November and December!
December 11, 2018
- jenny meehan prints ©jenny meehan
Art Journal Post 2018 by Jenny Meehan
November and December are when I tend to turn my attention to updating my website and various other computer based tasks. A good time for more socialising too! While I love and need much time in solitude, I am an extrovert by nature and there are so many fun things to do at this time of year! I have packed my studio tent away for this year. It’s too cold now, and the days are shorter anyway.
Above you see, along with my feet, some prints which were printed for me as part of a prize awarded! It was the 2nd Prize in Digital Art Category of Chester Art Centre Open Exhibition 2017. One hundred pounds worth of digital printing! What a useful prize! I have put them in frames and prepared them ready for next years Kingston Artists’ Open Studios. They are archival quality prints, and look fantastic. I am very pleased with them. I won’t label them limited edition because I feel that is somewhat irrelevant in today’s digital age, with so many printing options available. I don’t print and sign much work nowadays, so they should probably be labelled 1/1…. for it is very unlikely I will produce anymore. But I don’t know what I may want to do in the future with them. For this reason, I tend to just sign and number my prints without specifying how many I will or won’t make. As said, the reality is that I don’t spend much time on printing my work now or getting it printed. Too busy creating, innovating, and experimenting!
I have made several visits to the British Museum in the later part of this year. Glad of it. Great place to wander through and appreciate the wealth of historical artefacts; all in one place. I love looking at historical artefacts and discovering more about the past. I admire craftsmanship and find religious beliefs and learning about different cultures very helpful. Kind of liberating. The focus of so much creation is bound up in religious belief. I find this helpful to bear in mind.
Ritual. Remembrance. Death. Eternity.
These were the words I left with.
And a focus on the art working I do, which is purely focused on what I am doing. Yes, it’s hard…Because there is a need to share, promote, and put things on the internet. But as the years go by, I am learning to focus more, and in a more refined manner, on the work itself. What it means. What it says. Why it matters.
Helpful.
We have so much. It can get confusing!
Reverend Carter Heyward
Lovely quote from Reverend Carter Heyward from “We Pledge Our Hearts: A Treasury of Poems, Quotations and Readings to Celebrate Love and Marriage (2006)” https://www.uua.org/worship/words/quote/love-choice
Lovely quote from Reverend Carter Heyward from “We Pledge Our Hearts: A Treasury of Poems, Quotations and Readings to Celebrate Love and Marriage (2006)” https://www.uua.org/worship/words/quote/love-choice
Looking Back
Looking back, though not very far, here are a couple of images of my paintings from this year’s Kingston Artists’ Open Studios event. If you like visiting Artists, seeing their work, and getting a chance to ask the questions you want, as well as maybe having the opportunity to buy an original piece of fine art much cheaper than you would probably be able to get it at a gallery, then an Open Studios event is just the thing for you.
Surrey artists open their studios each year, and Kingston has a wealth of artistic talent just waiting to be explored.
KAOS open studios jenny meehan paintings
On the left “Joy and Pain” and on the right (face on view) “Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Trinity”.
The latter painting has been licensed for use on one of the Bible Reading Fellowship’s publications, on the cover of a book by Nigel G. Wright titled “How to be a Church Minister”. I am always very pleased when images of my paintings are licensed for use. It’s great when they can be of practical use, and particularly, as a bit of a writer myself, I am pleased when they are employed in the service of writings relating to faith and spirituality. It’s wonderful to see my paintings used in design…As long as a licence has been issued! Being a member of DACS (Design and Artists Copyright Society) has been one of the best moves I have made.
If you want to use any of my paintings, and are looking for something specific, do contact me, because the vast majority of my work is not shown on the internet. I really do work hard, and produce quite an array. It’s quick and easy to purchase a licence through DACS. My paintings have graced many book covers.
waterloo clock ©jenny meehan
Love this clock!
In 2010 the specialist clock maker Smith of Derby removed the hands and many of the internal workings of the clock so they could be re-engineered to work with the latest technology. The clock’s historic exterior was also cleaned and decorated as part of the project. The clock has been a central feature of Waterloo Station since the early part of the 20th century. The clock was made by Gents of Leicester and is believed to date back to the 1920s. My photography now is pretty much limited to the occasional snap here and there, such as this one. I have a huge archive of the years I spent focused primarily on photography but I tend to use it for reference mostly.
under pressure ©jenny meehan
Yes, well, we all feel like this sometimes. An example of some early experiments with Photoshop. The image was based on a cut out and stencil mono type I made at West Dean one year. We live in a society and culture which exerts an awful lot of pressure on us, in a relentless manner. What a challenge it is to even just BE. How do we define ourselves from the inside out, in a strong and certain manner, in the face of all the media? What masks do we adopt and what happens when they fail and we fall? What happens when our vulnerability and fragility need to be faced, our self encountered, and avoidance and repression, distraction and entertainment, fail to keep us afloat?
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 only get a small royalty percentage, but it’s lovely to know someone has chosen something with my design/artwork on it. It’s one of those welcome emails…And a small, but vital encouragement to me! I don’t print very much of my own artwork anymore, as I prefer to focus on painting and poetry, but using a company like Redbubble.com does mean if people want to buy something printed they can quickly and easily, and it doesn’t take my time up in order to produce the item.
Ed Moses Quote
“I don’t like the terms art or artist. I like the idea of doing what I do in terms of exploration. The roots of that may go back to the earliest man, where he made markings in response to his existence when he saw a mirror image of himself in water, or a footprint in mud, or a blood print with his hand on a wall. So what were these guys doing this for? They were responding to the environment they existed in through paint or marking or scraping or scratching.”
jenny meehan photography monochrome ©jenny meehan west dean college time enjoying the garden
An early photograph of mine taken at West Dean Gardens. I am posting up rather random images, because I have spent time looking through my archives. Pathways of various kinds have always held my interest. Way forward. Need to move forward. Sense of direction.
jenny meehan photography monochrome ©jenny meehan west dean college time enjoying the garden
This little decking area is no more in West Dean Gardens. They have removed it. The pond area has changed a lot. This is such an elegant bench. I have so many photos and drawings of seats, benches, chairs…resting places. The need to stop. Dwell. Cease moving. Contemplate.
jenny meehan photography monochrome ©jenny meehan west dean college time enjoying the garden
And so many photographs of plants, trees, vegetation, and all growing things! Growth, natural form, being essentials for the eye, in appreciation of variety, vast variety, endless variety, of God’s amazing ongoing creative power and endless inspiration to be found by looking at it!
I continue my professional development in the visual arts through the short course programme at West Dean College when I can. It works very well for me, and I find it has been far more useful to me than a fine art degree. My degree is in Literature, and I also studied a substantial number of modules in History as part of my degree at Kingston University.
jenny meehan photography monochrome ©jenny meehan west dean college time enjoying the garden
Another sweet West Dean moment! And yet another of numerous images of water. Water. Sea. Rivers. All things watery. I love water and rocks, and all the images I have taken, while I don’t tend to refer to them directly, feed into my consciousness and inform my paintings. I think the years I spent taking pictures were a good training in terms of composition particularly. I also reached the point where I had so many pictures they did not interest me so much, and this may be one of the reasons I jumped into abstraction!
jenny meehan photography monochrome ©jenny meehan west dean college time enjoying the garden
Lovely light.
jenny meehan photography monochrome ©jenny meehan west dean college time enjoying the garden
On my most recent course at West Dean College, the box needed a tidy up, but in this image the rounded shapes are very neat and tidy!
jenny meehan photography landscapes in uk ©jenny meehan west dean college time enjoying the garden
Another West Dean Gardens delight.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
I’m continuing with this. I first accessed therapy way back in 2011 via the NHS, and then after a gap became a “Training Patient” for a therapist. It is an investment I am truly grateful for. I find it hard to conceive how I could have continued on this journey of life without it. Now things are less intense for me and I’m reaping the fruit of earlier work, though it can still be hard work at times!
I have not been diagnosed with any mental health disorder, and for me this has been helpful. I didn’t want a diagnosis and so I didn’t seek one. I’ve always held a strong conviction that my psychological and emotional troubles stemmed from my experiences of trauma which started at a young age and impacted the way I’ve developed.
This is not a denial of an experience of disorder, but rather an acceptance of it just as it is experienced by me, and no more than that. The mind is a powerful thing and some people find a diagnosis helpful to them, but others do not. I’ve thought that, if I did diagnose myself, “Complex Traumatic Stress Disorder” would probably be the best fit. However, I haven’t had a formal diagnosis.
The main blessing for me in this is that I am moving forwards, and I’m not fixed or stuck in the way that I was. I’m in a completely different place now from where I was ten years ago. Not having had to accept any kind of definition from a professional person has been a positive for me.
I never got any higher up in the health system than some NHS talking therapy, and after that experience I was convinced that the psychoanalytic psychotherapy approach was the way forward for me personally. It wouldn’t be right for everyone, but is was, and still is, for me. I also held on… very tightly… to an excellent book called “Ten Best Ever Depression Management Techniques” . It tied me over very well between the NHS therapy and the therapist I now work with.
I didn’t want to take any medications.. I had an often resonating past, as a child, of a permanently medicated mother and I didn’t want to share in that course of treatment. There’s no right or wrong choice.. There’s the choice you make and are able to make, and I chose not to dull the experiences I was experiencing. If I couldn’t have coped sufficiently then I would have made a different choice.
It mattered most to me that I had feelings that I didn’t want to deny in any way. I didn’t want to ignore their urgency, because they were real and they were mine. I felt quite possessive about them. I had spent some years self medicating with alcohol and as a teenager it had been various other drugs. (With an substantial drug free period in between!) I didn’t see the point in taking any kind of drug when medicating was the very habit I had just got out of by choosing to be sober.
Though my feelings were difficult, if I could live with them, I wanted them as they were. I saw my recovery as a process of recognition I think. And validation. An awareness that things were falling apart because I needed to reform, and if I was able to accept and listen to myself I could find a way through life which was much healthier and didn’t involve getting rid of myself.
Now I’ve “come out” with respect to my mother’s mental disorder; schizophrenia. I used to feel shame about it. People do tend to ask me what it was like. Which is understandable of course. This is an awkward question. Firstly because it’s painful… Too painful right now. It’s a large component of the material I have worked through in therapy for the last seven years.. And, in the main at least, I like to keep that material as something which is expressed in my visual art and in my poetry. I sense that over time it will become easier to speak about, because as I continue to touch my own emotions and sense of self, it won’t be something which causes fear and uncertainty.
Happy Christmas!
Now I must go. As said, I think it likely that I will now continue just to post once every two months.
Angel print for All Saints church of england CofE Kingston parish church kingston upon thames angel campaign submission by jenny meehan
You can purchase a print of the above art work by me on Redbubble!
Jenny Meehan - Art Journal 