Woman walking sketch by jenny meehan
I write in this Artist’s Journal once every two months, and have been doing so for over 15 years. It’s a good way for you to get insight into the thinking (research, influences, spirituality, philosophy, personal perspectives etc) behind my visual art and poetry.
For myself, it functions as a tool for note taking, discerning spiritual and creative directions, and even analysis, but this means its not solely written with you, the reader, in mind. For this reason, I suggest a quick pre-read skim over the post as they are usually quite lengthy!
For a general introduction, website style overview of my creative work, rather than meanderings visit this page:
Introduction – Jenny Meehan aka jennyjimjams
Small things in life can bring such joy! I’m grateful for the way my children taught me to explore the world with fresh eyes through their own sense of wonder.
Boy looking at two snails ©jenny meehan
two snails ©jenny meehan
Boy offering a berry to his mum ©jenny meehan photograph by Jenny Meehan aka jennyjimjams
Thomas Merton Prayer
This is one of my favourite prayers, I have it stuck up inside my kitchen cupboard.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you, and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always. Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my peril alone.
THOMAS MERTON
I shared this in my last post I think, but it’s a super prayer, so sharing again!
Compost Meditation
I finished digging through my compost pile in April and created this meditation which I put up on my YouTube channel. I’m grateful to the worms who work their way through the compost. It’s a bit distressing if I accidentally injure a worm when digging through the compost. I try not to!
Foundling Museum
At the end of last year I made a visit to the Foundling Museum, but as usual, it takes a while to include highlights in this blog!
Above is The Birth, 2007
Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) Gouache on paper, suite of 9
This series of paintings depict childbirth. Bourgeois focuses on the act of giving birth, and by extension motherhood, which for her, was a source of complex and contradictory emotions, including love, joy, responsibility, pain and separation.
Mmm, well, it certainly is!
Mummy is Sad and Mummy is Mad
These two abstracts are part of my reflections on childhood. My mother’s depressive and psychotic episodes were something beyond my capacity to cope with and I’m very grateful for the work I’ve done in psychoanalytic psychotherapy as an adult in order to re- frame and process so much of my childhood.
I prefer the black and white version so I’ll probably make ‘Mummy is Mad’ black and white too but I’m still thinking about this. Images are low resolution on here only. The originals are bigger. The scribbling out on the second ‘Mummy is Mad’ references the way children blame themselves for what their parents do to them in an effort to exert a sense of control over that which they fear will destroy them.
Codependent No More by Melody Beattie
I’m reading ‘Codependent No More’ or rather, I’m listening to it on one of the free audio book applications I have on my phone. It’s the second time I’ve used this book as a tool to reflect on aspects of my life and I have found it clarifying when it comes to my awareness of codependent characteristics I have tended to fall into, and which I do still have a bias towards now, even with more awareness. I think that for me this is related very much to the nature of my relationship with my mother, in several rather complex ways. It’s too complex to explore in this blog! What I will include though is a short extract which I’ve been mulling over and which resonates a lot with me right now with respect to the virtues of detachment:
Melody Beattie
‘Codependent No More’
Writing about detachment:
(When detachment is suggested)
‘Oh no, they say, I could never do that. I love them too much. I care too much to do that – this problem or person is too important to me. I have to stay attached.
My answer to that is who says you have to? I’ve got news, good news. We don’t have to. There’s a better way. It’s called detachment. It may be scary at first, but it will ultimately work better for everyone. involved. A better way. Exactly what is detachment? The term as you may have guessed, is more jargon. First, let’s discuss what detachment isn’t. Detachment is not a cold, hostile withdrawal, or resigned despairing acceptance of anything life and people throw our way. A robotic walk through life oblivious to and totally unaffected by people and problems, a Pollyanna ish, ignorant bliss, a shirking of our true responsibilities to ourselves and others, a severing of our relationships nor is it a removal of our love and concern, although sometimes these ways of detaching might be the best we can do for the moment. Ideally, detachment is releasing or detaching from a person or problem in love. We mentally emotionally and sometimes physically, disengage ourselves from unhealthy and frequently painful entanglements with others lives and responsibilities. And from problems we cannot solve, according to a handout called Detachment that has been passed around Al Anon groups for years, Detachment is based on the premises that everyone is responsible for themselves, that we can’t solve problems that aren’t ours to solve, and that worrying doesn’t help. We adopt a policy of keeping our hands off other people’s responsibilities and tending to our own responsibilities instead.”
It’s only a short snippet and she develops and suggests so much more in the book so to see the wider context a full reading is recommended!
I would add, in direct response to the extract, that, along with the above, it’s also a good and challenging learning process to develop the capacity to feel attachment without fear, and that can be as much of a journey as learning detachment! Relinquishing codependent tendencies is hard and doing so makes people feel vulnerable because life then becomes more about relating to others without the need to exert control. Thats a more vulnerable place to be in, generally. As is practicing true mutuality.
I believe it’s a sense, awareness and experience of inner peace and security which comes first and foremost from Godde, which helps us establish the stronger sense of inner security which can help us to experience healthy, boundaried and respectful relationships which are interdependent. Our foremost sense of security needs to be rooted within us. We do need connection with Godde, ourselves, and others, and all are blessedly interrelated. When it comes to our relationships, a lot of communication, honesty, integrity and mutual respect go a long way. But it’s not easy! Often it’s very hard!
So, in order to balance out the no doubt virtuous but often hard to reach ideals… A few words from Alan de Botton, (I think they are from his book The School of Life) on realistically loving other people!
“Everyone seen close up has an appalling amount wrong with them.” and a bit later on in the chapter:
“to evolve a clear eyed and unpacked view of the grave failings of one partner is among the most generous actions we are capable of in love. This is because the success or failure of a relationship doesn’t hinge on whether the other is deeply flawed. They are. What matters is how we interpret their feelings, how we understand the reasons why they have previously been and will again in the future be very difficult to be with. The crux is whether we can move from interpreting the behavior as a sign of meanness, to viewing it as a symptom of pain and anxiety. We will have learned to love when our default response to unfortunate moments is not to feel aggrieved but wonder what damaged aspects of a partner’s rocky past have been engaged. Annoying characteristics almost always have their roots in childhood, long before our arrival. They are for the most part, strategies that were developed for coping with stresses that could not correctly be processed by an immature mind. “
Retreat Series
I find retreats of many types vital in my life and I’ve been very blessed by many of those meditations put online by St Augustine’s College of Theology. Here’s the introduction to one published on 2023.
“Welcome to the 2023 Lent Audio Retreat series, presented by St Augustine’s College of Theology. Listen to Week Five of this retreat series: “The Promised Land”.
In this episode, we reflect on the season of Lent and explore what the Promised Land can mean to us. It can be a physical place; one that we reach through conscious decisions, like moving house, beginning a new relationship, or doing something that scares you.
On the other, the Promised Land is the relationship we have with God. We meditate on the decision to lean into this relationship; to journey to a Promised Land that we do not know the way to.”
Listen to it here:
“There is a day
when the road neither
comes nor goes, and the way
is not a way but a place.”
Wendell Berry
Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer.
Reading Carter Heyward
Carter Heyward is one of my favourite theologians and inspirations for Christian living.
Keep Your Courage: A Radical Christian Feminist Speaks
Book by Carter Heyward
“My desire in this book is to spark such courage and stir imagination. I am inviting readers to think outside the boxes most of us have grown up in. I want to draw folks toward the roots of our shared humanity and creature-being. Though I write as a Christian, these pieces, in their deepest meanings, transcend the boundaries of any one religious or spiritual tradition. For example, to affirm God as the source of compassion, and compassion as a basis of a holy life, is both a Christian affirmation and a thread, which runs through many spiritual traditions. Christians have no monopoly on spiritual or ethical truths, and neither does any other religion.”
I’ve been working my way through this book and I’m loving it. I’m a bit of a dipper when it comes to reading, dipping in and out of books, often reading several at one time. I’m trying to become more disciplined in my reading habits but ensuring I finish at least one book before I start a new one. It’s hard!
Yoga Quote
“The success of Yoga does not lie in the ability to perform postures but in how it positively changes the way we live our life and our relationships.” ― T.K.V. Desikachar
I’m trying to ensure I spend at least half an hour each day in moving meditation alongside other prayerful times of focus. I’m mostly succeeding! Unfortunately I’ve had Bronchitis and it’s a slow recovery for me, so I did stop for a bit but I’ve started the good habit up again now.
Becoming Painting
‘Becoming Painting’ by Jenny Meehan
This is a favourite painting I created which has tiny glass spheres as part of the surface layer. These create interesting visual effects with respect to the colour, almost a kind of frost type effect which is perfect for the work. To my thinking it’s as if the colour emerges out from the ice/crystallised water. I have tended to use these tiny glass spheres in my painting as a kind of metaphor for trauma.
Attachment in Psychotherapy
Yes, this is another of my ‘dipping into’ areas, though in this case it’s an audio book so slightly different experience! David Wallin talks of an “embodied mind and mindful body” which is something I find very interesting. I relate to what he is saying a lot, and take a lot of encouragement from recognising progress I’ve made in this area.
ATTACHMENT IN PSYCHOTHERAPY
DAVID J. WALLIN
Quote from Part 2 Chapter 5
bringing it all together
Attachment, the embodied mind and the mindful body.
“The brain is the body’s captive audience”. Antonio Damasio in Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain marshals neurobiological evidence to argue for the inseparability of mind and body, asserting that feelings are essentially the mind readings of bodily states and that reason, to be truly rational, must be anchored in the emotional signals that issue from the body. Yet if the embodied mind has come to be acknowledged by many scientists and philosophers as a fact of the human condition, its reality is anything but a given for those of us patients and therapists alike, who too often seem to live as if inhabiting a disembodied mind or a mindless body.
Integrating the various dimensions of the self, somatic emotional representational, reflective, mindful, and establishing interconnectivity between the separate domains of the brain, (left and right, cortical and subcortical) are two sides of the same coin. As the outcome of a secure attachment history and the goal of an attachment oriented psychotherapy, these kinds of integration may foster the subjective experience of both an embodied mind and a mindful body.
With a mind that is embodied we feel grounded, our actions are directed from within. We have useful, psychologically enriching, access to our somatic sensations and our emotions. The felt sense here, is that the ways in which we think as well as feel, arise from, are shaped by and are given meaning, through living human bodies.
Patients who might be described in attachment terms as avoidant or dismissing are usually, more or less disembodied. As one such patient put it, “I hover over my experience rather than land in my body” . For these patients, how the body functions or looks from the outside, may be important, but what it feels like, or senses on the inside, almost never is operating with a left brain bias. They can appear to live as if uninformed by the emotionally oriented right brain. Yet they are gripped by powerful subcortical reflexes that constrain their actions and divert attention from their feelings and sensations.
Being of therapeutic use to such patients usually involves helping them to reclaim the feeling, sensing, body as an inherent and essential part of the self. In sharp contrast to patients who appear to inhabit a disembodied mind, or those who seem lodged in a body that is mindless, a body that rules the self because its expressions cannot be questioned by the mind. These patients, often preoccupied or unresolved with respect to trauma, can feel tyrannised by the body that seems to betray them. Frequently they are sometisers, whose emotions and memories mainly find expression in the language of the body. When these emotions or memories have become intolerable, the body that sequesters them is abandoned psychically and leaving the body – dissociation – provides escape when there is no escape. Such patients are unable to access the resources of a body that is mindful, a body suffused with awareness so that it can, not only be sensed and known, but can also sense and know. As Segal points out, the heart and intestines, whose surrounding cellular structures mimic those of the brain, function as organs not only of circulation and digestion respectively, but also of perception, hence the literalness of the expressions heartfelt feelings and gut reactions. When capable of ‘minding the body’ we have access to a depth of self awareness and awareness of others that is otherwise unavailable. Most important, perhaps having a body inhabited by the mind and the mind informed and enlivened by the body helps us to be more fully present,”
Gosh, that’s amazing to read! It makes so much sense to me as I think about my own journey through life and negotiating my way forwards into a more integrated self and sense of being! I feel more aware than I previously was with respect to the connections between mind and body. I am also more aware of the depth of damage done to a person through the crime of rape.
Victim or Survivor of Rape?
In some ways, I find it a bit annoying a substantial strand of my artistic creation now is focused on violence against women, quite simply because denial is more comfortable. This is true on both a personal and societal level. To deny the depth of consequences on a victim of the crime of rape means it is easier to overlook… Most people want to avoid painful realities, and that’s understandable, but it’s not a luxury that victims of rape can enjoy. I should know, I’ve spent a great number of years successfully avoiding various consequences of what was done to me.
I tend to use the word ‘victim’ of rape more than ‘survivor’ as a preference, not because I possess a victim mentality but because I feel it more clearly articulates the reality that rape is a crime with two agents, one of which has personal agency, and the other whose personal agency is denied: a perpetrator and a victim. The clarity is helpful for those in doubt, and it seems that doubt is often cast in these matters. I also find ‘survivor’ problematic because, for me anyway, the fact that I had to go on living after the rape did not feel like a blessing but a terrible curse… It was like being killed but having to continue to live, even though I was dead.
I was dead, in so many ways. My entire experience and relationship to reality and living was changed. I did not ‘survive’ in the sense the life and person I was, was in danger and then wasn’t. Life was, from then on, never the same again. ‘Survive’ tends to mean ‘to continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship.’ which is true, but the sense of continuation, in my case, is not something I can relate to. I had to abandon all that had happened to me, all that I was, and so, I left my body (mind) behind. Sounds weird but it’s the best way I can put it.
Yes, I carried on. But ‘survive’ has a sense of someone going into something and coming out of it, somehow intact. ‘Intact’ means ‘untouched especially by anything that harms : not damaged or lessened.’ I was damaged, very damaged, by the experience of being subjected to rape, as all people are; women, men, and children. There is no escape from the damage the crime of rape inflicts. I’m aware that different people and circumstances mean a vast diversity of experience exists, and we choose the language for ourselves; that which fits our experience most accurately is right for us. We honor that. We honor the differences, and allow ourselves the words which fit for us individually.
I’m not sure what word I can use to convey my experience of rape best. By this, I mean, the whole experience – up til this point in time – rather than just the experience of a singular event at a specific point in time. I think that ‘Victim-Victor’ may be the best for me personally. Not only does it have, in my mind and imagination, a strong connection with my hope in Jesus Christ and the way of following Christ that is such a fundamental part of my spirituality within the Christian faith tradition, but it does hold both words very nicely together with alliteration, and holds them in balance. They both have the same number of letters and the same first four letters!
This novel feature brings me pleasure and happiness, which I love. It reminds me that Godde can hold things which are paradoxical together in ways beyond my own understanding, both within and without. To trust, and not attempt to control life through my own rational understanding and knowledge, is always a challenge. Faith is not easy, and the process of letting go of pain is something I do find hard. But I am moving on into a greater fullness of being and liberty.
I do continually experience significant transformations in my life, and I am grateful for being alive. I see in myself both Victim and Victor; the two can miraculously meld together. I am both powerless and powerful. My focus is on surrender to the Holy Spirit alongside taking full personal responsibility for what is in my control. Mutuality and connection, bound up with respect and love, compassion and honoring ourselves and others are a very healing path to walk along, and this is the way of Christ as far as I understand it.
It is a blessing to be alive. I’m glad I can say that now, and really believe it. Deep down believe it. I’m alright. I’m alive, and I’m OK. It’s a process, with layers. Let it happen, and it will. It will only get better.
Utterance: A Justice Prayer; The Man Who Rapes
It took me 40 years to get to the place of writing this Utterance.
Poetry Reading
I want to work on my poetry, reading it and writing it more than ever before. So to help me with this I’m making sure I listen and view more of other people’s spoken word recordings, poetry and trying to expand my awareness on this direction. Here is one of my recent discoveries, I find it superb!
Storing Art
It’s a problem! I don’t keep all my work, some is sold, some is donated, some is gifted, some is adapted, and some is binned. I do need to know where it is though, so I keep records so I can locate it when needed. Recently I’ve reduced the size of a lot of my art simply due to the need to use space for other things.
Scare Chair by Jenny Meehan aka jennyjimjams ©jenny meehan
I also measure the work! It’s handy to have the dimensions to hand!
Leap of Faith by Jenny Meehan aka jennyjimjams. This image was used for a book cover and I also have it up on redbubble as prints.
Sleeping Beauty/Snow White 2015 by Jenny Meehan
Medium Of Work: Photographic print on metallic paper
exhibited at The Story So Far
1 — 21 Jul 2015 at the W3 Gallery in London, United Kingdom and published in Wall Street International Magazine (now meer.com)
Metanoia
Another little gem… The text below is abstracted from/quoted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia_(theology)
‘In his classic word study, Treadwell Walden sought to promote the proper meaning of metanoia as “change of mind, a change in the trend and action of the whole inner nature, intellectual, affectional and moral.” over against its translation as repentance. In the present day, other writers continue Walden’s effort.
Edward J. Anton refers back to Walden’s effort and makes a similar effort in his Repentance: A Cosmic Shift of Mind and Heart. Anton observes that in most dictionaries and in the minds of most Christians the primary meaning of “repent” is to look back on past behavior with sorrow, self-reproach, or contrition, sometimes with an amendment of life. But neither Jesus nor John the Baptist says to look back in sorrow. For St Paul, “metanoia is a transfiguration for your brain” that opens a new future.’
A transfiguration for my brain! Yes please! I’ll have more of that please!
Kingston Artists Open Studios 2024
For those who could come in person, thank you! Here’s some photos and a video from this year’s Kingston Artists Open Studios event!
Holiday
Below is photo from a recent holiday, enjoying a bit of sun and some walking!
Women in Revolt
I wrote about this last year but only highlighted a couple of art works which stood out for me, so here a a few more to add to my memory box!
Examples of feminist posters from The Feminist Library, Peckham, Women’s Art Library, Special Collections and Archives, Goldsmiths University of London., and The Feminist Library, Peckham.
These posters!
Sisterhood is powerful c. 1970
Equal Pay Placard 1976
Seven Demands 1976
Women are Revolting c. 1970
Poster for ‘Shrew’ magazine c. 1970
Sourced from:
The Feminist Library, Peckham. Z76964 Women’s Art Library, Special Collections and Archives, Goldsmiths University of London. X89371, Z88829 The Feminist Library, Peckham. Z76960-1
I spent a great deal of time when I went to the exhibition looking at the graphic design, posters, writing.
Another highlight for me were these! Perfect! I have ranted in the past about the negative messages that advertising indoctrinate us with, so this was pure delight!
Jill Posener born 1953 Born UK, works England
First column:
Fiat Ad, London 1979, printed 2023
Renew His Interest, London 1980, printed 2023
Born Kicking, London 1983, printed 2023
Second column:
Macho Bore, London 1983, printed 2023
Squat Against Nuclear Family, London 1982, printed 2023 To Volvo A Son, London 1982, printed 2023
6 photographs
Courtesy of the artist X84306, X86928, X86931, X86930, X86932, X86929
In these prints Posener documents a series of feminist interventions to advertising billboards around London. While living in lesbian squats in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Posener and her friends (who chose to remain anonymous for fear of retribution) would graffiti over sexist adverts and photograph them. They sold prints as postcards to raise funds for radical causes.’
Of Woman Born’ by Adrienne Rich
On the topic of being a Mother and Motherhood, here is a book I’d like to read and so I’ve popped this in my Journal to remind myself to locate it and read it. In the years since Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born was published , the topic of motherhood emerged as a central issue in feminist scholarship. Of Woman Born is not only a far-reaching meditation on the meaning and experience of motherhood that draws from the disciplines of anthropology, feminist theory, psychology, and literature, but it also narrates Rich’s personal reflections on her experiences of mothering. Here’s a quote about it I’ve found on the net:
“For Rich, patriarchy has imprisoned motherhood, turned it into a form of oppression and exploitation that alienates women from their own bodies. This alienation and distortion are extended to the mother/daughter relationship, as they are to every relationship between women under patriarchy. The victimization of the mother is carried over onto the daughter: “Many daughters live in rage at their mothers for having accepted, too readily and passively, ‘whatever comes.’ A mother’s victimization does not merely humiliate her, it mutilates the daughter who watches her for clues as to what it means to be a woman. . . . The mother’s self-hatred and low expectations are the binding rags for the psyche of the daughter.” Rich thus eloquently depicts the double binds mothers and daughters live through under patriarchy, as does Judith Arcana when she declares, “The oppression of women has created a breach among us, especially between mothers and daughters. Women cannot respect their mothers in a society which degrades them; women cannot respect themselves.”
Quoted from
“Many daughters live in rage at their mothers for having accepted, too readily and passively, ‘whatever comes.’
Gulp. Yes. That resonates!
Blast from the Past
Angry Parking Attendant Woman
Taken at the parking lot on Station road, Twickenham, in front of The Albany Pub, when I was studying at Richmond Tertiary College, Egerton Road in 1981/82.
The original was a negative I processed myself as part of an A level photography course. It was the first photograph I took right through from start to finish, developing chemically. I have the original print, which a miracle as its such a long time ago!
This is a digital photo of the print.
The lady posed for me, I asked her to look really angry!
Last of all, a bit of playful fun with colour, pattern and music!
…
About Jenny Meehan
I have over 1000 options for affordable wall art/wallpaper to buy via the well known Redbubble print on demand site! Purchases made of my art and designs on sale there help support other areas of my creative work.
Take a look!
If you have problems finding the design you want just contact me via my blog contact page… I’m happy to help.
I’m an eclectic artist with a diverse practice. Abstract painting is my main passion, but alongside that digital art is too much fun to ignore so I spend a bit of time with that too! I also wrote, in many forms, including poetry.
I’m also a member of the Design and Artists Copyright Society, (DACS) and my art images are licensable via DACS.
Please contact me in the first instance with your enquiry. I’m flexible about fees, which are based on the industry standard, but negotiable. All fees cited by DACS are proposed; not set in stone; and depending on circumstances, budgets, the nature of your project etc I can be flexible.
All my artwork is ©jenny meehan.
Saint Julian of Norwich
I’ve put up another version of my Saint Julian of Norwich Poem. The same reading but without the text, which can be a bit distracting. Instead, my painting The Comforter, which inspired the poem, is left up for the duration of the video.
Jenny Meehan - Art Journal 