drills!

So worth it now though.  So worth it.

 

Yoga and Christianity Thoughts

Shared by Christians Practicing Yoga on Facebook.

“Here’s a good summary of some important scholarly work on the history of modern postural yoga. It serves as a corrective to the idealized and frankly ahistorical versions taught in many yoga classes and teacher trainings.

http://www.popmatters.com/column/on-evil-yogis-and-the-icy-silence-of-yogas-post-disintegration/

 

I found the above an interesting read.   My own perspective of healing in relation to my own experience of practising yoga is that through my own practice I open myself up to the Holy Spirit and experience the benefits of Mindfulness with attention to my body which I find extremely helpful.  I am being kind and attentive to my body, valuing it, as a temple of the Holy Spirit.   Being introduced to Yoga a couple of years back  has been something I am very grateful for, and something which I have received a lot of blessing through.   Through the frustrations of my experience with osteoarthritis, I have found that what I CAN do, through the practice of Yoga has been a huge encouragement and helped me to continue to direct compassion and faith towards my humble frame.  The release of stress, the practice of being kind and attentive to myself, the continued choice, in the end, to love my body and work with it, accepting it and being grateful for it (even with the painful and often not working very well knee!) has brought a real sense of faith embodied which has been inspiring me to continue and to embrace the blessing of doing it.    It has been and is something completely incorporated into my devotional and prayer life…  It has helped me attend to myself and to my maker in a disciplined and very liberating way.

I have never felt any sense to conform to any beliefs that I do not hold or do not feel comfortable with.   Where I felt disagreement, maybe in some verbalised meditation,  I simple change direction and articulation of my thought, for example, rather than saying  “I am not my body”   I say (internally!) “I am not just my body”  because I personally don’t aim for separation of my parts, however, I do recognise the value in a consciousness that can view things from another perspective. (Apologies,  I am not in the know about the meaning of that phrase… It may be just poetic anyway and probably has many different interpretations/philosophies in hand…For others it may be essential to their experience of Yoga practice, but it is not for mine).

But I wander off.. I found the article a good read, and it gave me a little bit of an overview which I am sure is helpful to be aware of.  Particularly with respect to some of the scare mongering narratives which seem to circulate around discussions about Yoga in relation to Christianity.    I found this part of particular relevance to my own experience:

“…part of White’s research is to restore the understanding of historic yoga as a counterbalance to the modern New Age spirituality and self-help commercialism that now dominates the practice.
For example, in his 2014 book on the Yoga Sūtras, part of the Princeton University Press Lives of Great Religious Books series, he explicates Patanjali’s four-word definition of yoga (lacking any verbs, mind you) that has become the foundation of modern meditational practice: yoga-citta-vritti-nirodha.

While “citta” has a wide range of meanings in early Sanskrit, the most adequate nontechnical translation of the term is “thought”. As for “vritti,” it means “turning,” and is related to the –vert in the English words introvert (“turned inward”) and extrovert (“turned outward”) as well as invert, subvert, pervert, revert, and so forth. Nirodha is a term meaning “stoppage” or “restraint” in Sanskrit. A simple translation of yoga-citta-vritti-nirodha should then read something like “Yoga is the stoppage of the turnings of thought.”

White offers 22 different translations of this phrase from sources ranging from handbooks on modern yoga to the work of other scholars. Here are five:

Yoga is to still the patternings of consciousness.

Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively toward an object and sustain that direction without any distractions.

Yoga happens when there is stilling (in the sense of continual and vigilant watchfulness) of the movement of thought—without expression or suppression—in the indivisible intelligence in which there is no movement.

Yoga is the control of thought-waves in the mind.

Yoga is the icy silence of post-disintegration.

That’s a whole lot of interpretation of four nouns lacking a verb.”

The above is quoted from the article on  popmatters.com and was written by William Gibson

On Evil Yogis and the Icy Silence of Yoga’s Post-Disintegration”  published 12th October 2015.  You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.popmatters.com/column/on-evil-yogis-and-the-icy-silence-of-yogas-post-disintegration/

 

In relation to my lack of mobility (now thankfully past!) I credit the practice of yoga as playing a key part in my journey to movement!  It was fantastic both before and after my knee replacement surgery, and obviously gentle and adapted, sensitive yoga, which focuses on body awareness and mindful appreciation of the body and movement, is a very helpful thing to do.  Relaxation is very important for a good recovery, and so some odd reason, quite difficult after knee replacement surgery.  So with the full lung breathing and directing breath towards areas of tension in the body…Well, it all helps!

A Few Photographs…

A few photographs… To fill the time which does not need to be filled!

Some of the things which strike me I capture in a photograph…It serves as a reminder for the times when I stopped to look a little longer.  Taking photographs can be a nice form of meditation…You cut out all the other things which call to be seen and focus in on the one which appeals to you the most.  Then, isolated, compose it carefully as you dwell on it even longer.  The best part of taking a photograph is the moment something strikes… It’s worth staying a while after taking the image to look at what you have seen a bit longer.  Drawing demands more of your time, and for that reason, photography comes in handy if you cannot stop for long…

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

This was taken in the New Forest on one family holiday.   I do love the weather beaten look!  The New Forest is somewhere I have visited many times.  It was particularly good this year as I could walk freely around in it!

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

A quiet moment spent in West Dean Gardens…It’s fun to get right down to ground level as this often makes for a more interesting composition.  Though my painting is abstract, it is observation of the beauty in nature which I would credit with informing it most.  You don’t need to recognise objects in an art work to appreciate the colour, form, movement, light and space.  I spend a lot of time looking at natural forms.

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

Here is the same place photographed from a greater distance with a less dynamic composition!  The tree in the middle makes the whole image very still, and it’s rather boring.  Getting up closer is something which often brings improvement, and trying out unusual angles and composition often yields better results.  However, there is also a rather nice restful feeling. Almost a reflection suggested and the horizontal line and equilibrium has its own appeal.

 

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

jenny meehan jamartlondon photography monochrome

Just a few more.  We live in a world so saturated with images that the appeal of printing and presenting my photography has kind of got lost for me.  I sometimes produce work using my photography or photographic elements/collage.  It is useful at times.  I am not taking anywhere as many photographs as I used to.  Apart from the occasional spate of picture taking or working with past images. And of course the recording and archiving of my current paintings.  Images of paintings in progress can also be useful.

 

 

 

“Tree by Water”  Monoprint

© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved tree by water monoprint 2017

I entered this into “One-Off” – The Masters Monoprint Exhibition at The Bankside Gallery

(Thames Riverside
48 Hopton Street
London SE1 9JH

Tel. 020 7928 7521
info@banksidegallery.com)

Details here:

ONE-OFF | THE MASTERS | MONOPRINT

8 – 19 NOVEMBER

‘The Masters’ is a series of annual exhibitions established by the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers focusing on a particular branch of printmaking each year. This year’s exhibition will be curated by Morgan Doyle RE and will showcase works using monoprint in a variety of forms.”

But sadly it was not accepted.  Ah well, not room for everything!

I will  pop along to take a look though, I am sure it will be brilliant!

Painting – Being a Mother-Artist, Yet necessity is the mother of invention!  Plato in book 2 of The Republic wrote “Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.”

Necessity is the mother of invention is my favourite phrase at the moment!

This time of year is mostly a time for reviewing and reflecting over past work.  This is partly because my studio tent is a complete mess, it is colder, the garden is wetter,(so not so good for painting in!) and I have had to bring my plants into the studio tent, so it is now functioning more as a green house!

This is so important.  It’s not about production.  Rotting leaves bring richness to the soil.  Sometimes you just leave things.  There is always plenty to do.  Looking backwards is part of moving forwards. It’s preparing the ground.

Looking at these two paintings below, reminds me of my recent movement from actual texture to perceived texture in my paintings.  And with the Matisse exhibition at the Royal Academy I visited recently having reminded me of pattern, I wonder if I may bring that in more?  The idea has been lurking around for a while but it hasn’t happened yet.  As I work on so many things in such a piecemeal fashion,  I find it a great asset that there are so many periods of time elapsing as part of the process of painting each painting.  So much opportunity to float ideas around, and yet not have them land all at once in the work which is happening.

It’s funny that what used to frustrate me, ie the necessary responsibilities of being a mother and homemaker, has turned out unexpectedly to help me in my work.  Now the children are a bit older, it is much easier to get my painting done.  Sometimes it is still annoying that I cannot spend more time painting.  But all the other stuff doesn’t seem to stop me.  I have learnt to prioritise things better.  It is a restriction.. because being an artist is not just about producing the work… there are so many other aspects.  So I am restricted by being a Mother-Artist, in some ways.   But I guess even if I was not, there would be other restrictions.  So it is best not to dwell on them.  In the end, being able to paint is a most fantastic freedom.   I will always be glad of it.  I am always exceptionally grateful for being able to do it. This is the main thing.

 

unerring want of running water  ONE painting jenny meehan© Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

 

unerring want of running water TWO painting jenny meehan

These two above, past paintings, 2016. Both were sold to the same art collector who wanted them both.  I am always pleased when my paintings find their new home.  Unerring Want (of) Running Water 2  was exhibited as part of the exhibition at Kingston Museum in 2016.  Details:

“Kingston Art 2016: Anagrams Opens Friday 29 April at Kingston Museum
29th April to 2nd July 2016
Opening on Friday 29 April at Kingston Museum, Anagrams is an exhibition which showcases the winning entries to a competition where artists from Kingston upon Thames’ local artists’ groups, ASC Kingston (Artists Studio Company Kingston), Hawks Road, Fusion Art and KAOS (Kingston Artists Open Studios), have entered new work under the theme Anagrams.

This is an exhibition of transformational art, where the art work and the artist’s explanations of how they have approached the theme give the viewer a fascinating insight into each artist’s way of seeing and working. Many different techniques are showcased from painting, drawing and photography to mosaic, installation and much more.”

 

me in front of anagrams kingston museum banner

Nice to have my painting blown up!

I have always liked my work to be useful in many ways, so a section of the painting being used for the poster was a bonus!  I have lost weight since then, so I am shrunk down!

At present, on the practical front, I am painting edges,  and very small parts of very many paintings, making frames, looking, thinking, writing, tidying up mess and enjoying the bit of teaching I do very much indeed.  (Information on this below).

 Drop in Drawing and Painting Workshop

Here is the information I send out to interested people:

“As a trained teacher and experienced artist I am in a good position to mentor people and  can assist you in developing your own creative direction. Individual attention not possible in larger teaching situations make this a golden opportunity for personal creative development. It is friendly and supportive group, and offers you sensitive feedback, engaging activity, elements of challenge, and most importantly the emphasis is on you developing your own personal direction with your art working.

The Drop in Drawing and Painting sessions are organised so you are able to come along on a “one-off” basis. Please let me know at least a couple of weeks before, so I know about numbers, if possible.  There are a maximum of 3 places available.  There is a choice of both Wednesday or Friday across the course of the terms, which I have weighted in favour of people on the mailing lists stated availability. Please contact me via the contact form on my website jamartlondon.com if you wish to find out more.

http://www.jamartlondon.com/contact/4569980742

You do need to bring your own materials and equipment. If you need some advice about what to bring, just email me and I can give you some guidance. I normally have a few additional resources available, if need be, ie, pencils and paper, chalk pastels and poster paint. Sometimes it’s not always possible to know what direction you might take and I am happy to supply the unexpected material needs if they occur!

The forthcoming Drop-In Drawing and Painting sessions are as follows:

For 2017:
Wednesday 20th September 1 – 3pm
Friday 20th October 1 – 3pm
Wednesday 15th November 1 – 3pm
For 2018:
Wednesday 17th January 1 – 3pm
Friday 23rd February 1 – 3pm
Wednesday 25th April 1 – 3pm

After that I will be busy preparing for the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios 2018 and working more intensively on my own paintings!

If these dates are not convenient, it may sometimes be possible to arrange individual tuition at a cost of £20 per hour. Please contact me if you are interested and I can send you more information. My availability varies, but is restricted to week days (excluding Tuesdays) and during the hours of 9 – 3 during term times at present.

The idea of holding the Drop in sessions is that I am available to help you to develop your own projects and ideas. I will be there to add my technical and practical input, and help you by discussing your direction and the difficulties which may be encountered along the way, if you so require. As to what you actually do, this could be from drawing from the imagination, copying something from life, designing something abstract, or making a collage of text and images. Or simply experimenting and exploring what it is like to use a particular material or method of drawing.

People who come along range from absolute beginners to experienced artists, and have a range of different objectives.  Teaching input is organised around the individual, rather than delivered in a structured way, so it’s more akin to individual tuition/mentoring rather than class focused on a particular topic or course of study.  So these workshop style sessions will give you plenty of individual input and opportunities for feedback, discussion, and analysis, as you consider ways of developing your own direction.   It is informal and friendly, and provides a level of input not possible in a larger group.”

NHS Financial Pressures

I have an interest in healthcare, and as a very grateful recipient of a new knee, my appreciation of the value of the NHS has increased a lot!  I often read what the Kings Fund send out via their mailing list to me.  This was an interesting read:

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/field/field_publication_file/Understanding%20NHS%20financial%20pressures%20-%20full%20report.pdf

My own expression, of the visual type, is here:

NHS financial pressures knee replacement jenny meehan © Jenny Meehan DACS All Rights Reserved

This is currently being exhibited as part of the Art of Caring exhibition which runs until the 19th October at CONFERENCE CENTRE GALLERY, ST PANCRAS HOSPITAL, 4 ST PANCRAS WAY
LONDON, NW1 OPE.  Will be taken down soon!  Free to visit.  Lots of great work on show.   I need to go and pick it up next week.  They are having a closing event too:

THE ART OF CARING is an exhibition we are very proud of in our sometimes troubled and troubling times, looked closely, the sensitivity and joy to be found in the small detail of our artists work is deeply moving. The exhibition closes on THURS 19/10/17.  We are hosting a small closing event from 5.30pm to 7.30pm along with the premiere of Anna Bowman’s short film ARTS OF CARING at 6pm in which the filmmaker explores the exhibition and what it means for a number of the contributing artists who are filmed creating works at home and in studios. Do visit if you can…it’s a fresh looking exhibition still after 2 months display so far…Opens Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.

Well, must go now.

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TO FOLLOW THIS ARTIST’S BLOG SIMPLY GO TO THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN, LOCATE THE  “FOLLOW” BOX AND POP IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.  YOU WILL THEN RECEIVE MONTHLY UPDATES. 

 

Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) is a painter-poet, artist-author  and Christian contemplative  based in East Surrey/South West London.   Her interest in Christ-centred spirituality and creativity are the main focus of this artist’s journal, which rambles and meanders on, maybe acting as a personal (yet open to view)  note book as much as anything else.  

Her website is www.jamartlondon.com.  (www.jamartlondon.com replaces the older now deceased website http://www.jennymeehan.co.uk)

Contact Jenny via her website: 

http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/contact/4569980742

Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) BA Hons (Lit.) PGCE  offers art tuition.  Please contact Jenny at j.meehan@tesco.net or through the contact form at www.jamartlondon.com for further details.  Availability depends on other commitments.    

 Jenny  works mainly with either oils or acrylics  creating both abstract/non-objective paintings  and also semi-abstract work.  She also produces some representational/figurative artwork,  mostly using digital photography/image manipulation software, painting and  drawing.  Both original fine paintings, other artwork forms,  and affordable photo-mechanically produced prints are available to purchase.

This artist’s blog is of interest to artists, art collectors, art lovers and anyone interested in fine art.  Those interested in British 21st century female contemporary artists, women and art, religious art, spirituality and art, and psychoanalysis and art, will probably enjoy dipping into this Jenny Meehan Contemporary Artist’s Journal.

Art collectors are often interested in the processes, techniques, interests and influences of the artists whose work they collect, and sharing my thoughts and perspectives through a blog is an important dimension of my creative practice.

My main focus is directed towards process led abstract painting, and you can view some examples of this on my website jamartlondon.com.  I encapsulate my painting as being romantic,expressionistic, abstract and lyrical.  Art collectors interested in lyrical abstraction, abstract expressionist, and essentially romantic art, are likely to find my paintings an interesting and exciting addition to their art collection. Art collectors can view a list of exhibitions I have taken part in on my websites exhibitions page; http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/exhibitions/4570944550

Art collectors can see selected examples of my original paintings  organised by year on jamartlondon which gives you a brief overview of the development of my painting over the years:

http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/paintings/4570156802

I am a self-representing artist, whose aim is to ensure  I continue to develop my painting practice in an innovative and pioneering way, rather than attempt some kind of commercial success, and whose aim is also that my work is historically relevant, rather then celebrated in that so called and illusive “art world”.  I hope to add to the number of people who value, collect, and develop an interest in my paintings and to thereby sustain and develop my practice over many years. 

I am also keen that my  art work is appreciated and accessible to as many people as possible, and am aware that not all art lovers and art collectors can afford to buy original paintings or limited edition prints.  For that reason I grant licenses for the use of my imagery. (See Redbubble.com and DACS information below). 

To be placed on Jenny Meehan’s  bi-annual  mailing list please contact Jenny via her website contact page:  www.jamartlondon.com

Also, you could follow the Jenny Meehan Contemporary Artist’s Journal at WordPress and keep informed that way. 

Note About Following Jenny Meehan Contemporary Artist’s Journal 

TO FOLLOW THIS ARTIST’S BLOG SIMPLY LOCATE THE  “FOLLOW” BOX AND POP IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.  YOU WILL THEN RECEIVE MONTHLY UPDATES. 

 

Website Link for jamartlondon:  www.jamartlondon.com 

A selection of non objective paintings can be viewed on pinterest:   https://uk.pinterest.com/Jamartlondon/

 

Help me continue my practice/art working:

 Jenny Meehan art images on Redbubble and Image Licensing through the Designer and Artists Copyright Society

If you would like a way of helping me in some small way, while benefiting from my art working yourself, then scoot along to redbubble.com where you can buy various products with my imagery on them.  It is a good company and they produce and sell their products with my images on.  I get a small royalty payment when something is sold.  It all helps a little. Here is the link to the pages on Redbubble.com which show prints with my imagery on them:

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/jenny+meehan+prints?cat_context=u-prints&page=1&accordion=department

My prints and some merchandise which uses my artwork can also be purchased safely and easily through Redbubble.com

Here is the link to the main Jenny Meehan portfolio page on Redbubble.com:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams?ref=artist_title_name

 

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

All content on this blog,  unless specified otherwise,  is © Jenny Meehan.  Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts of writing and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jenny Meehan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Images may not be used without permission under any circumstances. 

Copyright and Licensing Digital Images Information – Jenny Meehan

www.jamartlondon.com

Copyright in all images by Jenny Meehan is held by the artist.
Permission must be sought in advance for the reproduction, copying or any other use of any images by Jenny Meehan.

Copyright for all visual art by Jenny Meehan is managed by the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) in the UK. If you wish to licence a work of art by Jenny Meehan,  you could contact Jenny Meehan in the first instance to clarify your requirements. There is a contact form on my website www.jamartlondon.com.  Alternatively you can contact the DACS directly;  https://www.dacs.org.uk/licensing-works

Licensing an image is quick and easy for both parties and is organised through the Design and Artist Copyright Society. (Note, my images are not shown on the “Art image” selection on the Design and Artist Copyright “Art Image” page. This does NOT mean you cannot apply for a license to use an image of my work from DACS… They simply have a very limited sample selection of work in their “Artimage” page!)

I have extensive archives of digital imagery, and keep records of all my art work, so  if you require an image similar to something of mine you have seen on the internet, it’s worth contacting me to see if I have something suitable for licensing if need be.  Use the contact form on my website jamartlondon.com to enquire:  http://www.jamartlondon.com/#/contact/4569980742

About Jenny Meehan (Jennifer Meehan) 

Jenny Meehan is an established artist who has been exhibiting for over ten years, mostly in the UK. Notable exhibitions include, most recently being selected for the Imagined Worlds touring exhibition of artworks inspired by the poem ‘Kubla Khan’ and inclusion in “Building Bridges, the Female Perspective” at Tower Bridge Victorian Engine Rooms in 2016. Jenny has been a keen supporter of various charity art exhibitions over the years including the National Brain Appeals ” A Letter in Mind” at Gallery@oxo, South Bank, London and the “Anatomy for Life” Exhibition for Brighton Sussex University Hospitals Trust in 2015

Selected by a wide range of judges in open submission exhibitions, her work appeals to the aesthetic and emotional discernment of many, and has been displayed in many prestigious galleries. These include the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, in 2015, as part of their Open Exhibition, and the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex, as part of the Pallant House Gallery/St Wilfrid’s Hospice Open Art Exhibition in 2010.

Jenny Meehan’s work has been included in several academic projects and and publications including “Speaking Out – Women Recovering from the Trauma of Violence” by Nicole Fayard in 2014 and the ongoing “Recovery” Exhibition project – Institute Of Mental Health/City Arts, Nottingham University, also in 2014. While her romantic, lyrical, expressionistic, abstract paintings offer a contemplative space free from cares and concerns, other strands of her practice engage with subjects ranging from violence, trauma recovery, psychoanalysis, and mental health.

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