Germination Image
germination print jenny meehan jamartlondon© Jenny Meehan. All Rights Reserved;
I have just done some framing. Knee is painful. Knee cap is grating. But framing brings quick and impressive feelings to the forefront of the mind. So nice to see the printed image sitting so comfortably in it’s position.
Escape from Death Image
escape from death by jenny meehan graphic print to buy jamartlondon.com© Jenny Meehan. All Rights Reserved
The actual print has less of a colour contrast than how the image shows here on screen. I altered it a bit for the print so it is more subtle.
Knee Replacement Season
Well, I start a new journey soon into the land of knee replacement. So I may be working on some digital images for a while rather than working on larger paintings. I do have some small scale projects I can work on. The months of December, January, February and March tend to be a little more sedentary anyway. So it should work out quite well.
Going into hospital has suddenly reminded me of my “real name”… for I am a Jennifer Meehan not actually a Jenny Meehan. I have used Jenny Meehan since around the age of 18 when I left home. When people call me Jennifer I seem to loose a few years and am reminded of how I was when living at home in my parents house. Well, that is one way to loose a few years I guess! It is odd when you are suddenly referred to with a name you do not use anymore.
Past painting…
Sack of a Great House/Arise, Sleeper
“Arise, Sleeper, Wake/Sack Of A Great House” Jenny Meehan 2010
© Jenny Meehan. All Rights Reserved, DACS
This painting is an early example of my experimentation with texture in my work. It may well be the first time I used fillers of different sorts. That was back in 2010.
Ephesians 5 v14 “This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
UnderPainting for an Oncoming Vision/The River Within by Jenny Meehan 2010
© Jenny Meehan. All Rights Reserved, DACS
Under Painting for an Oncoming Vision/The River Within is an example of some of my earlier work. In this painting I was experimenting with glazes. Oil on board. In the flesh the painting does radiate light in a very pleasing way. You cannot quite get that from looking at it on a screen.
Interesting information on Gloss and Emulsion Paint
Well, you know I appreciate that this won’t get everyone excited, but for me as a painter when I find nice clear information on paint, I am very happy indeed! Someone mentioned gloss paint to me in conversation and it is not something I have tried, so this maybe something for the new year.
“Gloss or emulsion
When we buy a can of paint we expect to be able to apply it with a brush or roller and for it to dry leaving behind a solid film. To achieve this paints are made up of a mixture of different components. Although paints designed for different purposes will have different formulations, they all have some key features in common.
Paints contain a pigment to give colour, including white; a film former that binds the pigment particles together and binds them to the surface to be painted; a liquid that makes it easier to apply the paint and additives to make the basic paint better to store and to use.
The two main types of paint are gloss and emulsion. (My addition, well, not quite, but for domestic household use, yes!)
Gloss Paint
Gloss paint is widely used because it produces an attractive shiny surface that is so durable that it can be used outside. The binder or film former in gloss paint is called an alkyd resin. This is a long chain polymer made by reacting a vegetable oil such as soya bean or linseed oil with an alcohol and an organic acid. The resin is dissolved in an aliphatic petroleum solvent, so that it can be spread easily. When the solvent evaporates, the oxygen of the air interacts with the resin which results in the formation of cross links between the polymer molecules and produces a strong, dry film.
A typical gloss paint formulation
Component Percentage by mass
Alkyd resin binder 54
Pigment 25
Solvent 17
Additives 4
(Additives might be driers and anti-skin agents)
Emulsion Paint
Some paints are emulsions . They are made up of tiny droplets of liquid polymer binder spread out in, rather than dissolved in water. This emulsion can be spread easily.
The polymer is made by the addition polymerisation of alkene monomers such as ethenyl ethanoate, methyl 2-methylpropenoate and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate. These monomers can be mixed in different proportions before polymerisation to form a co-polymer which has exactly the right properties for the purpose it is to be used for.
After an emulsion paint is applied, the water evaporates and the polymer particles pack closely and fuse together to form a continuous film. The use of water rather than an organic liquid means that emulsion paints produce fewer VOC (volatile organic compounds) when they are used.
A typical emulsion paint formulation
Component Percentage by mass
Co-polymer binder 15 to 23
Pigment (white) 20
Pigment (colour) 0 to 5
Extenders 15 to 25
Water 25 to 50
Additives 2 to 5
(Additives might be antifreeze, dispersing aids, wetting agents, thickeners, biocides, low temperature drying aids, antifoam agent, coalescing solvent, ammonia)”
The above is quoted from: http://resources.schoolscience.co.uk/ICI/14-16/paints/paintch1pg1.html
I am so happy reading this! Crazy, Yes. For sure! Love Paint!
Quotes I like…
This below from http://abstractcritical.com/article/the-language-of-painting/
http://abstractcritical.com/article/the-language-of-painting/
by John Holland
“Though it will deeply pain Mr. Gouk, I agree that art is not a language, except in the most metaphorical way. It’s not true to say that, “If art has a meaning, then it must be a language”; language is a particular conception, and all real languages share certain necessary features,such as modular units that must be arranged according to quite strict syntactical rules if they are to make sense. What are the equivalents in painting of tenses, verbs, word definitions? Any metaphorical application of the word ‘language’ to art (or music) is too vague to be useful. Maths, maybe, is the only thing that might meaningfully be called a non-verbal language.
As Gouk suggests, a work like Finnigan’s Wake pushes the rules about as far as they will go before sense breaks down- which is why, by and large, literature has had to ‘retreat’ since then to more conservative forms. There’s no equivalent in Modernist painting.
Art has meaning, but it lies largely outside language- this is why it fails when it tries to operate in essentially verbally structured contexts like political discourse.”
Art has meaning, but it lies largely outside language- this is why it fails when it tries to operate in essentially verbally structured contexts like political discourse.
Victor Brauner
I have been looking at some work by Victor Brauner recently, who I had not heard of before. Here is some information on him.
Victor Brauner’s multi-media practice is now most closely associated with Surrealism. During his training at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, Brauner had in fact developed an expressionist style, which he later abandoned during his involvement with various Dadaist and Surrealist art publications. It was Yves Tanguy who formally introduced Brauner to the Surrealists and instigated his involvement with the movement. His practice, which included painting, drawing, and printmaking, drew from disparate symbolic systems like Tarot Cards, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and ancient Mexican texts. Brauner asserted that all of his paintings were autobiographical in some way. He led a turbulent life of constant displacement; anticipating the danger of World War II, Brauner reduced the dimensions of his canvases such that each could fit in his luggage for emergency travel—he called these his “suitcase paintings.” (quoted from Artsy.net)
And from my reading:
Dialogues; Conversations with European Artists at Mid-Century by Edouard Roditi
An interesting extract:
Victor Brauner interviewed by Edouard Roditi. A small extract from a longer interview.
ER: Do you believe that non formal abstract art can offer an artist a new kind of freedom?
BRAUNER: In theory perhaps, at least as long as it relies on chance to suggest meanings for its formlessness. In practice, however, it generally concerns itself with such problems only superficially and soon degenerates into a style of decoration that lacks any more articulated systems of beliefs, thought and emotion. In any case, such terms as figurative and non-figurative or formal and non formal suggest very superficial categories. An artist such as Paul Klee understood quite properly that he had to try his hand at any style that occurred to his mind, and this is how he managed to leave some works that are figurative and others that are nonfigurative – but all of them equally typical of his very personal genius.
ER So you would not advise an artist to seek too personal a style to which he would remain rigidly faithful in all his work?
BRAUNER : Certainly not. The modern art market requires that an artist specialise and, in the long run, repeat himself too. But what he then produces may no longer illustrate what remains indispensable to him as artistic expression – I mean a sense of adventure, of discovery and perhaps even of danger, of the risk of really making the wrong choice and of losing or destroying himself as an artist. Whenever I face a fresh canvas,I feel like a new man and become an utter stranger in my own eyes. When one faces this mystery of becoming and of self discovery and self-expression as an artist, one can no longer rely very much on what one has already achieved. But this is also why I can never have a very clear long-range plans. I do not want to become a specialist in any strictly limited style or range of subject matter, though I may actually find myself more often preoccupied by some problems or symbols than by others. Nor would I really be able to be such a specialist, even if I wanted. But this problem, fortunately, has never arisen in my life, and this may well be why I continue to feel the need to work and to create, as if I had never yet created anything in the past which I can still recognize as wholly my own”
At the time of this brief interview, Brauner was seriously ill and easily tired. A few weeks later Victor Brauner died and this was his last interview.
Interesting with respect to the matter of repetition, and what a wonderful quote:
Whenever I face a fresh canvas,I feel like a new man and become an utter stranger in my own eyes. When one faces this mystery of becoming and of self discovery and self-expression as an artist, one can no longer rely very much on what one has already achieved.
My own experience for the need for constant jumping into the dark, into the unknown, into the not previously explored avenues of the unfolding process of my painting, and how important it feels NOT to simply do something because it has worked well, or is popular, or has some other reason to be done, finds some agreement here. This may not make commercial sense, however, I ask myself what matters the most and what I personally think more important. Freedom is a key not worth throwing away unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. At the moment I am free to be led by whatever happens next, without needing to know what that whatever will be. I do find that there are distinctive strands in my work, they resurface again and again; it just happens. The art is to look back and consider them from a distance of time having passed, to ask if they have any direction to point one to, and to not force any coherence in one’s work, but simply let it happen.
Suburban Meditations/Painter’s Development Images…
Once more, a look into what caught me when my camera served as my main tool. I am thinking of buying a new camera, but so confused by the choice!!! My extensive archives of imagery lie waiting for resurrection. But it is nice to look back at what I was looking at (and finding interesting) when I took more photographs more than I painted. And then I ask myself what the images are saying to me now. Quite a lot. Of lovely silent words.
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
Types of metal fixings and neglected structures drew me towards them. Wood and metal were the main materials I took photographs of. I experimented with colour images but in the end presented a lot of my photographs in black and white as the kind of control over colour was too limited with photography, or at least, in my case, with using pretty limited types of photographic equipment and not printing the images myself. I take very few photographs at the present time. I feel I have so many that I have not utilised and engaged with sufficiently. So much material that could bring forth so much. So I have put an end to taking more images at the moment. ( Very occasionally I succumb!) Sometimes I see something I cannot resist, but it is not helpful to try and do too much. We have too many images. This feeling probably accounts for my getting lost (willingly) into abstraction!
There Will Always be a Point at Which We Will Meet
jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images
Past Painting and Poem : Bandage Box
jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images
jenny meehan jamartlondon art work uk licensable images
Bandage Box
Gently pressed
fabric
laid over a stretched surface,
soaked in milky balm.
I am tenderly
making, building
a new impression with my mind
whose inner wound cannot be bound
but which seeks
to make
new structure.
Jenny Meehan 2013 (written to accompany the above painting of 2013)
There will be some wounding experience with my knee replacement, but wounding with the aim of healing and repair is quite a different matter to wounding with destruction as it’s intent.
And Now…
I have been dwelling on similar material recently… Reflecting on the healing process of painting, because it clearly is a healing process for me. The bringing together, in articulating something, something which I don’t know when I start, but which evolves. The something which is becoming. Bringing into being a painting is like realising an emotion…, or maybe not just emotion, something of the heart; a heart connection and an experience felt. Maybe coming from a memory or experience. That memory need not be explicit and clear but I can still paint from it. Paint from its centre, from the time when it started. It may be from the past but the time doesn’t matter, The main thing is that it is and that I don’t need to ignore it or push it away. So the whole thing about painting for me is that it is about being allowed to be. Being and coming into being. Feeling and experiencing the paint and the material and the process of painting. And for nothing else to matter. There is a space in that which is healing. There is a bringing together and a resolution of something within. There is the fact that it appears and that it now matters. It always mattered but it could not be seen. And there is nothing about that painting which is not me. And there is everything just laid there to see. Which is rewarding. And the work has been hard, not easy. Sometimes easy, in a kind of surprise, but often very hard. But the bringing together of the painting is very rewarding. I feel engaged in life in a way that is essential to my happiness. I think I have written about the psychology of flourishing before on this journal. And that whole thing of “being in the flow” or in your element. I think some of the recent paintings I have been working on this year may touch on both the experience of flow, of happiness and of healing. The relief of coming together.
And here is one of my VERY recent paintings.
This one, “Mending”…It may well acquire an additional title as I continue the phase of contemplation through simple looking for a while. Sometimes over time a painting speaks of something not so obvious at the time of painting, or even just after it.
But this is “Mending” for now.
abstract lyrical expressionist british paintings jenny meehan
“Mending” uses a mixture of Keim Optil paint, acrylic paint, and household emulsion. I have also used painted card which is something I have been keen to use for a while. The substrate is hardboard which has a lovely colour which I have left showing in places. There are also some areas of paper tape. The size is just 20x16inches. This is a good size for such experiments as not too big, and I rather like the aspect ratio.
A nice little quote, rather random, but still lovely;
“Conversion, at its root, is not the action performed but the source of that action, the experience of being loved.”
Carroll & Dyckman, quoted from Inviting the Mystic Supporting the Prophet.
That is it for now. Happy Christmas!
Kingston Artists’ Open Studios
Here are some images from this year’s Kingston Artists’ Open Studios.
kingston artists open studios – image of “Rush Hour” (below) and “No Cares” (above)
kingston artists open studios jenny meehan “laid to rest” and “clog dance/sacred dance” oil paintings by Jenny Meehan
kingston artists open studios jenny meehan showing various acrylic on linen paintings by Jenny Meehan
kingston artists open studios jenny meehan “bright and breezy” and “resurrection one” paintings plus the table with information and prints.
kingston artists open studios jenny meehan – “bright and breezy” painting. this was exhibited at the Dulwich Picture Gallery a couple of years ago but still lives with me at the moment!
kingston artists open studios jenny meehan – “Resurrection One”
kingston artists open studios jenny meehan view showing my work and some of Cressida Borrett’s ceramics.
Writing this after the first weekend and before the second.. So still time to come along and visit 13 venues in the Kingston Upon Thames area…
18/19th June. 11 – 5pm at Studio KAOS 3, 14 Liverpool Road Kingston KT2 7SZ to come and say hello to me, and:
Caroline Calascione, find out more about her work here: http://www.carolinecalascione.co.uk/
Lizzie Brewer, find out more here: http://www.lizziebrewer.com/
Cressida Borrett, see some of her ceramics here: http://www.cressidaborrett.co.uk/
Plus more ceramics from Bali Edwards here: http://www.pots4u.com/
And also Anna Tikhomirova http://www.artist-anna.com/
Martina van de Gey will also be here from Germany: www.martinavandegey.de
and Seana Mallen: www.smallen.moonfruit.com
There are 74 artists taking part showing their work in 13 venues, so plenty to see! Take a look in the catalogue to plan your route!
It’s wonderful to have other creatives to talk with, bounce ideas about with, and generally spend time with. We need each other to encourage and support each other. One of the wonderful things about being part of KAOS I have found is that we a mutually supportive group, rather than competitive with each other, and this means a lot. While taking part in the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios event does take a lot of effort, it is good to talk to each other and those who visit.
One lady profusely thanked us last weekend for all our time and effort and I was very much blessed by that, as she recognised that we are offering something which we don’t often get thanked for. While we hope to sell some of our work (of course) the time and effort of putting on an event like the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios doesn’t normally generate profit for the vast majority of us (even if you sell something, it doesn’t translate into profit!). So we hope very much that people not only come themselves, but spread the word, as the more people who know about Kingston Artists’ Open Studios and who come along to the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios weekends each year, the more our work is appreciated. The process of showing artwork, introducing people to our work, and talking about what we do is a valuable contribution to society which is sometimes not appreciated. Aside from the practical necessity of selling the work, which does exist, (both from the point of recovering storage space in our already too “jam packed with artwork” homes and the need to reinvest in the development of our work/materials, etc) it is immensely motivating to see people discover art work which resonates for them in a powerful way.
Artists Need Collectors!
I have put that in bold, because it is a reality. We need people who discover that our art works resonate with them to a degree that they purchase them, and also, that they then invest themselves into keeping in track with what we are doing, and make a kind of mini internal commitment to “openness to buy” our work, not as a means of purchasing a commodity, but by way of a creative relationship which supports and encourages the artist, and also benefits the collector. A ideal collector will buy something not just because they love the art work itself but because they are interested in the artist and recognise that the artist is involved in a creative process which they need support and encouragement in. It is not simply a matter of buying objects for oneself. When you buy a piece of art, you help the artist in the creation of their work and support them in their vocation.
While there are some artists whose art working is a business, (among other things) (they have my admiration, and I applaud them on all fronts!) , there are many whose art working will never be, nor does it aspire to be a business (I am one of those!) What I do is a vocation only. However, this does not remove the need for money to fund it. Buying a certain piece of art may not be an investment of the financial type (however… you never know, when I am dead!!! Ho Ho Ho!!! Give me 100 years…or 300) and there is a challenge in purchasing a piece of art for yourself, I think. And the challenge is this: If it speaks to you, do you consider that encounter worth investing in? I feel personally that buying a piece of art and/or being a collector of art might very healthily be viewed as a type of self investment. There is a mysterious type of poetic strengthening of life which happens in the face of a deep resonance between a work of art and the human being encountering it. Sometimes, just sometimes, this is worth investing in, if the work is such that it has a sustaining effect on you as a person, and that you sense this will be a long lasting affair.
Profit is not simply about money… Indeed, I find it is seldom about money at all.
Where collectors (I term “collector” as anyone who has purchased one of my art works either to add to an ongoing collection, or who has purchased more than one of my art works) become patrons, is at the point where their relationship with your work of art becomes not something simply to do with them and an object they have paid for, but becomes a recognition that they are part of a creative process themselves. In collecting a certain artists work they recognise that they have a supportive role. Not one with strings attached. But one which recognises that in choosing to pay money for an artists work they are contributing in some way to the production of future work. The buying of an art work is not just a matter of themselves, but might be, if they choose to make it so, the beginning of an interesting and ongoing journey, in following an artist in the creative path they travel down, and periodically assisting in that path by buying that artists work not just once, but over a period of time.
This type of collector-patron, one who will invest in an artist and their work, and pick out specific artists which they develop an ongoing creative relationship with, is something I am mulling over right now, as I bounce around my thinking in this Journal. I think this is because I have been thinking about the word commodity.
Simple Definition of commodity
: something that is bought and sold
: something or someone that is useful or valued….Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary
It is the sick feeling I get each year before the Kingston Artists’ Open Studios event which has led me to start thinking this through. My experience or rather fear, of my work being viewed as a commodity only... an object brought and sold, probably brings on the dire feeling. An artists work is so much more. The usefulness and value of a piece of art is not very measurable at all. And the buying and selling bit has to happen, such is the world we live in. But what is the exchange really meaning in all this? Money is the medium of exchange, but what is the meaning of the exchange, what is it’s nature and what might be it’s potential? The use and value of someone choosing to buy artwork which you as an artist have created isn’t simply a material matter. That someone decides to invest and that this is symbolised partly through the exchange of money is always a great thing. Useful too, on a practical level. Essential. But the transaction can mean so much more to the artist. We are separate from our work, and don’t need to hang on to it, control it, or refuse to let go, however, what it will be, we always hope, will be so much more than something brought and sold. We want it to have a life of its own. An existence which will live new lives in the people who relate to it. We want that to be a good relationship. We poured ourselves into it, and then let go completely. Even if it ends up in a charity shop, we wish it well, and hope that no one sits on it. Well, I speak for myself with my very big “We”. But it writes better to say “We” and I know I am not alone.
And I guess it varies a lot with the type of work it is, and how much creative energy/significance/effort one has invested in it. I am thinking of my paintings here, rather than anything else. My paintings are the spear head of my creative energy and the tool with which I hammer on into reality, searching, but always in the dark! Wonderful abandonment, which strangely, I am found in! (And probably pretty much any other paradox which could be applied, could be applied! So words do fail..)
I do ramble on!
To finish on this one, I hope that those who I will call, for the reasons of my ramblings above, art “collector-patrons”; those who buy a few select pieces that mean the world to them, and who follow artists and take a genuine interest in them, recognise how important they are to the ongoing creation of art. For example, those who have brought my work and continue to do so, encourage and inspire me, by their investment. Which is not actually simply a matter of paying money for something, but rather the faith that what they have brought matters. That it matters to them, yes, this is clear and true, yet also, in that process, a recognition that it matters to me to the extent that I pour myself out for it. They see my investment and choose to invest. That’s a good thing.
I have just found this, which is kind of what I am getting at I think:
“Terry Eagleton offers insight into the idea that art may transcend systemic titles of value such as money, by “…suspending itself between life and death. The work of art seems full of vital energy, but is no more than an inanimate object. The mystery of art is how black marks on a page, or pigments on a canvas, or the scraping of a bow on a catgut, can be so richly evocative of life”(Eagleton, 2010, p. 71).”
I have quoted this from: http://www.artandeducation.net/paper/art-as-an-autonomous-commodity-within-the-global-market/
(Art as an Autonomous Commodity within the Global Market
Dan Zimmerman)
Other interesting thoughts:
“It’s cold logic then to think of art as a commodity, but what you are really seeing is a whole generation of peers and people older and wealthier than you deciding whether art history is going to remember you or not,’ said Crow” ( Kelly Crow, The Wall Street Journal’s art market journalist)
quoted from: http://ginafairley.com/artshub/is-art-a-commodity/
Also interesting:
http://archive.boston.com/business/blogs/global-business-hub/2012/04/art_as_commodit.html
from which comes: “Todd Levin, Director of Levin Art Group, told me, “Art fairs are not places where aesthetic or intellectual fields of value are created. Art fairs are competitive fields where the destruction of aesthetic and intellectual values takes place for the benefit of consumptive value.”
and:
“Some artists prefer to see themselves as pilgrims rather than as stock commodities. Regarding the art market, Amy Ragus states: “If possible, make your money elsewhere, so your art isn’t compromised to forces that often seek to exploit and codify your message.”
(My thought, not inevitable, and not terrible, (one artist can have more than one single “art” and it doesn’t have to be kept in a protective environment) however, worth being aware of what is happening and if it is exactly what you want.)
Kingston Artists Open Studios is still on this year:
https://issuu.com/kingstonartistsopenstudios/docs/cataloguekaos2016
Follow the link to view the 2016 Kingston Artists Open Studios catalogue
There are many different KAOS (Kingston Artists’ Open Studios) artists showing this year.
Below an image of the Cass Art Kingston Artists Open Studios Taster Exhibition.
Lovely private view, very much enjoyed. Even with my stick.
Exhibition open to all so do come and see it. Free. Cass Art, 103 Clarence Street, KT1 1 QY in “The Art Space” above the shop. Just go in the shop and ask to be directed in the right direction!
cass art taster exhibition wall 2016 with gentle leaves Kingston Artists’ Open Studios
The quotes below come from Living Within . (Copyright Living Within).
http://www.livingwithin.com/20052016-kingston-artists.html
KINGSTON ARTISTS PREPARE FOR OPEN STUDIOS WEEKENDS IN JUNE
Friday 20 May 2016 – Kingston
“This year there will be over 70 painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors, ceramicists, textile artists, glass artists, and many others, taking part. Open Studios is a growing national movement, with towns all over the UK taking part at different points in the year, and is an opportunity for the artists to share what they do with each other – and of course the general public. Often working alone in their studios for most of the year, it’s great to spend two relaxing weekends sharing ideas and meeting people. It is also an opportunity to show a wider range of work than they can in fairs and galleries, where space is limited.”
“2016 is the biggest event yet, with 13 different venues opening their doors, including a ‘taster exhibition’ throughout the week of June 11th, held in the upstairs art space at Cass Art, in Kingston town centre. Providing you live in the area, you will receive a flyer through your door, or alternatively you can pick up a catalogue at Kingston museum, the library, Cass Art, Pullingers or one of the many cafes around town. A trail map is included, or can be downloaded from http://www.kingstonartistsopenstudios.co.uk/show”
Not forgetting the Anagrams Kingston Museum Exhibition.. Wheatfield Way, KT1 2PS runs till 2nd July.
So much to see!
Yoga and the Devoted Christian
Sadly, for the last two weeks I have been unable to do my local Our Parks Yoga class, due to my right knee becoming very unstable, and difficulty walking/pain just meaning I need to give it a bit of a rest. Still doing a bit of Yoga at home and planning a return soon, but waiting till I have seen a specialist as rather worried about what is happening with it right now.
Despite my current limitations, I am LOVING Yoga, and find it quite a revelation!
Wishing I had discovered it earlier in life, however, there is a time for things, so it being now is just fine!
Reflecting back on how my faith and views have changed… I am now in the second half of life.
There would have been a time, twenty years ago, when I would have viewed the practice of Yoga with suspicion and a certain amount of what can only be called paranoia and fear.
Maybe a feeling of somehow betraying my religion.
However, what has changed?
I think my experience with psychotherapy has changed rather a lot for me. Because the tendency of all people is to try and avoid that which makes us feel uncomfortable. Natural. Understandable.
But our fears are rooted deep within. We attach them to things. Fear is good when there is a good reason for it.
A “good reason” for fear with vary a lot, depending on one’s life experience.
Every person has their own sense of integrity, and for some Christians, to practice something like Yoga is something they cannot allow themselves to do. Others won’t even think about philosophical or religious ideas or possible conflicts and will just worry about if they are “doing it properly”.
I feel that the practice of Yoga is pretty much like anything else, what it means, represents, and promotes varies hugely depending on who is teaching it, how they are teaching it, and what the intentions and objectives are behind it. As is the case in the vast area of what might be termed Christianity, or in a more expressed in ritual/religious sense “the Christian Church” What is actually going on, being taught and expressed, and how this is being done, varies immensely. There are all kinds of things going on!
“Nowhere’s Safe” comes to mind…. words I remember from a Graham Greene book I read. Cannot remember which one!
Might seem negative, but for me, not so.
There is a place of refuge in our Creator God. Yes. But it is easy to allocate “safe” and “unsafe” places in our life. We are not always right.
If someone feels they are betraying themselves, their particular religious affiliation, or their innermost being, in some way by practising Yoga, then they should not do it. It is as simple as that. If it doesn’t feel “safe” somehow, then it doesn’t feel right.
However, if it seems in accordance with what God and the Holy Spirit are doing in their life, and indeed, then it may be for them a gift, and a wonderful thing, liberating, helpful, and definitely in the service of Christ and others. In my humble opinion.
For me, it is a gift, and I am grateful to receive it. I see my Yoga teacher’s work as an act of service, which I am grateful to receive.
I don’t feel any obligation to believe what I do not believe, or change what I believe, because of a variances and differences in philosophy in the context of a Yoga Class, any more than I would in any other setting. However, it is the case that I feel no imposition or pressure to do so, and this is probably something which varies a lot depending on the individual teacher of Yoga. There are more religious and ritualistic ways of Yoga, I am sure. It is doubtful that I would feel comfortable with that, just as someone who wasn’t a committed Christian believer and used to taking Communion at Church wouldn’t feel very right at all about taking Communion!
I am a big fan of Mindfulness as a practice, and I think that probably my appreciation of Yoga is the working together of the mind and body in what I view as a prayerful discipline, and the whole matter of body awareness and opening myself up to God, (God awareness) which I really love a lot. I do experience very good sense of communion with God when doing Yoga, and invite the Holy Spirit into the whole of my being in a very intentional and focused way.
I can see that some folk would worry about what they were opening themselves up to, if they felt that it was not actually in their own control and that their personal boundaries might somehow be infiltrated by “something else” spiritually without their awareness or consent. Or if they felt pressured or imposed upon in some way. But I think a good Yoga teacher is one, like any other kind of teacher, who doesn’t seek to impose anything, but instead, trusts, TRUSTS, in the Spirit of God.
I guess the problem for many devoted Christians with Yoga might be in a belief that there is more than one God and that actually the “God” or “Spirit” of Yoga is a different one to the one that they believe in. My own belief is that there is only one God, but lots of different ways and approaches, or paths, which people negotiate their way along in their quest for spiritual truth and freedom. I don’t believe God is an impersonal force, and I hold passionately to the uniqueness of Christianity in relation to other religions. Christ is God, and is Saviour. The ultimate truth. The light of the world. The point at which all points converge. I don’t need to argue any kind of case about what I believe being better, or more right, or “the only way”. Because quite clearly, it is not the only way to experiencing God’s truth, Spirit, and working in the world. God works in people who are not calling themselves Christians. He worked in me, throughout my life, long before I committed myself to Christ, in many significant ways.
The fact that I believe the SOURCE of all truth and revelation is indeed bedded in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, is something I pray I hope to simply live out and testify to, in whatever ways I am given to. The way, it is a way of Love. So I aim to love, as I am loved by my Creator. I can express what about Christ, being a Christian, and knowing God through Christ, means, and how it matters, and have open eyes to the wonderful working of the Holy Spirit. In my own experience, I see the Holy Spirit manifest in my practice of Yoga. It is as simple as that.
It’s not that I don’t believe that there are harmful spiritual influences in the world… because actually, I do believe they exist. I don’t think a recognition of such is Medieval or delusional. But I draw my attention to what is good, and orientate myself to the workings on the Holy Spirit. And God is using my practice of Yoga in a wonderful and exciting way. Which I am very grateful for.
Suspicions about yoga are shared by many Muslims, Christians and Jews around the world and relate to yoga’s history as an ancient spiritual practice with connections to Hinduism and Buddhism. It is a spiritual exercise, to be sure, but what it means to someone is what it means to them. All the things in our lives mean something different to what they mean to someone else, I think. It is more OUR intention and purpose, which makes things what they are.
And as I mentioned earlier, the variety and differences, the various schools and approaches, the diversity of what Yoga “is” is rather hard to pop into one big lump. Just because Yoga is ancient, and a bit mysterious, doesn’t make it evil. You don’t have to agree with philosophies, theories and ideas about how and why it “works” or is beneficial to experience it as beneficial. God does work in mysterious ways, as that familiar saying goes! And, if Yoga is a “way” to God, then it doesn’t follow that this somehow supplants Christ, or that it is and “either” “or” situation. Or that it is in itself some kind of salvation by works. (I am sure it might be practised in this way by some, but that doesn’t mean that it needs to be). Deep down, we all struggle with the sense that we need to earn favour, approval and acceptance. This is lived out in our lives in many different kinds of way. Grace, pure grace, is always a challenge.
Even if yoga is, fundamentally, a religious activity, our yoga practice is OUR YOGA PRACTICE. It does not belong to anyone else. Therefore, if we are religious, then it will be, as we are.
No prizes for guessing what “Sun Salutation” is for me!!!!
Basically Yoga is a very broad term and this does cause difficulty. There are lots of different forms of Yoga and some are more overtly religious than others. For example, Hare Krishna monks, are adherents of bhaktiyoga, the yoga of devotion. But what most people in the West think of as yoga is properly known as hathayoga – a path towards enlightenment that focuses on building physical and mental strength. The word “enlightenment” might cause some alarm to some Christians I guess. but what “enlightenment” means depends on tradition. For some Hindus it may be a liberation from the cycle of reincarnation, but it doesn’t have to be. For many yoga practitioners it is a point where you achieve stillness in your mind, or understand the true nature of the world and your place in it. In this respect, it appears more to me to be a matter of Mindfulness. With wonderful physical benefits!
I guess there will always be debate about whether Yoga is compatible with Christianity, Islam and other religions. The yogic asanas might retain elements of their earlier spiritual meanings, however, as I move MY body and use MY mind, in prayer to MY GOD, then I think what is theoretically “retained” becomes meaningless in my practice, because I do not hold onto it, nor have I even held it. What Yoga embodies will surely stem from the soul of the person doing it, and no more or less? It is an art, and like my painting, I use elements of what has gone before, but what I do is not what has gone before, it is what is now.
It is all about intention.
When I take communion, in my local Anglican Church, I take the wine, though I am teetotal. I do this and it is deeply symbolic and special to me. It defines the importance of the sacred for me. I have rejected alcohol in my life, but I receive it in this context, and it deepens the symbolism for me actually, because it is about sufficiency in Christ for me. Yet I could ,if I wished to, chose to receive wine in other ways, drinking at a party or something. (Though it would not be a good idea for me!) It is the intention which is different. My fallen intention with alcohol was that it was, fundamentally there, as an instrument of destruction for me. That is what it meant. But in the rite of Communion, the intention is transformational. Its meaning is blessedly transformed for me. It is life, and life through the blood of Christ.
I mention this because taking that communion is not like drinking alcohol, even though it is drinking alcohol. That is the best way I can think of describing it, and I also believe that kneeling, for example in an asana, is kneeling in whatever way the intention is focused.
Religion is not installed in a person through repetition of outward rituals or practices. That is quite simply, rather empty. In my opinion.
Faith comes from the inside out, and from an inward working of God’s Grace. As a sacrament is an outward sign of an inward grace, Yoga practice can be that too. If you want it to be.
I won’t be chanting Hindu sutras, but I am happy to use “namaste” because I do acknowledge the meeting of God in each other. I don’t understand God as just an impersonal force, but I do recognise very much, especially as an artist, the creative spirit at work in the world, as it says “In Him we live and move and have our being”. There is something of the breath of God, which is very wonderfully engaged with by focus on the breath!
I view Yoga as a philosophy and approach, and one which can be very usefully engaged by Christians, without causing sudden destruction to their faith or adversely affecting them in any other way, as indeed much can be gained from the many rich areas of life and experience, which happen to be new or different to us, in some way.
Quote from Rebecca Ffrench:
“People say that yoga is Hindu, but “Hinduism” is a problematic term, coined by outsiders for everything they saw going on in India.
Yoga stems from the Vedas – the Indian holy texts that were composed from around 1900BC. Besides yoga, three major religions came from those texts – Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.
Around 200-400AD, a sage called Patanjali composed the Yoga Sutras. His “eight limbs” of yoga still inform practice today and discuss posture, breathing, meditation and correct living.
For many centuries yoga was all about meditation and austerity practices, such as standing on one leg for weeks or hanging upside-down from a tree. There were only 14 yoga asanas or postures.
The big explosion in hatha yoga didn’t come until the early 1900s in Mysore, India – now there are over 100 postures.”
Well, that’s enough of that for now.
Apart from… Yoga has helped me deal in all respects with my ongoing experience of osteoarthritis, and been a fantastic tool and resource in so many ways. It seems a shame to dismiss something or even prohibit something which is so beneficial to so many just because of irrational fears…
It is, I think, what comes OUT of us, which is normally the problem. So much inner trash!
Discernment with respect to our own inner brokenness and our faulty strategies of dealing with it, is probably more useful than avoiding this or that, in case of “pollution”. However, each should only do what they feel comfortable with, this is the main thing.
Art at the Bridge#7
This exhibition is still up. Wonderful to see my work in such a prominent place. Tower Bridge! I never would have thought! So pleased to be part of it. “Drawn Together” my piece of work can be brought as a print on Redbubble.com . Here is the link;
Artist Notes for Drawn Together:
“Building Bridges, the Female Perspective”.
This artwork expresses some of my female emotional experience: the emotion of two parts of my sense of self being pulled together. A feeling of balance and unity, which holds, even when the two sides are different in some respects. The suspended purple and yellow contrasting colours create stasis and tension. Yet, there is also a mirroring of the same essential structure in my composition, drawn together in a pivotal centre, which may suggest movement. This piece also resonates in relation to the Tower Bridge; an engineering achievement involving among other things, precision, balance, and design. Creative energy, both within and without, in both engineering and art.
building bridges the female perspective art exhibition tower bridge engine rooms jenny meehan
My friend Denise and me had a great day out! Loved the glass walkway and the Engine Rooms were amazing!
building bridges the female perspective art exhibition tower bridge engine rooms jenny meehan Jenny’s work “Drawn Together”
Here is one of the reviews:
http://whatsgoodtodo.co.uk/art-at-the-bridge-7-review/
Art at the Bridge #7
Tower Bridge, London
http://www.towerbridge.org.uk
8 March to 31 July 2016
Reviewed by Amanda Hayes
“I was privileged to be invited to the press night of Art at the Bridge #7 – Building Bridges: The Female Perspective last night, held in the fantastic setting of the Victorian engine rooms at the iconic Tower Bridge site it was the perfect backdrop to display art works. The engine rooms are very much an industrial setting with uncluttered bare brick walls and this lets the art speak for itself showing off the different genres with clarity.
Tower Bridge work with a range of community partners such as Variety & Southwark Young Pilgrims and has partnered with the Southwark Arts forum since 2011 to provide an annual exhibition at the Engine Rooms. This year’s exhibition is entitled Building Bridges: the Female Perspective and showcases the very different art forms from a network of local artists, 15 of which have gone through a judging process to exhibit at this prestigious venue. The works are a selection of paintings, photographs, mixed media, drawings and lino cut prints each showing their unique view, either literally or metaphorically of what building bridges in a modern world means to them.
Whilst the moody photograph Momentary Flight by Ana Katrina Giles-Myers, and the lino cut Albatross from Charlotte Tymms portray bridges in a more literal sense Donna Leighton’s etching entitled The New Baby explores building bridges in a completely different way by portraying the bond between mother and baby. A particular favourite of mine was Bound to Remember by Victoria Coster, a collage on canvas layering paper that would typically be discarded such as receipts for food and travel from 2006-2011 bridging together the space between those times.
Running from International Women’s Day on 8 March until 31 July 2016, Building Bridges: The Female Perspective is a must see exhibition set in an atmospheric setting. Art being a truly personal taste I highly recommend you go along and find your own personal favourite.”
Bits and Bobs
This is a nice little run down of exhibitions by British female artists happening in 2016:
More interesting reading from Gresham College:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/contemporary-christian-art
That’s it for now….
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 is a painter, poet, 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. If you read and enjoy it, this would be an added bonus!
Her website is www.jamartlondon.com. (www.jamartlondon.com replaces the older now deceased website http://www.jennymeehan.co.uk)
Jenny Meehan BA Hons (Lit.) PGCE also occasionally offers art tuition for individuals or in shared sessions. Please contact Jenny at j.meehan@tesco.net or through the contact form at www.jamartlondon.com for further details as availability depends on other commitments.
Jenny Meehan works mainly with either oils or acrylics creating both abstract/non-objective paintings and also semi-abstract work. She also produces representational/figurative artwork, mostly using digital photography/image manipulation software, painting and drawing. Both original fine paintings and other artwork forms and affordable photo-mechanically produced prints are available to purchase.
Jenny Meehan exhibits around the United Kingdom. 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 GO TO THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN, LOCATE THE “FOLLOW” BOX AND POP IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. YOU WILL THEN RECEIVE MONTHLY UPDATES.
You tube video with examples of photography, drawing and painting
by Jenny Meehan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAXqzMIaF5k
Website Link for jamartlondon: www.jamartlondon.com
A selection of non objective paintings can be viewed on pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/Jamartlondon/
Holy Week Art Installation using Poetry, Painting and Prayer
March 21, 2016
Art Journal Post March 2016 by Jenny Meehan aka jennyjimjams
I’m posting this up in addition to my usual once a month post, as it is Holy Week now and I want this up in time! I am hoping that those in the area who are interested in creative communications and the Christian faith, and would like to invest some time into drawing closer to themselves and God over the Holy Week, will be encouraged to use St Paul’s Church in Hook during those times when it will be open for prayerful reflection, meditation and contemplation. (or just one of those would suffice!!!!)
Between 7 and 8pm… Monday to Thursday the church will be open.
On Good Friday the installation will be taken away, but in the evening there will be a performance of Requiem by Gabriel Fauré which starts at 7pm.
Images from St Paul’s Church, Hook “Holy Week” Installation
First of all there were lots of different areas in the church building used by many different people, and all wonderfully put together and conceived which will provide lots of opportunity for people to guide their prayer experiences…I am just focusing on my own contribution here as this is the focus of this blog, but I will be posting more images on Facebook which will show others work as well.
This is how I chose to use the Chancel area of St Paul’s Church, Hook. It’s my own place of corporate worship, so it was very lovely to bring myself into the space and express thoughts and feelings in a visual way.
Love Bade Me Welcome inspired Altar Piece by Jenny Meehan Holy Week art installation in St Paul’s Church
Love Bade Me Welcome painting displayed as part of art installation at St Paul’s Church of England Church
st pauls church holy week art installation jenny meehan
st pauls church holy week art installation jenny meehan
(not very good quality pictures unfortunately… I really need a better camera!… Looks like I need to pop back and adjust the candles too! These were not part of the original idea, but as is often the case, when you are there you use what you can and how you can.)
st pauls church holy week art installation jenny meehan
On the Altar – I used a white paper table cloth, a sheet, and a long piece of white canvas. I dripped some paint, which I made using acrylic medium and a lot of red iron oxide pigment, along the canvas. Initially this was in separate spots, but I decided to drip them into each other to create a line, not unbroken, but leading into itself in places. This led from the centre outwards to a plate and knife and fork at each end. In the middle I had a single red rose in a single stemmed glass vase. The rose is open and the petals may start to fall at the end of the week. I felt these symbols to be very common and not particularly innovative, however, they were there to help engage people with the poem by George Herbert, which I put on display near by.
George Herbert. 1593–1632
286. Love
LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.
‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’
‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.
Two chairs on each side of the Altar. Cushions on them, to be comfortable! Maybe this could be identified as a “Table for Two” !!!! Altar rail open, of course, as broken, it is the entrance into the area.
I put my painting “Love Bade Me Welcome” behind the altar. Very pleased that the colours worked well.
love bade me welcome painting jenny meehan
The Pews
On just one side of the Pews I had a pot of Chrysanthemums; lovely daisy single petal types. Then another pot from which all the flowers had been cut off. Then a couple on stalks lying out of water, a couple more in some water, and a few flowers which had been taken apart.
st pauls church holy week art installation jenny meehan
Then I displayed the two poems I wrote when thinking through things. The first to go with the flower on it’s stalk, out of water, and the second for the flowers in the pot.
A Poem for Chrysanthemums in Holy Week 2016
Cut
from my roots
I lie and wait. Someone will pick me up
tear me apart.
But what difference will it make, to me?
A stranger from my source
with no future destiny.
Another Poem for Chrysanthemums in Holy Week 2016
Gathered together
Clamouring for space;
Dreaming of re-potting,
Positioning, in a different place.
Some golden, garden, Summer
may be our future lot;
Yet, in the present, happily,
nurtured in our pot.
You may come and take one,
and tear the life apart,
And what is done to one of us
will shake us from the heart
Yet this brings opportunity,
new hope and faith to know.
Because where one is broken
another two may grow.
(The ones in water are there simply so I can replenish when need be!)
The meditative activity, if anyone wanted to do it, was taken from Stephen Cottrell’s book “The Things He Carried – A Journey to the Cross: Meditations for Lent and Holy Week” This had several points and suggestions to it, which included a reading from Romans 5. 1-11, and a suggestion for breaking up a flower and after holding it for a while, then trying to reassemble it as best you could. Part of this was feeling “how hopeless it is” (to try and reassemble it) and also watching “it fade”.
Other Areas
I had the Hymn “What a Friend we have in Jesus” also displayed in another part of the chancel. No surprise there…I have been thinking about this Hymn for around the last three years!!!!!!
What a Friend We Have in Jesus | Joseph M. Scriven
1. What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!
2. Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful,
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
3. Are we weak and heavy-laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee,
Thou wilt find a solace there.
4. Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised
Thou wilt all our burdens bear;
May we ever, Lord, be bringing
All to Thee in earnest prayer.
Soon in glory bright, unclouded,
There will be no need for prayer—
Rapture, praise, and endless worship
Will be our sweet portion there.
Our vicar Luke kindly offered his Father, Iden Wickings’ sculpture for use as part of the installation.
st pauls church holy week art installation jenny meehan
I responded to this sculpture like this:
“Holding On” A poem by Jenny Meehan in response to the sculpture ” ‘Raising the Totem’ by Iden Wickings
Holding on
Substance of my self
standing, but with force, drawing away.
Welded, in baptismal fires
ordained for me.
The effort of this slope of life
is too much…
The gravity and weight of it
beyond my ability to sustain.
Yet
you, Oh Christ…
Within and around me
hold on.
Holding on.
In a single step,
the weight of your love lifts me.
The strength of a hundred men
in just one,
says
“This will last forever”
then
“My work is done”.
And I used one of my paintings which I felt worked well with the sculpture visually. It’s an untitled painting right now… but was painted alongside the Resurrection One and Resurrection Two paintings. It’s still eluding me a little… I realise the logical and predictable thing is to call it “Resurrection Three” but I might settle for relating it to it’s use in this context, maybe “Resurrection Three/Holding On”
I enjoyed the process of putting it together, especially stretching my arms out when leaning over the altar to smooth out the table cloth. This has got to be the most profound part for me.. to serve, to bow, to stretch my arms out, maybe there was there a small echo which resonated with my identification with what Christ has done for me.
It’s all part of the service…
Considerations
This strikes me. I have read it many times before…
“If the Church gained more confidence in the figurative languages on which it is built, it would feel more able to befriend the artists, writers and poets of today with more open and trustful willingness. Like birds hovering on the strong currents of the air we breathe, people of art and people of faith are keen to discern something of these currents which pull and shape our lives. It is an exciting task and one that might create many friendships and maybe even some agreement. It does not surprise me, then, that it is our cathedrals that, by their beauty of stone, liturgy and music, are housing some of the most reflectice and lively partnerships between the contemporary arts and faith. It is also our cathedrals for the same reasons, that are attracting many people’s interest in the possibilities of God. Human beings need intimation as well as specification.”
Mark Oakley in his book “The Collage of God” 2001.
Happy New Year 2016 – Jenny Meehan Art and Spirituality – A Book of Silence – Spiritual Formation – Mindfulness – Pillar and Moon
January 14, 2016
Art Journal January 2016 by Jenny Meehan
As usual, I have rambled on in my usual manner with an excess of both words and images! Do skim over, just stopping as you require! I use this blog as a personal journal/memo/notebook, publishing it on the net so that anyone interested in my work can find out more, but I do not finely hone it in the way that writers should…It is an unfolding and disorderly discourse, which tumbles off the computer keys and doesn’t get much editing! I have to manage my time carefully, and though I love writing it, I cannot play about with it too much! So off we go:
This looks good!
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/abstract-expressionism
How tempting! The entrance fee often deters me from seeing the exhibitions I want to, but this is one I will visit for sure! Too interesting not to!
Text from the website:
This ambitious and long overdue exhibition will bring together some of the finest works associated with the movement from around the world.
London has seen retrospectives of the most famous proponents of Abstract Expressionism over the decades, but this is the first time since 1959 that the movement as a whole will be represented in one landmark show. It is an opportunity for us to re-evaluate an artistic phenomenon, and make the case that far from being unified, Abstract Expressionism was in fact far more complex and ever-changing.
In addition to featuring work of the most celebrated artists associated with the movement: Kline, Pollock, Rothko, Newman, Still, de Kooning, Smith, Reinhardt and Gorky, we will also display work by lesser-known – but no less influential – artists to reveal the extraordinary breadth of a movement that gave New York City an artistic identity for the first time.
Cannot wait! Will have to…
I also just found this, very pleased, as I remember seeing Ffiona Lewis’ paintings a few years back when popping into the galleries on Cork Street. Though I took some notes I couldn’t remember where I put them (no surprise there! ) and it was a happy moment to re locate her work! I rate her painting very highly indeed, and it’s a lovely selection here at the Redfern Gallery.
http://www.redfern-gallery.com/ffiona-lewis_1039
The REDFERN GALLERY
20 Cork Street
London, W1S 3HL Telephone: +44 (0)207 734 1732
Fax: +44 (0)207 494 2908
Email: art@redfern-gallery.com Monday to Friday 11:00am to 5:30pm
Saturday 11:00am to 2:00pm
Closed on Bank Holidays
Oh, these dark days!
Christmas tree lights are still very welcome and much enjoyed!
I am looking through sketch books and note books. I am not motivated to start any new work right now, but rather still looking backwards. Apart from the watercolours, which are being reviewed, and reflected on!
Some things I have found: An old poem, written at a time I was thinking about beech leaves and made a copper sculpture of one.
Beech Leaf
Pick me up from the pool…
Rescue me from
the depths and heights
of the skies.
Place me in your hand
and treasure me,
Then,
return me,
to my resting place.
Not one of my best, but interesting to me to review what my interests have been, and notice how consistent certain preoccupations are!
I was struck by the lovely beech leaves on the beech hedging which is near the King’s Centre, Coppard Gardens, Chessington. Many years of walking that way when the children were younger meant I saw the young tender green shoots turn to soft and downy leaves, and then into their dry, crispy, light brown state; still held onto the branches even though dead. I also love leaves floating on water, for the water mirrors the sky, and you have the depths of the water, and the sky held together with an awareness of the boundary between the two marked by the floating object. I had both in mind.
jenny meehan photography
Here is an old image of the new leaves opening up. Apologies, cannot find the colour version!
Above is the leaf form I created during a course at West Dean College, which a friend brought. I haven’t continued with the metal working though I enjoyed it immensely.
New Year’s Resolutions?
I don’t do those… and I feel January is far too early to think about the year ahead…This is still Winter! Wait until Spring, and then I will start to look forward. I am still in the curling up on the sofa time! I am sketching cats, for the forthcoming KAOS “Raining Cats and Dogs” Charity event later on in the year. KAOS stands for “Kingston Artists’ Open Studios. I have no idea what I will do for it, and I want to produce about ten pieces of work. But there is plenty of time.
I have had a bit of a time mending my studio tent. The winds have been strong, and several times have nearly pulled the tarpaulin completely off! But hopefully I have worked out the best way to keep it on…It hasn’t taken off yet!
Holocaust Memorial Day is coming soon
Below is the link from last years Kingston Event, which included an art competition. I was awarded third place in the adult category. It’s nice to look back on. If you look on the winners images, you can find mine. The artwork is a poem and painting combined, and was submitted as one work. As is with the case with a lot of my imagery, I often work a poem into a painting, or vice versa.
http://www.kingston.ac.uk/faith/events/holocaust-memorial-day/
Faith and Art: Spirituality and Creativity working together
Religion is a funny word. It is hard to call myself a religious artist, because of the abstract nature of a lot of my work. Spiritually orientated art might be a more accurate expression.
See this, which is quoted from: http://www.rowan.edu/open/philosop/clowney/Aesthetics/art_spirit.htm (updated, link no longer active)
“Spirituality and the Pioneers of Modern Art
The beginnings of modern art, especially abstract art, have strong spiritual roots. This fact is not always obvious from textbook discussions of the work, which are more likely to focus on the many formal innovations of twentieth century art.
While these formalistic accounts are valid so far as they go, they omit what may have been the most central motivation of the pioneers of modern art. Kandinsky, Mondrian, Arp, Duchamps, Malevich, Newman, Pollack, Rothko and most of the other giants of early and mid-twentieth century painting shared common spiritual roots. For many of these men and women, art was primarily about spirituality, and was perhaps the most appropriate vehicle for expressing and developing the spirituality that the new century called for. Kandinsky expresses this conviction in his 1912 publication “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”; Mondrian mentions it in many of his writings; and so do many other painters, poets, musicians and dancers. Here is Kandinsky, in a selection from his influential 1912 booklet Concerning the Spiritual in Art:
When religion, science and morality are shaken (the last by the strong hand of Nietzche) and when outer supports threaten to fall, man withdraws his gaze from externals and turns it inwards. Literature, music and art are the most sensitive spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself felt. They reflect the dark picture of the present time and show the importance of what was at first only a little point of light noticed by the few. Perhaps they even grow dark in their turn, but they turn away from the soulless life of the present toward those substances and ideas that give free scope to the non-material strivings of the soul. (Concerning the Spiritual in Art, p. 33)
Whether they saw their quest as primarily personal, or whether (like Kandinsky) they saw the artist as a kind of prophet in the vanguard of humankind’s spiritual development, many of the great artists of the twentieth century saw their art in spiritual terms. For many of them also, the spirituality expressed in their work derives from eastern sources. Hindu and Buddhist ideas and practices had a strong influence on these artists, in some cases directly, in many others through the influence of Helena Blavatsky, Rudolph Steiner, and the Theosophical Society. Mondrian was a member of this society, and Kandinsky writes approvingly of it. The goal of these and other artists was to develop an art which expressed a reality beyond the material, a consciousness like that of a meditative state in which ordinary reality is transcended. Knowing this purpose casts a different light on the blank or monochrome canvases, the empty spaces, and the simple geometrical or biomorphic shapes of many abstract works. They might best be seen as meditative aids meant to reveal the transcendent or provoke a transcending consciousness. (In fact some of them strongly resemble asian works produced for exactly that purpose.) The same is true for work like that of Jackson Pollack, strongly influenced by Native American spirituality, whose drip paintings are meditative healing exercises like those of Indian shamans and Navaho sand painters (see The Spiritual in Art: Abstract painting 1890 – 1985, pp. 281 – 293 for these connections).”
The above text is written by Dr. David Clowney, Ph.d , (Rowan University web pages)
“They might best be seen as meditative aids meant to reveal the transcendent or provoke a transcending consciousness.”
I seem to have fallen into creating meditative aids myself!
Yet what I do is, and cannot cease to be, related to my particular faith and perspectives. Even if not explicit. I thought about introducing a crucifix to a couple of my paintings last year as they progressed, but then found this too stark, too obvious, and much better when fragmented and broken up. I arrived at Resurrection One and Resurrection Two via a crucifix at some stage in the painting. Then my concern with light and colour took over, became more essentially part of the paintings than the symbol of the cross could hold up to… there was a fight going on and as the emotion was breaking out far more as a thrust of new life, energy and power, I just went with that, hence the title. I felt that as the paintings had both brokenness and beauty, this was just exactly what I wanted them to be.
british abstract paintings
british abstract paintings
I view all that I do artistically as being part of my response to God’s redemptive work through Christ Jesus. For me, the energy and will to create is a handy by product of the ongoing spiritual renewal that my experience of the Holy Spirit brings into my life. I have also found my engagement with my own subconscious through regular psychoanalysis a vital part of the development of my artistic work, as it enables me to draw deeply from my emotions and thoughts, and reflect contemplatively, thoughtfully and analytically, into the processes and various directions which I encounter, hopefully bringing some discernment and wisdom into the decision making processes, as well as relying on aesthetic judgement.
I spend a fair bit of time looking over what I have done, and it is from this that little stepping stones sometimes appear and lead me forwards. Not straight away. But it is always very important to look back. We are living in the now, but also the past and future are with us. We cannot see the future, but the past might help root us in the ground sufficiently to enable us to gain some insight. Looking at past works of art, both mine, and that of other artists, is a vital part of any artist’s practice.
I found this recently: http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/canon-richard-davey/id/7613 (link no longer active)
I rather like this, text quoted from an interview with Canon Richard Davey:
“Yet even as he conducts a tour of his paintings, starting and ending in a living room – ‘the abstract room’ – he stresses that what he is not is an art collector per se. The reason, perhaps, is that he has acquired his paintings over the years out of love for them, and in some cases because they were gifts from the artists, rather than because he regarded them as investments. He estimates that only half of the paintings explicitly reflect a Christian message.
However, when asked to define what he means by ‘spiritual painting’, there is a long pause followed by a much longer attempt at an explanation that touches on art and science, the mystery of matter at the atomic level and what this suggests about the cosmic interconnectedness between humans, and between the human and the divine.
“These texts and these works of art will slowly dissolve, just as we are dissolving as we shed skin and so on. What I’m interested in are artists who have a sensation or an attunement to that sense. And I find it interesting and sad. I suppose that‘s why people ask me to write about it. The artists don’t have to be ‘religious’ artists but that doesn’t mean that their faith isn’t important.” (my bold)
Colour Must be Felt
Sometimes I wonder, amused, at what has happened with my painting. Reading things like this helps me to get some sense of the sense of it, without too much knowing!
Jules Olitski (1922–2007)
“Painting is made from the inside out. I think of painting as possessed by a structure—i.e., shape and size, support and edge—but a structure born of the flow of color feeling. Color in color is felt at any and every place of the pictorial organization; in its immediacy—its particularity. Color must be felt throughout.”—Jules Olitski
I’m realising a ridiculous (but lovely) love of paint which rules itself and pulls me along with it, is not very unusual, but something which inspires thousands of painters across the ages, whatever their style.
Pillar and Moon by Paul Nash
From the minute I first saw this painting I loved it. I like Paul Nash’s paintings very much.
Pillar and Moon by Paul Nash
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/nash-pillar-and-moon-n05392
Quote from the tate site:
Display caption
Paul Nash was deeply affected by his experiences as a soldier and an artist during the First World War. This picture was based around ‘the mystical association of two objects which inhabit different elements and have no apparent relation in life… The pale stone sphere on top of a ruined pillar faces its counterpart the moon, cold and pale and solid as stone.’Though not explicitly about mourning, the deep, unpopulated space and ghostly lighting gives the scene a melancholy air. Rather than depict a real landscape, Nash said that his intention had been ‘to call up memories and stir emotions in the spectator’.
July 2007
“Pillar and Moon” by Jenny Meehan
It’s 70cm by 50cm… has some lovely texture in it. While in Paul Nash’s “Pillar and Moon” I can share in the calling up memories and stirring emotions… very much an aim which has emerged in my PAINTING generally, (though unexpectedly I have gone further into abstraction than I expected to), in my “Pillar and Moon” the relationship between the two is less distant… “‘the mystical association of two objects which inhabit different elements and have no apparent relation in life… The pale stone sphere on top of a ruined pillar faces its counterpart the moon, cold and pale and solid as stone.’… He pulls them together in their almost parallel position at the top of his painting, so you know what he is doing there, but I have pulled mine into even closer relationship and because my painting is more abstract, their material composition differences, and the ground/sky relationship are lessened. My moon is below the pillar even, and earthed with a brown which reaches towards the pillar, surrounded in blue, more resounding of sky than earth.
Pillar and Moon, by Jenny Meehan is available for purchase, please contact me for further details.
A Book of Silence
I read this book several years ago, and it influenced me, so here is sharing a little more about it!
Quotes from http://www.saramaitland.com/Silence.html (link no longer active)
” For about the last 10 years Sara Maitland has been trying to understand more about silence: what it might mean in 21st century; what effects it has on people; how it has been used and understood in the past; why we are so frightened of it; and why she has come to love it so much.
Her new book is an account of that adventure, a sort of mixture of personal journey and cultural history, both deeply personal and intellectually exciting. In the course of researching and writing the book Maitland spent silent time in silent places – on Skye in the Hebrides; in the Sinai Desert; in forests and mountains; in a flotation tank; in monasteries and libraries. She was trying to match her personal experiences to those of other people – from fairy stories to single-handed sailors, from hermits and romantic poets to prisoners and castaways, from reading and writing to mountaineering and polar exploration, from mythology to psychoanalysis.
“A serious, important and deeply engaging book, describing with equal honesty the risks and the resources of silence. In describing her own exploration of these, Sara Maitland prompts some very uncomfortable questions about the fear, the shallowness and the lack of attentive listening that so effectively keep us prisoners” Archbishop Rowan Williams
“Sara Maitland’s search for silence and solitude turns into an intriguing spiritual quest which takes the reader deep into her inner thoughts and fears. ‘A Book for Silence’ records a brave and adventurous psychological journey that will speak to all who have doubts about our increasingly over-materialistic society.” Stuart Sim, author of Manifesto for Silence
“I am grateful to Sara Maitland for this joyful book, filled with humour. It is a beautifully written, the fruit of prolonged experience of different sorts of silence, as well as wide reading and real scholarship. It uncovered within me a half-forgotten hunger for silence which surely most of feel in this noisy world.” Timothy Radcliffe, OP
Very struck by the quote below; I think because I have found articulating my own experiences in life, through visual and written communication, very important and empowering. I have seen silence as negative, and it has been, very often, very negative. But I like the expression “presence of something which is not sound” and this struck me. So, quoted from her book:
“Perhaps it is a real, separate, actual thing an ontological category of its own: not a lack of language but other than, different from language; not an absence of sound but the presence of something which is not sound.
Nonetheless the idea that silence is an absence or lack is the commonly help position in contemporary life and especially – this is why it was painful – among the radical intellectual milieu in which I had for so long lived and flourished.
Toward the end of the 1990s my friend Janet Batsleer, with whom I was discussing all this at great length, sent me a (deliberately) provocative letter:
Silence is the place of death, of nothingness. In fact there is no silence without speech. There is no silence without the act of silencing, some one having been shut up, put bang to rights, gagged, told to hold their tongue, had their tongue cut out, had the cat get their tongue, lost their voice. silence is oppression and speech, language, spoken or written, is freedom.”
and another quote from the letter she quotes..
“That silence is a place of non-being, a place of control, from which all our yearning is to escape. All the social movements of oppressed people in the second part of the twentieth century have claimed “coming to language” and “coming to voice” as necessary to their politics.. In the beginning was the Word.. Silence is oppression. It is “the word” that is the beginning of freedom. All silence is waiting to be broken”
Silence and Sound
I like both silence and sound: both are vital. Reading this book certainly made me think about the pauses, rests, and other no-noise part of our existence! However, when I took my retreat at the beginning of last year, I chose not to make it a silent one. For me, this wouldn’t have sat well, I don’t feel. Many people have tried it and like it, but speaking matters to me too much to forego it altogether!
I am an expressive person! I am a communicator! I simply enjoy being with people too much to deprive myself of communicating with them! And while I find attractive, the “the presence of something which is not sound.” and often enjoy silence (well, as near to it as possible, bearing in mind where I live), I guess, as a painter, I am still listening and hearing, responding and communicating in the act of painting and the outworking of a painting comes to me very much as a kind of listening and a kind of speaking, even without words. There is a kind of presence which can be felt when looking at a painting, and a kind of listening, maybe a kind of echo or resonating type experience. Spiritual soundings, maybe? Not audible, but through the eye comes some awareness?
Words, as ever, fail! But I think expression, sometimes termed “sound” can be silent, but also sounding. Paintings can resonate with one’s spirit, and there is a silent sound which is heard, even if nothing enters the ears. And it is not a matter of body and materiality being separate from the spiritual, psychological and emotional (soul) aspects of life and experience. It is not a matter of silence or sound, or any kind of “either” “or” matter. In fact, I feel as a painter, that the physicality of the whole experience of creating a painting and enabling something to materialize is one of the most incarnational and wonderful things about it.
A unifying, incarnational and sacramental matter! Outward signs of inner experiences and realisations of wonderful grace, maybe? This is my take, anyway. When a painting goes well, and comes together, it is like a gift. I just stand there feeling grateful, relieved, and slightly in wonder. Surprised, feeling tired from the work, but feeling that it’s not just my work, but a rather nice present from a Creator God who is far beyond anything I could ever imagine or create. Yet one who likes to share the joy of creation with me! I moan sometimes about aspects of being an artist, but someone reminded me recently that it is a wonderful gift and worth being grateful about. And I do know what they mean. It’s not simply a matter of ability or skill (important though that is to develop) but it’s an experience of immersion in the creative, of being in the flow, of being opened up and thrown into the unknown, and loving it. That’s faith, isn’t it?
Watercolours
Having made some watercolour paints last year, I have been keen to experiment with these. I think I mentioned that in more detail in my last post. I am jumping into the deep, and learning lots about this paint, and it helps me that I made the paints myself. It is not hard, and I had the pigments. It feels great to have been with the paints right from the beginning, and I can be generous in my experiments, as the water colour paints are more economical and far less expensive than if I had purchased them.
I have been blessed with a lot of pigment…pure and lovely, … so much to play with! I am getting to know them well. I am working with inorganic pigments which I obtained initially for use with silicate mineral paint (I was going to use with potassium silicate as the binder) but which are now bound with some gum arabic solution I made up. I have plenty more for use with other binders if I want to, but working on paper is interesting indeed, and though I cannot tell what the outcome will be, the process is very interesting! I will post some up later on in the year, when I have worked sufficiently with them. I showed you the two I entered for the Royal Watercolour Competition, but I have around twenty more I am working on.
Spiritual Direction
I continue my mental touselling, (a word which does exist, even though the spell checker tells me that I have spelt it incorrectly!) over the term “spiritual director”.
As most of the population have never heard of a “spiritual director” , the term says all the wrong things and so I am continuing to experiment with ideas for how to better describe the role of a spiritual director in a short, quick and easily understandable way! Here is something I rather like from the Mount Street Jesuit Centre website:
“Would you like the chance to meet an experienced prayer guide to share your thoughts and reflections about your own journey in life within a sacred and secure space where you will be listened to and accompanied on your path?
Typically, people meet with a spiritual director every 6-8 weeks for about an hour. There are no requirements other than an open heart. So, if attending any of our events leaves you wishing you had someone to talk things through with, this could be for you. There is a large local network of spiritual guides and we can put you in contact.”
That is pretty much the best and clearest description I have come across. I like the expression “prayer guide” and the description of the space also. I like the term “spiritual guide” too, which is much better than “director” as a word. I often say to people who ask me what a “spiritual director is” is that it is a kind of mentoring, spiritual counselling, and listening type role, which aims to help people in their relationship with the divine and the spiritual dimension of their life experience/ God, in the way that they understand God, and how this is working in their life. I say that it is something open to all, whatever faith tradition, or none.
It seems to be, maybe not surprisingly, that most people who come to seek spiritual direction do have some background in one church or religious group setting or another, and have a faith tradition, however, this is not always the case. What is beyond us is often an awful lot, (actually, always!) and I think there are times in our lives when we want to ask ourselves what we believe, and why, and just make space to examine our consciousness and hopefully increase our awareness of where we are going, and why. I come from a Christian perspective, and it obviously influences my approach and how I work as a spiritual director. However, I am hoping that when I do complete my training with SPIDIR I won’t just be seeing people who happen to have similar affiliations to me.
Mindfulness
In the SPIDIR course recently we had a brilliant session from Tim Stead on Mindfulness. Tim is very thoroughly trained in Mindfulness and in delivering Mindfulness workshops and it certainly showed. It was very helpful for me, as I had been seeking clarification on a few points. It really was one of the best sessions so far. Very inspiring.
Mindfulness, I think, is something ever more necessary in our current time, and essential to develop and cultivate. Details of courses on Mindfulness run by Tim Stead can be found here: http://bemindful.co.uk/learn-mindfulness/
Redbubble
jenny meehan aka jennyjimjams
For general look at my Redbubble portfolio go here:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/jennyjimjams?ref=account-nav-dropdown
As usual, a very eclectic assortment of random things which have caught my interest…Skim over in that “facebook” kind of way and stop where you will!
giuseppe passeri ,web christ falling beneath the weight of the cross
Another post… As always, this is rather like an open journal…So I have been unconcerned if I ramble on… Yet you have the power of skimming as fast as you want and scrolling as furiously as you need to in order to avoid reading anything which is not a good use of time for you right now! And….. YOU CAN JUST LOOK AT THE PICTURES! So off I go!
Giuseppe Passeri (12 March 1654 – 2 November 1714) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active in his native city of Rome.
This drawing “Christ falling beneath the weight of the cross” by Giuseppe Passeri is a wonderful example of drawing, and when I look at drawings like this I do feel only awe! True masters of the art of drawing can only inspire… There is so much emotion in all those bodies, the forms radiate emotion… Not including the human form in much of my work right now, but apart from abstraction, it is my other main interest. I cannot credit this image as I took a photo of it from a book years ago and cannot remember the details!
Drop In Drawing
If you fancy trying your own fair hand to a spot of Drawing, then remember that I do hold a once a month “Drop in Drawing/Painting” group on either a Wednesday or Friday afternoon, once a month. Here’s a little more information:
“I won’t be planning a structured session but I am there to help people on a one-to-one basis with achieving their own objectives.
Many people just come now and again, so the more people who know about it the better. Please do mention to anyone you know who might be interested in trying something visually creative as the session is suitable for all abilities, from beginner to advanced, due to the emphasis on individual tuition.
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.
The idea of holding these 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.
I will provide some ideas if people like, but anticipate people coming along with some idea of what they might like to do beforehand. However, just a vague idea is just fine! If you want to use paint, then of course, certainly do, however, for practical reasons, you might need to work outside if you are painting on a medium to large scale and the group is running to full capacity.
These workshop style session will give you plenty of individual input and opportunities for feedback, discussion, and analysis, as you consider ways of developing your own direction. I also offer individual tuition in oil painting, painting with acrylics, and drawing which can be arranged if you wish. ”
I haven’t held any structured art classes (ie with set activities/objectives and/or areas of focus for the group as a whole) for ages because I have found that though they are great fun to plan (nice to use my teacher training and experience in this respect!) with a small group of four people (which is all I can accommodate) it makes more sense to offer a kind of individual tuition/workshop style approach and let people go off in their own direction completely! People also learn a lot from listening and seeing what is going on and talking and sharing some aspects of what they are doing, (if they wish) which is encouraged.
Inclusive Church Movement
Quote from the Inclusive Church website:
“Inclusive Church was born on 11th August 2003 at St Mary’s Putney, at a Eucharist attended by over 400 people. The cause of this gathering was the deep unease felt by many within the Church of England regarding the resignation of The Rev’d Dr Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading.
Working with individuals and partner organisations we seek to raise awareness about the ways that people feel excluded by the church.
An on-line Petition was set up requesting assent to a Declaration of Belief. The response was immense and we soon reached nearly 10,000 signatories. On 15th September 2003 a small group of supporters met to consider this overwhelming response, and concluded that Inclusive Church was here to stay.
Over time this group has met and developed. We are now “…a network of individuals and organisations whose make-up reflects the breadth and scope of the Church of England and beyond. We come from differing traditions and differing locations but we are united in one aim: To celebrate and maintain the traditional inclusivity and diversity of the Anglican Communion”
We work closely with a large number of organisations. The partnership work which has emerged over the past few years is very valuable – we work with, among others, the Association of Black Clergy, Women and the Church, the Group for the Rescinding of the Act of Synod, Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Changing Attitude, Affirming Catholicism, the Society of Catholic Priests, Accepting Evangelicals, Courage, Modern Church, Progresssive Christianity Network and Integrity (US).
Inclusive Church is so much more than a single issue organisation. We are committed to working for a church that is welcoming and open to all. We welcome other partnerships. If you would like to work with Inclusive Church please contact us”
http://inclusive-church.org.uk/about-us
I’ve included this because I stumbled on the following article on facebook recently, and it got me thinking about what a blessing being open to change is, and how important it is that those people who start to explore the possibility that God might actually be inclusive in all respects, realise that they are part of a very positive movement, and that there is a lot of help and resources around to draw from, as they consider themselves where they are in relation to all that is happening at the moment. Here is the post below:
This is a very well written post on the LGBT+/Christian debate, which will be a helpful read in exploring thinking around the matter.
Yoga
I have just started some FREE sessions of Yoga with the Our Parks scheme: http://www.ourparks.org.uk/. Well, it’s amazing! I am enjoying it immensely and finding it very beneficial…already…. I have only been to two sessions! I have been trying out things at home a bit which has helped me to get into it too. I have found that, even though I have been working for three years on trauma recovery with my psychotherapist (lots of adverse childhood/early life experiences!) my body more often than not, full of tension, and still feels constantly uptight. It’s odd, because I know I don’t come across as an uptight person in any other sense, but my body seems to hold the fight/flight thing in itself rather dearly!
I found with the Yoga practice a lot of releasing of tension, and it was rather liberating. I think it must be the whole thing of connecting your body with your mind more, because this feeling of distance/disconnection between the two is something which I have been living with for a long time. So much so, that when I walked back from my first Yoga session, I couldn’t quite believe how I felt so integrated. This is a huge deal for me. It might seem rather too soon for me to feel such positive effects on the one hand, but when I consider things which are particularly resonant for me, ie I did ballet from the age of 5 to 15, and the whole thing of me focusing on my body and movements brings to me to a place of re-connecting with my body/self which is emotionally profound. It helped me to see how much over all physical sensation and body awareness I have lost… The main physical sensation I have let lead me has been my stomach (I expect this has contributed no doubt to the whole over eating thing!), and now I am thinking that if I focus on other areas of my body, I might well end up a little more well balanced, and possibly less overweight?
The second session made me cry a bit (after the session)… not because of pain, I hasten to add, (there was some discomfort at times, but not pain!) but because of some of the mental blocks I faced, some of the self-judgement and having to accept my body as it is now, rather than hark back to my ballet days. It is pretty hard to realise that you used to spin around en-pointe and now you cannot even lift one leg up for a tiny amount of time and balance for one second! Well, good for humility, I guess. And will crush any spirit of competitiveness, for sure!!! However, though I may struggle, and feel challenged physically, mentally and emotionally, I will certainly push on through. Body injuries in various places/over-sized body/post traumatic self and wounded spirit, yes, … Here I come, you are all mine, we will go for it!
When I started psychotherapy in 2012, one of the most helpful things my therapist pointed me towards was that deeper kind of breathing, something I tend to think of as baby breathing, (not sure why?) but it’s called “diaphragmatic breathing”, oh, thank you Wiki:
“Diaphragmatic breathing, abdominal breathing, belly breathing or deep breathing is breathing that is done by contracting the diaphragm, a muscle located horizontally between the chest cavity and stomach cavity. Air enters the lungs and the belly expands during this type of breathing.
This deep breathing is marked by expansion of the abdomen rather than the chest when breathing. It is considered by some to be a healthier way to breathe, and is considered by some a useful form of complementary and alternative treatment.
Diaphragmatic Breathing is also known scientifically as Eupnea, which is a natural and relaxed form of breathing in all mammals. Eupnea occurs in mammals whenever they are in a state of relaxation, ie when there is no clear and present danger in their environment.”
Interesting last line there…with accumulated trauma related stress in your life, the whole thing of doing anything which is a natural thing to do when there is “no clear and present danger in their environment” is immensely appealing… that made me smile and laugh when I read that!
Well, using that kind of breathing over the last few years has been very helpful, essential, I would say, at times of flashback/anxiety/panic attack especially, and also helpful to use in the psychotherapy session when things were overwhelming, and I needed to breath in order to stay present during trauma therapy…It helps you stay grounded. It was this positive experience with breathing in this way, plus my past ballet training (which did use some yoga stretches, so I felt kind of comfortable with it as a form of physical training…) which made my ears prick up when I found I could try it out! I am so glad I did.
I plan to devise a kind of Yoga-Ignation Examen combo practice! I have been using the Ignation Examen for a while.. I must confess normally just two or three times a week, though the aim was every day! Here’s a quick description, quoted from the ignatianspirituality.com website:
This is a version of the five-step Daily Examen that St. Ignatius practiced.
1. Become aware of God’s presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.
– See more at: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen#sthash.yquODWgJ.dpuf
So you can see it’s very much an examination of consciousness.
“The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.
The method presented here is adapted from a technique described by Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises. St. Ignatius thought that the Examen was a gift that came directly from God, and that God wanted it to be shared as widely as possible. One of the few rules of prayer that Ignatius made for the Jesuit order was the requirement that Jesuits practice the Examen twice daily—at noon and at the end of the day. It’s a habit that Jesuits, and many other Christians, practice to this day.”
– See more at: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen#sthash.yquODWgJ.dpuf
The following is a deeper explanation, just an extract quoted from: George Aschenbrenner, SJ From Consciousness Examen, part of the Somos Católicos series
Examen of Consciousness
For many people today life is spontaneity, if anything. If spontaneity is crushed or aborted, then life itself is stillborn. In this view, examen is living life backwards and once removed from the vibrant spontaneity and immediacy of the experience itself. These people today disagree with Socrates’ claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. For these people the Spirit is in the spontaneous and so anything that militates against spontaneity is not of the Spirit.
This view overlooks the fact that welling up in the consciousness and experience of each of us are two spontaneities, one good and for God, another evil and not for God. These two types of spontaneous urges and movements happen to all of us. So often the quick-witted, loose-tongued person who can be so entertaining and the center of attention and who is always characterized as being so spontaneous is not certainly being moved by and giving expression to the good spontaneity. For people eager to love God with their whole being, the challenge is not simply to let the spontaneous happen but rather to be able to sift through these various spontaneous urges and give full existential ratification to those spontaneous feelings that are from and for God. We do this by allowing the truly Spirited-spontaneity to happen in our daily lives. But we must learn the feel of this true Spiritual-spontaneity. Examen has a very central role in this learning.
When examen is related to discernment, it becomes examen of consciousness rather than of conscience. Examen of conscience has narrow moralistic overtones. Its prime concern was with the good or bad actions we had done each day. Whereas in discernment the prime concern is not with the morality of good or bad actions; rather the concern is with the way God is affecting and moving us (often quite spontaneously!) deep in our own affective consciousness. What is happening in our consciousness is prior to and more important than our actions, which can be delineated as juridically good or evil. How we are experiencing the “drawing” of God (John 6:44) in our own existential consciousness and how our sinful nature is quietly tempting us and luring us away from intimacy with God in the subtle dispositions of our consciousness—this is what the daily examen is concerned with prior to a concern for our response in our actions. Hence it is examen of consciousness that we are concerned with here, so that we can cooperate with and let happen that beautiful spontaneity in our hearts that is the touch of God and the urging of the Spirit.
– See more at: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/consciousness-examen#sthash.Ygh4hnyG.dpuf
I am hoping that along with the classes, which I am happy to follow as they happen, I will develop my own pathway of combining Yoga practice with the the pattern of the Examen, (which I have got used to over the last year or so, so comes pretty naturally now), my general prayer practice and meditating on whatever the Holy Spirit brings my way. It’s all good stuff. The whole “grounding” emphasis has been completely helpful to me. (And I will try to look after my feet, because they bear a lot! )
In celebration of this new found enthusiasm… What is needed here is a piece of art!
head in the clouds but feet on the ground art image jenny meehan
I’m calling this “Head in the Clouds but Feet on the Ground/Contemplation” (I often give two titles!)
Outsider Art? Insider Art? Outside In Art or Inside Out Art?
I’ve been shimmering over the net, skimming here and there for a bit for a while with respect to the category of “Outsider Art”. This is very problematic a term, and though it is used a lot, it means so many different things to so many different people and groups. Now “Outsider Art” is maybe a world of it’s own, but not the “world” of it’s own that it used to be, because that exclusive and private world has now blow out in a host of other bubbles and into the atmosphere of the so-called “Art World”… Which is itself, not a world at all, but a network of activities centred around… yes, you know, money and connections.
You can see I am having problems from the start, and I haven’t even started yet! I remember speaking to someone a while back who went to study art at degree level, or it may have even been an MA, and yet he got a fair amount of resistance to his own work in that setting because he was so self directed and knew what he wanted to do, and did it. Would he be termed an “Outsider Artist”? He could maybe be described as an “Inside but Outside artist”??? According to some thinking, the fact that he was in this kind of education setting would disqualify him straight away from calling himself an “Outsider Artist” (if he wanted to) because he had an awareness of the contemporary art “scene” “world” “culture” other artists, and also, had the capacity to think about his art and work in a certain way. But the education/training or rather lack of, as a criteria for discerning if it is appropriate to term someone’s art or themselves as an “Outsider Artist” falls down flat on it’s face, because there are of course many artists who have received training and education, and who through mental health challenges, traumatic brain injuries, or many other kinds of life experiences, or disabilities, find themselves in a place where they either no longer care, or are not interested, in anything as dubious and unreliable as the so-called “Art World” (whatever that may be or mean), and simply want to get on with their art working. They may also have received training, education and awareness from many other different sources, the internet, adult education, personal relationships, etc, and they may have gone to college, picked up a load of rubbish in terms of ideas about art, and happily dispensed with it because they realised that it was a waste of time and energy, for them at least. Does this work produced by sometime “trained” (could be questioned, I guess, if that is the right word!) but no longer interested in banging their heads against a brick wall with a lot of conceptual stuff, type art and artist count as “Outsider Art”? Is the difference an educational and or class one? is the question which quickly follows.
I put myself on the Pallant House Gallery “Outside In” web gallery for a while last year, mostly because of my experiences and journey with mental health difficulties/challenges, my participation in long term psychotherapy (which includes a great deal of interest in the subconscious!) and because I view my art work as part of my trauma recovery experience, (though certainly, this is only one aspect of it, as I view it as plenty of other things too!) I also put my work there for a little while because I wanted to align myself with those other artists who I could feel very much closer to in terms of values and purpose, I think, much more so than the alternative so called “Art World” construct, which didn’t fit in with the direction I was looking in, and look in now, at all. However, I took myself off the Pallant House Gallery “Outside In” web gallery after a while because I was unsure if it was really quite “fair” to be there. I wondered how one could really make a judgement about such things, and I think I probably could be on there, but then I felt that bearing in mind that I am pretty good with words, I do have the kind of power because of that which many artists because of learning disabilities and such like, didn’t have. So it felt best to leave that space for those who really needed supporting in that way, even though I wanted my work to be there symbolically as it being a place I would rather align myself with in terms of a values and focus.
Now “Outsider Art” is more of an “In Thing” this also brings much interest to Outsider Art, which kind of brings it into a different place, one which has many educated, intellectually incisive, and, well, able, people, mentally and physically, into it’s realm, both as makers, collectors and dealers. If “Outsider Artists” are termed that by merit of disadvantages in society and in relation to that ever illusive “Art World” I need to ask: “How do you make judgements about disadvantages anyway? I could be described as disadvantaged compared to some people, (more so in terms of my past) but advantaged compared to others My period of what I will call, deconstruction, has brought me into a new place in thinking about brokenness in general, where I see it as a positive dimension to life, rather than something negative, and would even say that my difficulties in life, though being a disadvantage in some respects are also an advantage in others.
To use relative financial wealth/success or not is also problematic when thinking about “Outsider Art”…I cannot afford to do what I would do with my artwork if I had more finance, and this is a disadvantage, (I can hear the cries from pretty much all the other artist’s I know echoing the same words!!! ) but on the other hand I have a level of security which rolls me firmly off the “Starving Artist” spectrum. I am a woman and a mother, and a “Stay at Home Mother”, so these might also move me into a disadvantaged position in terms of the way that the “Art World” swings in favour of men (which is does, imo). But I also appreciate fully and know it well, that I am hugely advantaged compared to so many, even if my plans and aspirations tend to hit the wall because of lack of funds. In the end, the family need feeding and clothes.. (thank goodness for Lidl! and Asda). I could go to work and get a job which brings some more money into our household, but then I wouldn’t have the time to do the art work I do. The art work I do I need to do, because this is something of my life blood in life, it keeps me motivated for living and keeps me sane, very often times! I do what I do because of necessity, as well as a choice, which I must say, I am constantly grateful for.
I can say that most of the exceedingly brilliant and wonderful artists I know could easily be termed “Outsider Artists” for a huge variety of reasons, yet all might differ in their life experiences and situations to quite a large extent. And most of them don’t make much money, if any, or certainly no financial profit, from their art working and their art work. Many have various mental health challenges or disabilities…Even if they are not actually their own, they are closely involved with or caring for those who have them, and therefore their lives are entwined with a much larger spectrum of experience, which is, theirs, even though not tangible or obvious to see. And it is all felt and lived through. I keep in my mind just one of the things I learnt when I was finding out more about traumatic brain injury and it’s effects on both the person with the injury and those close to them. Traumatic brain injury is often termed the “hidden disability” and when I recall my experience of coming to terms with my brother’s, among other things, I am aware of this shared nature of tragedy, and the way our lives impact on others, and vice versa. There is a lot of hidden injury around. So we really cannot make judgements and have to accept that categories, of all kinds, are going to be problematic from the outset to the end.
So where might I take my meanderings, with respect to “Outsider Art”? Maybe I might ask myself where I would place myself? I would place myself as an “Insider-Outer” artist I think, because I have taken my inner life and let it out…but not just as catharsis, oh no, and not without training, or education. Not without awareness of the other artist’s both past and present, and not without consideration or analysis…There is certainly plenty of analysis going on in the confines of my psychotherapy sessions. I am always pleased when something good happens and something gets chosen for an exhibition, because I want my art work to be used, because I am in this funny old world of ours and I am a funny little part of it…I don’t identify myself with the word “outsider”, well, not now, not any more. Isolation can be acutely felt, and it’s not great at all. Outside says the wrong things to me…because I am not on the outside at all. We are all on the outside of some things, groups and places, but it is what is happening in the inside of our lives which helps us to forge the connections and relationships we need and love to experience.
I found this writing on the net with respect to Outsider Art and found it helpful to read.
http://www.jameselkins.com/index.php/essays/253-there-is-no-such-thing-as-outsider-art
Naïfs, Faux-naïfs, Faux-faux naïfs, Would-be Faux-naïfs:
There is No Such Thing as Outsider Art
James Elkins
This was originally published in: Inner Worlds Outside, exh. cat., edited by John
Thompson (Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2006), 71–79.]
Quote from website: “The argument here is that “outsider art” and similar concepts (“naive art,” “primitive art,” etc.) are constructions of modernism, and only exist as ideals understood as contrasts to normative practice. It doesn’t mean there aren’t artists outside of the traditions of modernism and postmodernism, or outside of academic art—rather that the value we place on them is itself characteristic of modernism, so that “outsider” or “naive” art is not distinct from the modernist enterprise.”
James Elkins is E.C. Chadbourne Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Such a helpful read!
Details from recent process led painting experiments!
Well, here we are. PAINTING! I have popped some text on the top of these thinking this might be helpful to anyone interested in my painting who stumbles upon my work and wants to know quickly where to see more! As these images are fragments/close ups/details, they serve a great function for me in helping me remember various painting options and ideas when I sell (hopefully) the final painting. Also, because these highly abstracted paintings go through several stages, and sometimes morph rather unexpectedly along the way, it helps me to remember some of the lost paintings which are often part of the work, but can not be seen again in quite the same way in the final piece. They are very much there and present, and exerting an influence, however, sometimes covered, I still need to remember what was happening underneath if possible, particularly if I was trying out something new, (which didn’t work/did work).
I am rather fond of the idea of “lost paintings”…The sense that what is in the past/gone/dead/buried, is lost but still present.
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
jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress
jenny meehan jamartlondon lyrical abstract expressionistic paintings in progress
Painting and Physicality…
Come to think about it, it is the physicality, and the way I focus on the materials I use in painting that helps me feel connected with myself … I haven’t thought about it much but it IS very therapeutic! I have around 20 paintings “on the go” at the moment, but they are not all moving forwards at the same time, and I am having a short break right now. Not sure what’s happening with them, but some are falling into the water and flow category…solid/liquid, block, flow, water, waterfalling/waterfalls, some centring just on expression of some fundamental feeling/emotion, lots of pushing out experimentally in terms of trying out new things. There’s a few shelters/tents/refuges/tower type imagery emerging. It’s wonderful weather for drying paint!
Having a great time in the “Studio Tent” … Might start calling it the “Tent of Meeting”… This is influenced by me preparing a talk to give at St Paul’s Church of England, Hook, in a couple of weeks on Psalm 84… (Lovely Psalm!)… In researching the talk, I discovered that the phrase “tent of meeting” is used in the Old Testament as the name of a place where God would meet with His people. ” Usually, the “tent of meeting” was used as another name for the Tabernacle of Moses. However, before the tabernacle was constructed, God met with Moses in a temporary tent of meeting: “Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the ‘tent of meeting.’ Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. . . . As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses” (Exodus 33:7, 9).” (quoted from http://www.gotquestions.org/)
Wow, well there isn’t a pillar of cloud at the entrance of my Studio Tent of Meeting, however, I do feel the Holy Spirit a lot inside it… and it is heaven to simply have that space, and to paint, pray, and meditate in there. It is a place of a lot of blessing and happiness! It’s a kind of oratory!
Here’s Psalm 84:
Psalm 84 Good News Translation (GNT)
Longing for God’s House[a]
84 How I love your Temple, Lord Almighty!
2 How I want to be there!
I long to be in the Lord’s Temple.
With my whole being I sing for joy
to the living God.
3 Even the sparrows have built a nest,
and the swallows have their own home;
they keep their young near your altars,
Lord Almighty, my king and my God.
4 How happy are those who live in your Temple,
always singing praise to you.
5 How happy are those whose strength comes from you,
who are eager to make the pilgrimage to Mount Zion.
6 As they pass through the dry valley of Baca,
it becomes a place of springs;
the autumn rain fills it with pools.
7 They grow stronger as they go;
they will see the God of gods on Zion.
8 Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty.
Listen, O God of Jacob!
9 Bless our king, O God,
the king you have chosen.
10 One day spent in your Temple
is better than a thousand anywhere else;
I would rather stand at the gate of the house of my God
than live in the homes of the wicked.
11 The Lord is our protector and glorious king,
blessing us with kindness and honor.
He does not refuse any good thing
to those who do what is right.
12 Lord Almighty, how happy are those who trust in you!
Footnotes:
Psalm 84:1 HEBREW TITLE: A psalm by the clan of Korah.
Well…. That is it for now… Till next month!
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Jenny Meehan is a painter, poet, 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. If you read and enjoy it, this would be an added bonus!
Her website is www.jamartlondon.com. (www.jamartlondon.com replaces the older now deceased website http://www.jennymeehan.co.uk)
Jenny Meehan BA Hons (Lit.) PGCE also occasionally offers art tuition for individuals or in shared sessions. Please contact Jenny at j.meehan@tesco.net or through the contact form at www.jamartlondon.com for further details as availability depends on other commitments.
Jenny Meehan works mainly with either oils or acrylics creating both abstract/non-objective paintings and also semi-abstract work. She also produces representational/figurative artwork, mostly using digital photography/image manipulation software, painting and drawing. Both original fine paintings and other artwork forms and affordable photo-mechanically produced prints are available to purchase.
Jenny Meehan exhibits around the United Kingdom. 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 GO TO THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN, LOCATE THE “FOLLOW” BOX AND POP IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. YOU WILL THEN RECEIVE MONTHLY UPDATES.
Sunflowers – Fifty Names for Jesus – The Studio Tent – Emily Carr – Rethink Your Mind – Fractals
May 30, 2015
Art Journal Post 2015
As always, skim down and stop when your interest is caught! Too lengthy for a “blog” this is rather more a journal, and I post once a month only, so end up squishing too much together! If you are wanting just a quick look over some images, it’s easy to scroll down. The wonders of mobile phones!
I have sown various seeds in the garden, and the snails are eating the little shoots as they shoot!
But I like snails…
I don’t like slug pellets and I don’t use them.
Hopefully something will survive!
Sunflowers Read the rest of this entry »
Jenny Meehan – General Introduction
I am a painter/visual artist/contemplative/poet/writer and mother, based in Surrey/South West London, UK.
Interested in spirituality (particularly Christ centred spirituality), creativity, emotional and psychological well-being.
I exhibit mainly in the UK, and am a member of Kingston Artists’ Open Studios. I am currently training with SPIDIR as a spiritual guide/mentor. I am a trained teacher and hold occasional small groups in developing painting and drawing skills, and general visual creative expression.
Contact me via the contact form if you would like more information with respect to art tuition, and/or if you wish to receive my my bi-annual newsletter.
My artistic training has been through the Short Course programme at West Dean College, Surrey and through local adult art education classes. Professional in approach, I exhibit widely over the UK and some of my paintings and prints are available for purchase.
Please note that all images of my artwork are subject to copyright law: All rights reserved: Jenny Meehan DACS (Designer and Artist Copyright Society). In the first instance, contact me, and I will refer, as/if appropriate.
http://www.jamartlondon.com
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.
boarded window photo jenny meehan
Above “Boarded Window” photograph. One of the Chessington Series. copyright Jenny Meehan
Kingston Artists’ Open Studios “Selfie” Exhibition at Cass Arts, Kingston Upon Thames
Another task is the self portrait for the KAOS exhibition at Cass Arts, in Kingston Upon Thames. (103 Clarence Street, Kingston upon Thames KT1 1NW). The exhibition will be called ‘Selfie’ and Kaos members will submit at least one self portrait. It is planned to hang the exhibition on 3rd June, and Cass Art have kindly offered to sponsor a private view on Thursday 4th June. This will be the official opening exhibition for this year’s open studios. I have a few photographic works which I might submit, but the most likely one would probably be “Woman and Home” which was one of three digital art prints which where part of the very excellent ” Speaking Out – Women Healing from the Trauma of Violence” project at the University of Leicester (Dr Nicole Fayard and Stella Couloutbanis). The “Speaking Out” (2014) project involved an exhibition of painters, printmakers, installation artists, sculptors, writers, photographers, and performers coming together because of their particular interest in gender violence. “Woman and Home” was one of my submitted images. It is a self portrait I took by holding a camera above me, as I was sorting through a huge pile of washing. After manipulating the image I then added a layer of headlines taken from the front cover of the “Woman and Home” magazine. Here is the text from the catalogue regarding the art work which was included in the exhibition “Speaking Out”:
“Jenny Meehan’s photography provides powerful representations of the psychological damage that can be inflicted on children who witness domestic abuse. Children acquire their positive sense of self and self-esteem from powerful role models, usually their parents or carers. Trauma occurs when this relationship is broken. The traumatised individual will incessantly re-experience the suffering caused by the events that shattered their sense of identity, independence or their trust. Meehan explores such a mother-daughter connection by keeping both subjects separate but connected by their gaze. In “Pages in my Story Book, It is Hard to Turn the Page”, eight juxtaposed copies of the same image of the artist’s daughter shot in high angle capture the sense of traumatic repetition that affects the child’s sense of self. This contrasts with the image of the artist herself in a point of view shot in “Woman and Home”. Whilst both subjects are separated by the angle of the shot and the frame of the photograph, their gaze appears to look in the same direction. “Hide and Peep” shuts us out of the scene and offers the view of an insider – the child – looking out, conveying a sense of entrapment. This oppressive mood is however contrasted as “Woman and Home” is superimposed with empowering messages. The camera angle and the dialogue between “you” and “me” in the messages, which appear to reflect the survivor’s stream of consciousness, both act to restore her sense of self. The sharing of the experience of trauma and empowerment might also provide ways of bringing the disempowered together. By addressing her work to a wider community (“you”) Meehan implies that it is intended to function as a narrative of empowerment for a community of fellow-sufferers in similar positions.”
There is more text, but as usual, this Jenny Meehan Artist’s Journal is longer than it was ever intended to be, so I will skip the rest! The above text credit is as follows: “Speaking Out” University of Leicester 2014
“Woman and Home” One of three submitted and accepted artworks for this valuable and worthwhile project.
I need to add, with respect to the following: “This oppressive mood is however contrasted as “Woman and Home” is superimposed with empowering messages. The camera angle and the dialogue between “you” and “me” in the messages, which appear to reflect the survivor’s stream of consciousness, both act to restore her sense of self.” I liked this reading of the work, and so was happy to accept it for the purposes of the catalogue, which, rightfully, had an emphasis on the positives and recovery, rather than just the damage and negative effects of violence and trauma. It was a pleasing reading, and I always value and appreciate others perspectives, though, the reality of the matter for me, at the time of making the work, was not optimistic. I was in a place where I was re-experiencing quite strong bouts of emotional distress/flashbacks with respect to some of my own past traumatic experiences, and the original image (of 2006, before I re-worked it ) was inspired by childhood experience of domestic violence: the power of existing within a schema of subjugation, rather than anything positive. I was struggling with low self esteem also, and the work, from my own perspective, was more to do with feeling trapped by the messages from the media with respect to how I should be…A kind of media oppression! And of feeling the weight of all that was involved in running a household, and just about managing to do it while in the slough of despond. I was feeling completely overwhelmed by media communicated expectations and images of what both a “woman” and a “home” should be. So it was rather an expression of negative, than a positive, experience. However, I chose not to input this material into the catalogue, because, as said, I didn’t dislike the interpretation. I have always viewed women’s magazines with a lot of cynicism and not personally found them a source of empowerment…I am sure that they work very differently for many other people though. And I do believe it is important to acknowledge the positive dimensions of having experienced a lot of suffering in one’s life, and to realise that there are many strengths which can be developed through having experienced extreme adversity. I found a brilliant book on this, which I reference later on in this post.
Healing and Recovering Thoughts…
Even with very helpful experiences of divine healing, thanks to the Holy Spirit, and assisted by some influence from John Wimber’s ministry in the eighties, plus all the other benefits of faith in a Creator God, since around 2008, the accumulation of unresolved trauma (and lots of damaged ways of operating ) suggested (strongly!) that I seek professional help, which I did in 2011. For me personally, psychotherapy and its various approaches have been something which I have (and still find) very complementary to my faith and relations with others and God, and my interest in psychology of many approaches, frequently brings my way lots of very interesting reading material which I find very useful when I look at my painting and other creative pursuits. Something I have been reading recently is “The Posttraumatic Self: Restoring Meaning and Wholeness to Personality” Edited by John P Wilson…
“The Posttraumatic Self: Restoring Meaning and Wholeness to Personality” – John P Wilson Routedge
I have to confess to only having read extracts of it on the internet, as I often do! I cannot afford to buy all the books I might fancy reading, and I have not enough room to put them in anyway, but I do find my dipping into articles, extracts and papers which are easily found on the internet a great asset to my thinking about things! I am finding “The Posttraumatic Self: Restoring Meaning and Wholeness to Personality edited by John P. Wilson immensely helpful. Here is the blurb on it:
“Filling a gap that exists in most traumatology literature, The Posttraumatic Self provides an optimistic analysis of the aftermath of a traumatic event.
This work appreciates the potentially positive effects of trauma and links those effects to the discovery of one’s identity, character, and purpose. Wilson and his distinguished contributors explore the nature and dynamics of the posttraumatic self, emphasising human resilience and prompting continued optimal functioning. While taking into consideration pathological consquences such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the authors study the impacts a traumatic event can have on one’s inner self, and they help the victims transform such an event into healthy self-transcendent lifecycles. The Posttraumatic Self will help victims and healers transform the way they deal with the complexities of trauma by making important connections that will allow for healing and growth.”
It is such an excellent book, but even second hand it is quite pricey. Maybe at Christmas! (put it on the list!!!)
Trauma certainly is complex, and even more so when you have had lots of it over the years. I have found reading the parts of this book I have had access to very helpful in balancing out the tendency to be more aware of the negative impact of having had lots of very traumatic experiences (and the related consequences) than I am (at times) of the positives. I know the positives are there, and experience them too, but seeing them outlined has been immensely useful to me. It’s much more common to be aware of the pathological consequences as you push on through and forwards in the recovery processes. It is easy to become discouraged by the physical tension you feel every day, occasional flashbacks (which always take you by surprise!), negative expectations, anxieties, etc, even though you know why you have the feelings and expectations you do. I have come a very long way in the last several years, and everything is now far more balanced, stable and joyful than it used to be. I am getting my head around my life, and recovering a sense of meaning which isn’t totally fragmented and broken. And even, seeing the blessing in it. There is a lot of blessing there for the receiving. My awareness of my brokenness isn’t a negative. I have often held onto this. And I have needed to, because I need to accept that I won’t ever recover completely. Not in the way that you “get over” something. It is more a matter of acclimatization and adjustment. Re learning. Understanding. Getting better at recognising what is happening emotionally and psychologically, and acting accordingly. And getting the spiritual sustenance I need. Which brings me on to this! …..
Canticle 74 : A Song of Our True Nature (Julian of Norwich)
Christ revealed our frailty and our falling, * our trespasses and our humiliations.
Christ also revealed his blessed power, *
his blessed wisdom and love.
He protects us as tenderly and as sweetly when we are in greatest need; *
he raises us in spirit and turns everything to glory and joy without ending.
God is the ground and the substance, the very essence of nature; *
God is the true father and mother of natures.
We are all bound to God by nature, *
and we are all bound to God by grace.
And this grace is for all the world, *
because it is our precious mother, Christ.
For this fair nature was prepared by Christ
for the honor and nobility of all,
and for the joy and bliss of salvation.
(the little stars are there to indicate that you make a long pause. This is quite useful, as it stops you reading it aloud too quickly.)
I mentioned in a past posting about a very helpful workshop I attended at Mount Street Jesuit Centre, “Life Before Death” and I was so grateful for this input, as it has been very much in line with my interest in making important connections which will allow for healing and growth. I have had a chance to review my notes and the material, and while I can offer only a glimmer, putting it here in this Journal is a good way for me to keep a note of it. I find my paper notes, like my art work, paintings, poems and drawings, tend to float around the house and are very hard to retrieve! Using this Journal means I have at least one river which flows in a place I can always find it!
Just briefly then, the day focused on the psychology of flourishing… Basically, paying attention to “what makes life worth living” and included considerations on analysing what happiness and well-being is. A recommended read was “Thinking Fast Thinking Slow” by Daniel Kahnemann. The distinction between the experiencing self and remembering self is something I would like to read more about. (I cannot really give a great account of the content of the day, as so selective is what gets into ones mind and not, but these little scraps will help me!) Also a couple of books by Martin Seligman will be worth reading, I am sure. Routes to well being can come through positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment, and all these are underpinned by character.
Other notes: (not necessarily particularly accurate…lots of information caught on ear wax on the way in, I think! )
How important it is to look beyond us, especially the importance of HOPE!!!!! Pitfalls of the “damage and deficit model of growth”…the idea that if you want to grow and change to be a better person you need to look at what is wrong with you and what you are lacking, and fix it. The challenge is not solely to fix and repair, but live with things creatively and work with them. He wasn’t saying there isn’t a time to sort out mess if people get stuck, and wasn’t anti therapy or anything like that, it was more that it’s really important to look further than just inside ourselves. (note, in my own reading regarding the pros and cons of psychotherapy, it certainly is a very focused way of working…I rate this and find it very helpful, but like any approach, it does have its pitfalls, and what is it’s strength may also a times be it’s weakness too…) My notes on Character… Use your strengths to solve problems or to cope with things that cannot be changed. Build a life around what you are good at. Point about the way we have ended up with a “victimology”… the character as a moral agent has declined, personal responsibility matters. Lots of practical ideas to try out, which I won’t go into here, but will try out! Linked the psychological stuff with growth as a Christian and drew parallels between traditionally recognised virtues and values and positive psychology.
Oh, I cannot do it justice here, but I was most impressed, because I even had some homework to do, which I like immensely!
Well Spring is one of the artworks in the new Rethinkyourmind mental health resource
“Well Spring” above is suitable to go with this Journal entry… It was one of the paintings chosen to be included in last year’s “Rethinkyourmind” Mental Health resource.
A lot of interesting thoughts and ideas regarding Flow. (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) … All good and interesting. Also, never to be forgotten , the heart. So much information, great, exciting, super, interesting. But as well as head, the heart. Give me grace!
Example of a past course at West Dean College
Mark Cazalet was one of several very inspirational teachers who taught me at West Dean College as part of their Short Course Programme, and I am so glad I took these images of students work on the course on colour, all those years ago!
mark cazalet course west dean 2007 students work largest image jenny meehan’s painting
mark cazalet course west dean 2007 students work early part of course
mark cazalet course west dean 2007 students work middle part of course
mark cazalet course west dean 2007 students work final part of course
I hasten to add that no LSD (or any other hallucinogenic drug!) was given to students as part of the course… The dramatic change in the colours was due to the tremendous confidence and boldness encouraged over the course, which is testimony to the art of the tutor as much as the students! It was only a four day course, I think, so a lot happened!
I am recalling this course now I think as I am pretty sure that it was this time of year I took part in it! Unfortunately I can no longer afford to continue with formal art training, which is a shame, but I do have many happy memories. I applied for a residency recently at the London City and Guilds Art School, but didn’t get it. It was going to be one way of getting into an Art Education Institution, but not successful, sadly. There is an Artist’s Access Scheme that some Colleges run, so maybe that might be worth looking at in the future.
Well, looking back, I have just put up one of my drawings which I drew from life during one of my West Dean College stints.
” room for a view” charcoal drawing by jenny meehan charcoal drawing landscape west dean college and west dean estate jenny meehan romantic
I look back with fondness on the time when I painted from observation more than I do currently. However I still draw from observation, in order to keep my eyes keen. I don’t count out painting from observation, at all, but I have to go with the flow of what I am learning, and trust in the direction I have been carried in through my own process of discovery. I was saying to someone recently that when I look at nature, I feel it is so wonderful I don’t want to insult the beauty of it by attempting to replicate it in any way. I think this is why I have immersed myself in abstraction. I feel that patterns of beauty can still be discovered and experienced but without attempting to copy something already there. However, I feel that observation is very important indeed, and I spend a lot of time looking, and often drawing from life. The time I have invested in exploring surfaces and colours, textures and composition, has meant my focus has been off the external world somewhat. But though I don’t put it down on paper, I spend a great deal of time looking!
Leatherhead Theatre Flying Colours Exhibition..
Will be hanging this exhibition of fine art prints with Chris Birch on Saturday 2nd May…
We are really grateful to the theatre for hosting the exhibition and hope it brings a lot of pleasure to many!
free art exhibition jenny meehan and chris birch Flying Colours Leatherhead Theatre
Support Indie Artist Jenny Meehan
If you like my art working and would like to support me you can!
Paypal.me/jennymeehan in your browser and follow instructions. There’s no option for me to thank you via the PayPal Me process but do contact me via contact form and let me know if you have gifted me so I can thank you.
You can buy my original paintings… Just contact me via the contact form. Price range is between £250 and £400.
Also available via redbubble, the well known print on demand marketplace, you can buy unsigned prints on many substrates.
Take a look here, any problems locating it feel free to contact me via the contact page on this Art Journal/ Artist Blog
It’s also a good place to get a feel for quite a big strand of my creative artworking. Any problems locating what you want, feel free to contact me via the contact page on this Art Journal/ Artist Blog jennyjimjams.redbubble.com
I have mostly the abstract, flat colour geometrical art in Redbubble as it makes nice prints. I selected work for that platform in order to help my work become more accessible. There’s also a lot of surface pattern designs. I find creating patterns very therapeutic!
The main style of my original painting is Lyrical Abstraction/Abstract Expressionism. I also enjoy working with black and white photography tending towards pictorialism. I frequently use collage and digital collage.
“Drop In Drawing” Daytime Art Session in Surrey – Redbubble Designs from Jenny Meehan – Holocaust Memorial Day – Mount Street Jesuit Centre
February 10, 2015
Friday 20th March 1 – 3pm
Friday 17th April 1 – 3pm
Friday 15th May 1 – 3pm
― Madeleine L’Engle
New Start by Jenny Meehan
starting out series design by jenny meehan to buy on redbubble
The Imagination between Beauty and Goodness
http://www.transpositions.co.uk/2014/09/the-imagination-between-beauty-and-goodness/
Rather a snippet… But as said before…This blog is my notebook!
Mount Street Jesuit Centre
I am benefiting from my visits to the Mount Street Jesuit Centre. While I cannot shake off the feeling that I am venturing, soaked in Protestantism, onto Catholic territory, I don’t mind the feeling, indeed, I quite like it. I haven’t found it a problem, rather, it is very interesting, and I am finding, as far as I have experienced so far at least, that those who are looking to deepen their experience of the Creator God through investing time in listening and learning, and whose focus is on deepening their own personal spirituality in a determined and dedicated way, have a wider conception of the body of Christ than that exclusive idea that it is limited to one’s own particular church or church tradition. (Thankfully!) So I am having interesting discussions and meeting lots of lovely people who were not brought up in a Baptist Church and who don’t go to an Anglican Church.
When asked what I considered myself to be recently, found myself faltering, and saying “nothing really”, explaining that I had been in a great variety of churches, including charismatic, Baptist, evangelical, house churches, and now the Anglican church. I did mention that my choice to be baptised as an adult was particularly significant for me. I went to a Baptist Church (Hampton Wick Baptist Church) as a child, and the female minister Sister Edna Black was such an inspiration to me…I realise this more now as an adult than I did as a child. So my deep roots feel mostly of that variety. Choosing to be baptised is the most significant turning point in my life, and the symbolism of that resonates mostly through my self, particularly at this present time. I have the Baptist ideas on adult Baptism to thank for that. I see it as the most helpful marker in my own experience and walk in faith. Other people have different markers. I don’t feel that one should have to be baptised or anything like that. I feel that our Creator is interested in the constant conversion of our hearts as we bumble along in everyday life most of all. Conversion as a constant, and dedicated baptism process of death and life. Immersion in the Holy Spirit. Identifying ourselves with Christ, and taking our identity in who we are in Christ. But now later on in my journey, I am glad I took part in that particular rite of conversion, because it’s so rich in symbolism, in a continual kind of way, rather than as a one off experience, also.
Can we still experience the sacred in a secular world? Ignation and Buddhist Perspectives – Facilitated by Terry Walsh SJ
7th February.
Text from the printed leaflet. Quote:
“Fr Terry Walsh is a Jesuit priest and a philosopher. His curiosity about the roots of human experience – cognitive, ethical and religious – led him to the practice of Buddhist meditation at a time in 2007 when he was living among the Tibetans in exile in northern India. Since then he has returned to Asia every two years to teach philosophy and to continue the practice of meditation in monasteries in Thailand, Laos, and Sri Lanka. There he has discovered not an identity, but a valuable and enlightening correlation between the Buddhist concept of mindfulness and the Ignatian focus on the desires that compel the search for the divine as the interior realization of freedom.”
and:
“Do we believe that in the present state of secular culture marked by unbelief in God and indifference to religion it is still possible to experience the sacred? I believe experience of the sacred is attainable, but there are obstacles mostly of our own making that must be overcome. As the parable of the sower in Matthew’s Gospel suggests, it is possible to have ears and not hear, eyes and not see, hearts and not understand (Mt 13). The sacred might surround us and thoroughly penetrate our lives; yet we don’t perceive it.
Both Buddhism and Ignatian spirituality direct us to enter into ourselves, to search for traces of a hidden yet real dimension of the sacred within the fabric of mundane experience, which we unthinkingly dismiss as too ordinary or profane to contain the divine.
The workshop will explore how these two schools of spirituality offer concrete ways to achieve a freedom that arises once we have let go of preconceived notions of the sacred that blind us to its authentic presence and constrict our experience. We need to allow our minds and senses to grow accustomed to the darkness and emptiness of spirit, because this is where grace takes root and thrives. For whatever we think of the holy, it is not just another object in the world, there to be egotistically manipulated for personal satisfaction.”
For more information on the Mount Street Jesuit Centre, go to:
Photoshop Learning
There is so much to learn, and while I really should have picked up this little gem of knowledge before, I only recently found out the following!
Merge Layers – All layers that are selected are merged into a single layer
Merge visible – All layers that are not hidden will be merged into a single layer
Flatten Image – Will merge all layers and discard any layers that are hidden
Ah well, better late than never!
Holocaust Memorial Day 2015: Keeping the Memory Alive at the Council Chambers, Guildhall, Kingston on Sunday 1st February 2015
This was a very valuable event with lots of variety and different presentations by many people, including the Revd Andrew Williams who gave an excellent presentation on the visual arts in relation to the Holocaust. I was very pleased to receive third prize in the 16+ category of the art competition which was part of the event. The judging panel was made up of representatives from the Kingston Synagogues, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Inter Faith Forum and the Volunteering Service at Kingston University.
How lovely it was to receive a prize, and a lovely one, at that, some gift vouchers to spend at a local art store. So useful too! I met some great people, and was glad of the opportunity to spend time in reflection not only on the Holocaust, but on other genocides which have happened since, and to receive the sobering message that our intentions should be strengthened against the prejudice and fear which often starts such horrific processes festering, and adds fuel to the creation of such atrocities.
The plan is that over the coming weeks several local exhibitions will be mounted in order to display the work.
lasting stones of memory painting by jenny meehan for holocaust memorial day kingston
Above: Lasting Stones of Memory – Painting by Jenny Meehan – Acrylic on Canvas Board
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
3 – 22 February 2015
Society of Wood Engravers
I always go and see the exhibition at the Bankside Gallery by the Society of Wood Engravers, as I love it so much. Here is the text which I quote from the website:
“The Society of Wood Engravers is the principal organisation and rallying point for those interested in the subject, and it also maintains a lively interest in other forms of relief printmaking. Essentially, it is an artists’ exhibiting society. There are about seventy members, practising artists who have been elected or invited to membership on merit.
An international exhibition drawn from an open submission of wood engravings and other forms of relief printmaking. In this show there will be over 130 original prints by elected SWE members and others, plus a special section spotlighting the work of Sarah van Niekerk and her great influence as a teacher of engraving. While the exhibition will comprise mainly of wood engravings other forms of relief print such as woodcut and linocut will also be on display”
Well, I saw it again this year, and it always delivers. Something about black and white is very challenging, and very useful and important. The combination of mark making variations, types, directions, characters, all give a lot.
Copyright Alert
A blog run by someone else has pinched one of my drawing images and has posted it up as their own work. Just for the records, the image below is my work. In this case it appears difficult to track down…mshahzis.blogspot. But no way of contacting that I can see right now, anyway. But for those that like to know what they are looking at…This pencil sketch is mine!
This pencil sketch is by Jenny Meehan.
Copyright jenny meehan.
I’m not flattered when people do this. Those that have respect, ask permission before using others work on their blogs and certainly provide clear credit and a link, so that there is no confusion. For full information on copyright matters, see below.
Copyright Information – Jenny Meehan
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. Individuals or businesses seeking licenses or permission to use, copy or reproduce any image by Jenny Meehan should, in the first instance, contact Jenny Meehan.
Any persons discovered to be reproducing, copying or using images by Jenny Meehan without prior consent, authorisation or permission will be put on notice that Jenny Meehan is the copyright owner and asked to immediately cease and desist the infringing activity. If a satisfactory response and / or compliance is not forthcoming promptly, the matter will be pursued. For clarification of the laws of copyright, please contact the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS). http://www.dacs.org.uk
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, please contact Jenny Meehan in the first instance to clarify your requirements.
Licencing 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 licence to use an image of my work from DACS… They simply have a very limited sample selection of work in their “Artimage” page!)
Also, please of course feel free to contact me if you are looking for a particular type of artwork image, as I have a large archive of images myself. I will also be able to let you know the maximum size the digital image is available at. If you then wish to licence the artwork image, I would then refer you to the Design and Artist Copyright Society to arrange the licencing agreement according to your requirements. Once paid and agreed, I then supply the high resolution image directly to you.
If you need any further clarification, the DACS website is clear and very helpful indeed, and they would be happy to help you.
DACS
Design and Artist Copyright Society
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London E2 6AA
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New Year Poem 2015 by Jenny Meehan – H. Baptisme from The Temple (1633) , by George Herbert –
January 1, 2015
Art Journal Post 2015
New Year Poem 2015
New Year 2015
Prevailing winds bring warm, moist, air to the western British Isles.
The New Year meets me, and suddenly, I feel afraid.
Seeing the blood soaked body of my will…
All determination shed
in recognition of those heavy, waves of past,
rolling forwards. Though they once pulled me back…
I am grateful. But not for the time. For eternity.
Air is forced to rise over high areas.
The Sun pulls me up, Oh, radiant light line of yellow…
Laid on black death roadsides, in busy city squares,
brick upon brick. Edifices of achievement seem frail.
Uninviting. I find myself looking for alleys.
Like a cat, whose meditations settle on ants, scattering
in search of a single, discarded, sweet.
Air cools and condenses.
The Moon puts me to bed, and sings a lullaby of long lost love.
Long, lost love, which I missed somehow. In the arc of an eye
or the stroke of a brush across uninitiated canvas,
I bring notes of colour onto white dreamtime.
The ground of vision and poetry opens,
petal by petal. I pray for the future.
Clouds form and it rains.
Into the river it rains, dark branches, stretching deep. Echoes
expansive thoughts. We want the numinous. The spirit of life. The flow.
The marks engraved into rooted trunks.
Waters well from the base of the temple.
Not a single green leaf…Yet…But there will be.
Drop down, drop down, people. Lie into the ground, and be covered.
Written New Year’s Day, 2015 Jenny Meehan (still may edit a little more, not quite sure, as yet.)
Nice Find:
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/12/29/teresita-fernandez-commencement-address/
Baptism
Thinking around directions for this year…
I loved the series on TV recently…The Mekong River with Sue Perkins
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04plh4f
and Sacred Rivers with Simon Reeve… On the Ganges episode, I was particularly struck by the baptism in the river section, and also the burying of the dead…
It made me reflect on my own choice to be baptised (as a Christian believer) when I was 18. Now that is a long time ago!
Baptism can be understood in lots of different ways, and has lots of different beliefs and ideas attached to it, depending on the religion/faith tradition, the particular denomination or movement, and the individuals understanding and reasons for deciding to participate in the rite.
As water has been a constant and reoccurring symbol in my visual art and poetry for some time, I am interested in pulling my focus into exploring the rite of baptism, and most specifically (given that the word is very wide in the senses in which it might be understood)…most specifically in relation to identification with Christ. I have chosen this route because, quite simply, my own baptism was an event which I chose to take part in for that very reason… And I started a painting at the time, which I abandoned.
I stopped painting altogether. I won’t go into the details, but it was a big loss. Almost a loss of heart. It’s nice to be in a place where I can look back again at the time, and pick up what I put down. So we will see what happens.
As I began to research a little (this is of mixed value, sometimes too much information and stimulation results in overload!) I did find this:
from The Temple (1633) , by George Herbert:
¶ H. Baptisme. (I)
AS he that sees a dark and shadie grove,
Stays not, but looks beyond it on the skie;
So when I view my sinnes, mine eyes remove
More backward still, and to that water flie,
Which is above the heav’ns, whose spring and vent
Is in my deare Redeemers pierced side.
O blessed streams! either ye do prevent
And stop our sinnes from growing thick and wide,
Or else give tears to drown them, as they grow.
In you Redemption measures all my time,
And spreads the plaister equall to the crime.
You taught the Book of Life my name, that so
What ever future sinnes should me miscall,
Your first acquaintance might discredit all. “
Oh, God, isn’t that wonderful. Really like that. Love the language so much too. Sinnes is so much better than sins!
Painting
Well there is a lack of painting right now, mostly due to the fact that the house is full of people and the Studio Tent is freezing. Freezing. Indoors is not much better, as the heating has broken, and I am preparing myself for some major expense. Ahhh! I read a great deal about other painters approaches, thoughts and work on blogs such as “Painter’s Table”.
It’s quite helpful, as apart from my fellow Kingston Artist’s Open Studios folk, and a few longer term painters who I converse with, I have limited opportunity to discuss in depth ways of working, work, and motivations, thoughts, directions in painting. I used to enjoy “Abstract Critical” quite a bit, but that no longer continues.
My Psychotherapist is a good person to discuss work with, and my Spiritual Mentor also, so I am grateful for them. I have had some excellent conversations with artists I have met over the last year in particular, and the consensus has been that if we invest our time into focused discussions this brings a lot of creative energy and light into our work, our perceptions, and our creativity in general. Reading, listening and talking do serve as fuel for the fire! I need a fire, right now!
Love Bade Me Welcome… (I think I have already posted this previously, but never mind..)
George Herbert. 1593–1632
Love (first verse only)
LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.
love bade me welcome painting jenny meehan copyright Jenny Meehan
And lastly, something quite old, but seems fresh. Needed at this time of year. Never got around to some collage in 2014, but hoping for some in 2015.
Living collage jenny meehan copyright jenny meehan
How to Support Jenny Meehan
If you like my art working and would like to support me you can!
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You can buy my original paintings directly from me personally.
Just contact me via the contact form. Jenny Meehan/jennyjimjams – Art and Design – Contact Me
Sometimes they are offered for sale during exhibitions too. Normally its more expensive to buy them this way, (though not always). Some organisations enable me to price my work in an accessible way due to the way they operate, but if a submission fee is required I obviously have to factor it in.
I dislike this system, but art exhibitions are used to generate funds for different organisations and charging artists to submit artwork (to submit… Even if not accepted!) is one way this is done. There are also other costs incurred by the artist in supplying the artwork for exhibition. So artists artworks sold during an exhibition are frequently more expensive for an art collector to purchase. It is often preferable to approach an artist directly and view work by arrangement in person.
If you are thinking of buying one of my original paintings I can arrange a viewing for you. If you are looking for something specific in terms of colour and/or style, just let me know because I have many more paintings than I am able to display online. I can send you further information on the process of buying artwork directly from me if you would find that helpful. I appreciate that it is unfamiliar ground for many people.
Also available via redbubble, the well known print on demand marketplace, you can buy unsigned prints on many substrates. This is an easy and convenient way to purchase my art online.
Take a look here:
It’s also a very good place to get a feel for quite a big strand of my creative artworking. Any problems locating what you want, feel free to contact me via the contact page on this Art Journal/ Artist Blog.
I have TWO Redbubble Artist portfolios! The “jennyjimjams” one has most artwork on it at the time of writing.
My two Redbubble Artist portfolios are;
I have mostly the abstract, flat colour geometrical art in Redbubble as it makes nice prints. I selected work for that platform in order to help my work become more accessible. There’s also a lot of surface pattern designs. I post more of those on my
Artist profile. I find creating patterns very therapeutic!
The main style of my original painting is Lyrical Abstraction/Abstract Expressionism. I also enjoy working with black and white photography tending towards pictorialism. I frequently use collage and digital collage.
Copyright and Licensing Digital Images Information – Jenny Meehan
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. Individuals or businesses seeking licenses or permission to use, copy or reproduce any image by Jenny Meehan should, in the first instance, contact 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, please contact Jenny Meehan in the first instance to clarify your requirements.
DACS always make an initial proposal for image licensing fees in line with the industry standard. Personally, I am open to negotiation. So contact me in the first instance so we can discuss your requirements, project, and budget. The Designer and Artists Copyright Society will administrate accordingly.
It is I, the artist, who determines the final licensing fee, and there are often projects, charitable organisations, people and smaller ventures with which I am particularly keen to work with because of a shared vision. I appreciate budgets can be restrictive. While image licensing fees for my art images will broadly based on the industry standard, this is a guide amount, and can vary subject to circumstances.
The administration for organising an image licence is straightforward for both parties, and is done through the Design and Artist Copyright Society. They provide you with the licence paperwork and I supply you with the image.
Thelma Continues – Contemporary Christian Art – Art and Culture – The role they play in society – Spiritual Direction – Painting “Buried Mother”
December 23, 2014
Art Journal Post December 2014 by Jenny Meehan aka jennyjimjams
Thelma Continues
My work on “Thelma” continues. I have settled with “Thelma” as a way of labelling this work, as the work isn’t just one sculpture, but the whole process…Thelma is the name of the life model, and as I did work from her body, it seems right to honour that by keeping her name. It is also useful, as Thelma has been lots of things…from a female Bishop (hooray!) to a water goddess… So she is constantly changing. It’s great… To have found this central form, and to work in a focused way on it, is very beneficial to me right now. Having had only peeps of the human figure in my paintings (though it has slipped in; sometimes I have painted over it!), now the female form seems to have arrived, and brown modelling wax is fantastic! Fantastic to work with. I love it.
The image here is one which was taken shortly before I had a mould made… Not all the areas which I filled in are filled in at this point, but mostly.
thelma near to mould making stage
It’s rather rough and untidy…I did continue for a while, but annoyingly cannot find the images which I think I took right before the mould was made! I will look again. Her head developed considerably from the one shown above. Now, at a much later stage, having cast a plaster version, it is very helpful for me to have these earlier image, as I can have them to hand while I further develop the sculpture into different directions.
Here is an image of the back now, in plaster…
thelma rear view plaster pour
I sense that this is just the beginning of a longer project… And I am interested in how these experiments will relate to my painting, because I am sure they will.
I am struck by how passionate I feel about using both the wax and the plaster. I am relieved to find more of a focus in terms of subject matter. Plaster is amazing… powder, liquid and solid! It’s about change…Metamorphosis! It can take on many forms. The process of solidification is an exothermic one. How wonderful to have warmth coming from something which looks so cold! It releases heat that you can feel during the hardening process. It is hot and cold, dry and wet, liquid and solid. Transformation. Alchemy! The brown modelling wax is wonderful too! It’s soft and sticky as it warms against your body heat.
I nearly fell over with surprise on a recent visit to Tate Britain, for I discovered “Der Trommler” by Michael Sandle. In the harsh, dark and armoured form, deathly ribs beneath, huge, dark, warlike form; Death, death, death, beat in the silent drum. Heavy mark. Wow, what a work. The dark heavy bronze perfect, in weighty darkness too! Is this the opposite of Thelma? Is this a kind of dialectical expression? I don’t know. I will need to find out more about it!
Straight ran my mind to my black wax woman, and then, I wondered, if she might be, while weak with her broken right arm (of power) some different kind of related figure. She too has bands, which lie heavy on her frame, but hers, (while I thought when making her), may be defensive, were rather binding and holding type bands, and with their curls, in particular, may be more life-linked and more promising than just armour. She is now more developed still, and will continue. She is not as curly as she was, with much more weight having been added, but it is interesting to be reminded:
thelma, early stage jenny meehan
Here she was, in her third day… With all the playing with the armature, and though very abstract, she was very carefully measured. I considered the space as well as the substance of her form, so where there is no material, I still felt the form to be there. I was very much caught with the idea of flowing water. So the plaster has done with itself what I tried to do with some paint when experimenting;
thelma front paint view jenny meehan
There is something a little more war-like about this ant-headed version, I think!
And the Female Bishop was also a force to be reckoned with!
sculpture celebrating the ordination of women bishops jenny meehan
thelma pulling jenny meehan
There’s quite a lot of strength, and this version got me thinking very much of wading through deep water, which is something I will develop. From water coming from above to deep water! This really is going to give me a lot of room for experimentation! I wanted to get it cast in bronze but I don’t have the money, as it would cost a few hundred pounds, which is out of my depth, right now!
Thelma’s breasts have changed…Initially they were like this:
thelma breasts wax sculpture jenny meehan
I was talking to a lady on the course who had had a mastectomy…This must have seeped into my subconscious! I later felt that the fuller breast, which I kept in a much rounder shape, even when building up the flatter one, felt more like an engorged breast, full of milk. I am currently evening them out a bit, but the sculpture did have a maternal phase for sure:
thelma mesh mother version jenny meehan
There are other version images, but I will share another time. I did work quite intensively on this, so far for about seven days. And now the plaster will no doubt open up many more days! I now have a long stint of research ahead of me.
Torso in Metal from The Rock Drill Bronze sculpture by Jacob Epstein, 1913-14
Rock Drill or rather “Torso in Metal from ‘The Rock Drill’” is also at the Tate:
The image above is copyright the estate of Sir Jacob Epstein. Bronze sculpture by Jacob Epstein, 1913-14, Tate Britain. Included for non-commercial purpose of commentary only.
This may have possibly influenced “Der Trommler” by Michael Sandle, I wonder? Well, I know not, but it certainly makes me feel better about my peculiar sculpture, and the rather alien appearance it has! That beak like head…In fact, any strange head, is particularly disturbing somehow, and Thelma’s head is something I will be changing quite a bit, though the central line does strike a note of determination, without being the visor-like shield which both the Epstein “Rock Drill” and the Sandle “Der Trommler” have. So it may be alien, but it is not as menacing. Both the Epstein and Sandle also have ribs showing, while with Thelma I felt drawn to the womb/belly area, and in doing so communicate more of a sense of being filled, rather than drained of life/nourishment.
The “Rock Drill” was originally in plaster, and part of a much bigger work which included a rock drill.
Rock drill sculpture by Jacob Epstein
There was a reproduction of this made. When his friend died in the trenches, the work assumed a painful significance for Epstein, who then separated the head and torso from the rock drill, cast it in bronze, and showed it as an independent sculpture. See this link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/6439774/Wild-Things-at-the-Royal-Academy-review.html
The soft part in the middle of Torso in Metal from The Rock Drill interests me…Is this unnervingly the embryo of another to come? Even the soft part has some sinister possibility?
Jonathon Jones wrote ” “Robbed of its legs and towering tripod-drill, with damaged bronze limbs, The Rock Drill becomes a nightmare image of the future as remorseless, unending war. It is more moving than the original, because it is a wounded machine, a human machine.”
So maybe, that soft part, seen in the torso, could be some soft humanity, some wound, internal? In the torso, the active arm is cut right back…This is the one which included the clenched fist, grasping the top of the drill. Now disabled, it is indeed easier to see the soft form as some vulnerable part, which it is pretty impossible to do when the whole reconstructed “Rock Drill” Sculpture looms before one, I should imagine. In my own body, the area between my rib cage there is the place I feel most strongly. It’s a central, primal, emotion area…anger and fear… both, seem to come from there. Well, all emotions seem to be felt there.
“Epstein in his Rock Drill sees furthest of them (vorticists) all into a cold technological future, dreams most openly of metallic power – and then sees the agony of such a new world in his second version of his great sculpture.” Jonathon Jones (The Guardian Tuesday 14 June 2011)
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/jun/14/vorticists-epstein-rock-drill
“…unless the events of a life are translated into
significant meanings, then life holds no more revelation than death, and possibly even less”
(Where I Live 142). TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
Contemporary Christian Art
Found this…Will be useful to me:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/contemporary-christian-art
As I start to think about bringing images and symbols into my painting again, I am taking a process of researching others work/thinking and also reviewing my own. I have found my interest in Ignation Spirituality very useful indeed both personally, in the form of a regular practice of the Examen, and also in relation to a change of heart in terms of my willingness to use biblical narrative in my visual art.
Attending an Ignation Retreat Day at the Mount Street Jesuit Centre in London brought a renewed willingness to bring my imagination and creativity to play more intimately with my own spiritual understandings and experiences. So I have a sense in which, after much tension between two pulls…One being the search for a subject matter which I could focus on in a conscious way for an extended period of time and the other being the desire NOT to pin myself down to any particular subject matter in a conscious way…Yeah, I have a sense that things might just be coming together anyway.
It interestingly doesn’t feel like a change of direction… It is more a sense of revelation. Certain things, ie water, brokenness and fragmentation, rocks, emotional blockages, stasis and fluidity, the human figure, birth and death (so fundamental!) and disintergration/devastation in relation to wholeness/transformation… Well, they have always been there. It’s as if I can just recognise them more clearly as, rather than being piecemeal, and under the surface, they now announce themselves with a louder unity.
I dislike even using words to pin these things down…immediately, I feel “Oh, yeah, “life” “death”…yeah, well that pretty much covers everything, doesn’t it. However, the general expressed in the specific, is maybe something else in it’s generation. So I shouldn”t worry about repetition? Searching for some novel new idea or concept may be a thankless quest, maybe even hopeless. Probably. The ground is rich by virtue of years and years of accumulated matter. It’s lived and died, and brings life and death again.
Spiritual Mentoring
I continue my strand on the way that “Spiritual Direction” has been described:
“Spiritual direction can mean different things to different people. Some people understand it to be the art of listening carried out in the context of a trusting relationship. It is when one person is trained to be a competent guide who then “companions” another person, listening to that person’s life story with an ear for the movement of the Holy, of the Divine.”
Rev. Jeffrey S. Gaines, Presbyterian, USA
Quite like that one…the listening part, in particular, is a real skill. I am rather in awe of the listening skills of my own spiritual mentor and of my therapist! (I prefer to use “mentor” rather than guide, as I see the guiding/direction part of the interaction as something which comes from within the person, rather than something I do…It is more a matter, to my mind, of encouraging the person to keep by the/and realise, the well which brings most life to them in terms of their spiritual life).
I am a real newbie in my thinking about spiritual direction, but am enjoying thinking about it, none the less! I am interested in the way that my own spirituality and creativity interact, and how stepping out creatively can have such a positive influence on a sense of significance, meaning and purpose in life. I have recently been accepted onto the SPIDIR training, which is one day a month training for two years. I am delighted about this. SPIDIR is an informal ecumenical Christian network promoting spiritual direction.
santissima trinita 1927 winifred knights female british painter
With thanks to Sacha Llewellyn for allowing me to include this image and its accompanying text. Readers may wish to consult the website http://www.winifredknights.com/
‘Tomorrow morning I am going right up into the mountains with a mule and a very beautiful cover & some Anticoli peasants to see a miracle which happens every year, at Valle Pietra, in the Abruzzi’. (Letter from Knights to her Aunt, 1923).
While I have not gone on a pilgrimage, I use walking in my own contemplative practice almost every day. Since walking the Labyrinth at St John’s Waterloo, I realised that walking, like swimming, is a great way to get my mind into a gear which enables me to think more clearly about things. It is rather like painting, but with no specific object in mind. Maybe a painting is like a pilgrimage, in the sense that there is an object at the end of it? Hopefully, a miracle of some kind!
This lovely painting, shown above, by Winifred Knights has a lovely “other worldliness” about it, but expressed in the natural landscape.. I do like that combination!
The painting below is mine… Water and flowers tend to go well together, as flowers wilt without water!
Falling Flowers – Jenny Meehan
Water Flow and Flowers… Falling Flowers. That kind of thing.
Art and Culture – The role they play in society interesting article in The Observer by Peter Bazalgette
Peter Bazalgette, (the Arts Council Chairman), has published an article in The Observer highlighting the role the arts play in society and focusing on the health, wellbeing and educational benefits of culture. He notes: “Although the arts do not pretend to be a front line health service, we’re coming to understand how they can function very effectively in a complementary role.”
As an artist who sometimes (thankfully not too much!) comes across people who ask me “What’s the point?” of what I focus my time on, or who have simply not spent any time thinking about the value of the arts in society, it is always interesting to find a read like this!
Read the article by Peter Bazalgette in the Observer here:
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/apr/27/value-of-arts-and-culture-to-society-peter-bazalgette
On the subject of health and well being, one of the paintings that has given to me very much in terms of positive mental massaging is this painting by John Martin which can be found at Tate Britian. I have gazed at this painting on many occasions:
The plains of heaven by John Martin
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/martin-the-plains-of-heaven-t01928
The romantic in me, enlightened once again!
This is an excellent essay.
http://paintingperceptions.com/art-politics/how-painting-can-help-save-the-world-actually
Apologies, reader, I am using my Journal as a note taking device… I do this, but it doesn’t make for good reading in itself. It’s very handy for when I am out and and about, and I want to look back on something I have found and referenced. Quick, easy, and all held within the long and rambling strand on a single blog!
I am always keen to make my Jenny Meehan Artist’s Journal blog more concise and not such a large accumulation of pretty much everything I spend time mulling over. (However, I am, of course, unsuccessful in this respect!) I am a little bit conscious that it might be read (with being on the internet!)…Though please just skim, skim, skim... that is the wonder of reading things on the internet, and the wonder of scrolling down your phone at high speed. Things have changed. I don’t really need to worry about oppressing you with detail or not ordering things enough, you can do it so easily yourself!
So, skim over the surface, as you will, dipping in here and there only when caught with particular interest!
Everything nowadays requires a great deal of filtration…because there is so much – too much – to choose from. This brings a complexity into life which can make it harder to define one’s own path. My journal helps me narrow down all I come across, at least a little bit. If you read it, and it serves in some way to provide some interesting routes for your own thinking, then I am well pleased. If it dissolves into endless ramble, which I know it does from time to time, this is part of the intention. I am not seeking to craft a resolved structure in my writing, but chase, my endlessly meandering mind, a little bit here and there, attempting to find some kind of light in the never ending darkness! The question “Where am I going?” is always going to be a bit of a mystery!
Painting
Well, it is happening, in its usual piecemeal fashion. I am constantly working on one thing or another… Be it constructing frames for paintings (this is both cheaper than buying frames, and far more satisfying!) or just experimenting with materials. I’ve found myself in the depths of abstraction once more… working in that “drawing from the subconscious” way again, with no pre determined plan at the outset. I like the surprise of seeing what evolves. I like not knowing what will be. I like to meander my way through the painting process and just respond as it happens, sometimes changing my mind. It’s a great big risk and I love it. It stretches my out of my comfort zone, which seems to be my main enjoyment.
Buried Mother Oil Painting – Jenny Meehan
This painting “Buried Mother” ((oil on canvas) started out as a mother and child (flip over to the left in your mind) but became “Buried Mother”. I’ve just made a frame for it, but haven’t decided quite which colour to paint the frame as yet. Gosh, I love oil paint. So forgiving. It’s quite interesting starting one painting, reacting badly to it, and covering it over! (always a risk when painting a mother and child for me! ) Maybe it is cathartic, in some sense, to realise that some image, from memory, might be, quite literally, re-covered!
Prayer for Community
“Prayer for Our Community”
From “The Center for Action and Contemplation”
The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is an educational nonprofit introducing seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation.
Prayer for Our Community
God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything,
Please help us to love in our very small way
What You love infinitely and everywhere.
We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer
And that will be more than enough,
Because in reality every thing and every one is connected,
And nothing stands alone.
To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole,
And so we do.
Help us each day to stand
For love, for healing, for the good,
For the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation,
Because we know this is what You desire:
As Jesus prayed, that all may be one.
We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God,
We offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord,
Amen.
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Well, that’s it for this year, Have a Great Christmas
How to Support Jenny Meehan
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You can buy my original paintings directly from me personally.
Just contact me via the contact form. Price range is between £250 and £800.
Sometimes they are offered for sale during exhibitions too. Normally its more expensive to buy them this way, (though not always). Some organisations enable me to price my work in an accessible way due to the way they operate, but if a submission fee is required I obviously have to factor it in.
Also available via redbubble, the well known print on demand marketplace, you can buy unsigned prints on many substrates. This is an easy and convenient way to purchase my art online.
Take a look here:
It’s also a very good place to get a feel for quite a big strand of my creative artworking. Any problems locating what you want, feel free to contact me via the contact page on this Art Journal/ Artist Blog.
I have TWO Redbubble Artist portfolios! The “jennyjimjams” one has most artwork on it at the time of writing.
My two Redbubble Artist portfolios are;
I have mostly the abstract, flat colour geometrical art in Redbubble as it makes nice prints. I selected work for that platform in order to help my work become more accessible. There’s also a lot of surface pattern designs. I post more of those on my
Artist profile. I find creating patterns very therapeutic!
The main style of my original painting is Lyrical Abstraction/Abstract Expressionism. I also enjoy working with black and white photography tending towards pictorialism. I frequently use collage and digital collage.
Copyright and Licensing Digital Images Information – Jenny Meehan
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. Individuals or businesses seeking licenses or permission to use, copy or reproduce any image by Jenny Meehan should, in the first instance, contact 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, please contact Jenny Meehan in the first instance to clarify your requirements.
DACS always make an initial proposal for image licensing fees in line with the industry standard. Personally, I am open to negotiation. So contact me in the first instance so we can discuss your requirements, project, and budget. The Designer and Artists Copyright Society will administrate accordingly.
It is I, the artist, who determines the final licensing fee, and there are often projects, charitable organisations, people and smaller ventures with which I am particularly keen to work with because of a shared vision. I appreciate budgets can be restrictive. While image licensing fees for my art images will broadly based on the industry standard, this is a guide amount, and can vary subject to circumstances.
The administration for organising an image licence is straightforward for both parties, and is done through the Design and Artist Copyright Society. They provide you with the licence paperwork and I supply you with the image.
Jenny Meehan - Art Journal 