Happy New Year!
My resolution is to try and make my “Jenny Meehan Artist’s Journal” postings shorter and sharper, but I have failed already. I like to stuff lots of little snippets in, and never manage to orchestrate a well rounded and well formed piece of writing… However, I also work on the premise that readers would just shimmy down quickly and read what they personally found of interest, rather than read every little part. The joy of skim reading! Even easier on a phone, scrolling down quickly. So the excess is easily trimmed off, and I may ramble on free of the worry that I might be less than interesting. This is a great liberty… Someone speaking in another context like a church or meeting knows their listener will have to endure the whole, regardless of how much it really meets their interest. They may nod off, or go for a daydream… Pulled back only by a sense of duty and not wanting to disrespect the effort that may have gone into the speaker’s speaking. With this thought in mind, my long and broken titles may be a good idea…You have each little subsection labelled and no more. Hit and miss as you will.
A little plug for this…
I have three artworks in the exhibition below which looks like it is going to be well worth a visit.
SPEAKING OUT Exhibition – Embrace Arts Richard Attenborough Centre, Lancaster Road, Leicester LE1 7HA
http://speaking-out.co.uk/artists/
RNID Typetalk service: 18001 0116 252 2455
e: arts-centre@le.ac.uk
Box office 0116 252 2455
Free Admission, Free parking. Open Monday – Friday
Art Exhibition from Friday 31st January until Friday 28th March 10am – 6pm
Also, the Speaking Out Symposium on Friday 31st January 10am – 5pm see http://www.embracearts.co.uk
This exhibition runs from 13th January until Friday 28th March 2014 and there are three of my photographic artworks on display.
If you are in Leicester, make a visit!
“Goethe’s Delight – Liquor Silicium”
“Goethe’s Delight – Liquor Silicium” is back from being exhibited at “The Orange Tree” Theatre in Richmond Upon Thames. I’m rather fond of it… Still. Good sign. I mixed up pigments with a light creamy coloured Keim Soldalit paint, which has a wonderful matt surface, and really reflects light very well indeed. On board properly prepared the Keim Soldalit works very nicely and I have conducted various tests over the last few years with the Keim Soldalit being mixed with various other substances…though not technically correct, I cannot resist trying. I made some interesting pastels. They work reasonably well. However, Soldalit is best left by itself with only the addition of pigments, which have to be alkaline resistant. I have tried it out on different substrates, and have got quite a feel for it now… I haven’t exploited it anything as much as I intend to. The Soldalit was much easier to use than the Beeck mineral paint on the Trafalgar Junior School Mural… While this seems ages ago, I remember the consistency being easier to manipulate.
Here is “Goethe’s Delight – Liquor Silicium”.
Goethe’s Delight Liquor Silicium jenny meehan keim soldalit abstract
To my thinking, it is a celebratory kind of work, expressing the delight of discovery.
I have just painted an oil painting on hardboard, primed and then coated with Keim Grobb, with oils. It was an interesting surface to use, really soaking up the paint and giving a very matt surface with some texture. In theory it should be fine…though I wonder if a layer of isolating varnish, maybe something just light, like a retouching varnish, may have been a good idea, between the Keim Grobb and the oil? On the other hand, I like the very matt finish, and maybe this would be lessened, pretty much ruining the point of using the Keim Grobb in the first place. Well, let’s give it some time…It is an experiment. It has a great texture too, as well as a casein like feel. Drinks the paint. Much nicer than an acrylic primer or gesso, more absorbent. Very light reflective, which helps the colours to sing, loudly. Will post up image soon, still in incubation of thoughtfulness right now!
Recovery Exhibition at the Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham
This is still running. Here are a couple of images which include my two paintings “Pink Girl” and “Bandage Box”
jenny meehan paintings at the institute of Mental Health Nottingham part of Recovery City Arts Exhibition
Shows “Pink Girl” top and “Bandage Box” below.
jenny meehan paintings at the institute of Mental Health Nottingham part of Recovery City Arts Exhibition
I really like the painting on the left of the image…Looks amazing. Will need to take a look and see whose it is. My two are on the right of the image.
Winter Tasks
Sorting out work which has been piling up in cupboards and drawers.
selection of black and white photographs – Jenny Meehan monochrome prints
I don’t take as many photographs as I used to, but still like working on the occasional digital image. Affordable digital C- prints are good to offer to people who don’t have, or want, to buy an original painting and are so easy to produce. I really need to get my Photobox Gallery facility sorted out so that people can buy these online, but it is one of those jobs I always successfully manage to avoid. I am much more interested in pushing new work ahead rather than selling prints of past work! If you do want an affordable print of something, do contact me and let me know what kind of thing you are looking for though, because though I haven’t gotten around to putting work online, I have a lot of photographic and digital imagery available.
I have been organising past work and taken a few more images so I can build up an illustrated catalogue/record for easy reference, and, for easy location, as there is a need to store things in several different places, and this can make finding particular paintings or prints a little tricky!
Brendan Carroll
I am also having plenty of time to review and reflect on paintings past/those still in progress. Which made reading this article by Brendan Carroll very suitable for the season. Brendan Carroll writes most insightfully on the importance of time and reflection, on asking questions of your painting and seeking to relate it to other paintings in a way which may add light to being able to examine what one is doing. Having experienced myself recently a certain sense of tiredness and boredom with a lot of the paintings I see (thankfully marked out here and there with paintings which do assert themselves in interesting ways), it was a pertinent read. Also, maybe I am experiencing a feeling of having seen the same thing (in different flavours) far too many times before, and it has been easy to feel discouraged and disappointed with the way that painting appears to be pushing forwards. However, this may just be my own personal low mood… I know there is lots of exciting stuff out there, I meet it sometimes, and it encourages me. Also, I think that these “troughs” in my own creative mood are natural and good, but probably colour my vision in a little of a negative way!
I like Brendan’s challenge and I think it is timely. We should maybe make sure we keep the bar raised and keep our own expectations high. If a wet painting “just does”, then it is not doing enough. I personally feel each and every painting should push new ground and dig into the old at the same time. But I guess it is not surprising that production rather than contemplation should maybe have taken centre stage, due to our culture which is so materialistic and production orientated. And sometimes it may be a simple matter of producing a set or series, or body of work which looks good together.
http://burnaway.org/patience-painting/
Menier Gallery “Free Painters and Sculptors”
“Without Boundaries” Exhibition
“Without Boundaries is the first Open exhibition that the Free Painters and Sculptors have held in many years and are delighted to welcome new artists to exhibit with this long-established society at the Menier Gallery.
The exhibition title Without Boundaries is staying true to the founding principles of the organisation, allowing artists true freedom of style and expression. This exhibition will feature a variety of contemporary paintings, prints and sculpture from a competitive selection of 40 established and emerging artists.”
My visit to the Free Painters and Sculptors in December took me to this interesting sculpture:
zoe landau konson sculpture at menier gallery mother me
zoe landau konson sculpture at menier gallery mother me
Thank you to Zoe, for kindly letting me include images of her work here on my blog. Take a look at her website, it is very interesting and exciting art working.
Viewing the work was made perfect for me by the small paper sign “Please Do Not Stroke The Sculpture”. The calling out, each tentacle, with it’s nipple like end, reaching towards you, calling out to be touched, desiring you to touch it, needing you to touch it… And yes, more than touch… to stroke it, because there was not one, but many, crammed together, like some needy, but equally assertive, emotional…object? Being? Maybe between the two! ? How often have we felt so prickly, so defensive, and yet been so soft, knitted together and vulnerable at the same time?
What a delight. The small paper sign just brought this little bit of conflict into the experience, which kind of made a little tension there, for me, which felt just right!
I always find sculpture so much more engaging than painting when I visit exhibitions lately.
Gosh, as usual, my blog is a mass, even a mess of, little bits. Piecemeal. Piecemeal fashion!
Christian Spirituality – For Reflection
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out on Christ’s
compassion to the world,
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good,
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless people now.
St Teresa of Avila 1515 –82
Poem for “Awakening”
Wow, in all the sorting out of December, I found this poem. I wrote it for the rethinkyourmind competition. Oddly, I got an email back about my poetry entries saying that they were off the topic…?? The topic being “With good mental health I…” Not sure why this was counted as being off topic myself, but never mind. Such is poetry I guess. I would have thought that awakening, opening your eyes and your self to reality, was a very good indication of good mental health. I had my painting “Awakening” up on the wall at the time, and hence, the title of the poem was taken from the painting, which inspired it, or nudged it into existence, at least!
Awakening – Jenny Meehan
Awakening
I can carry
a thought through thick and thin. Stop
by choice, not only when falling. Hear
my heart beat
to see new beauty. Speak
that I may be more
than dusty darkness, or a gap between others.
Now I hold
my inner light: Lift it high. I bring myself outwards.
I carry treasure, revealed in unexpected places.
Glitter and gold? Yes, I have plenty – Both the stars –
which always hung in the night, and the sun
which persisted in rising, even though I would rather sleep.
Yes, I have reason to move forwards. I have life within and life around
I have colour, texture, and the ground is not so steep.
Jenny Meehan 2013 Keep fiddling with it, so in progress. Interesting to see the changes I make.
Art and Spirituality |
I don’t like to part the two words…there is no parting in my mind. The wonder of creation is the spiritual made flesh and the making of an artwork is a most wonderful way of being. It is prayer, it is silence and speech (well, language…) together, working. It asks only for our attention, our participation, our giving of a small amount of time, and a willingness to enter into the experience of looking (or listening). The experience of looking is so much more than an external, assessable matter. It is allowing oneself to be permeated with the materials, colours, presence of the work. Sometimes the connection and encounter is easy, even instant, sometimes we meet easily a precious experience which can add richness to our life. Praise our Creator God, that S/He felt such love to bless us with such creativity, wrapped into our spirits and bodies, with love.
(Note, as a woman, it matters a great deal to me to identify God as not “He” as is convention, but as both male and female in description… a necessary, yet clumsy expression, of our Maker. God is described as many things..ie “a rock”, yet of course God is not actually a rock, just as God is not a man or woman, apart from Christ, of course. (If Christ wasn’t a man in his time, he would have never have been allowed to do anything, I shouldn’t think!!!!)
Jenny Meehan is a painter and designer based in East Surrey/South West London.
Jenny Meehan BA Hons (Lit.) PGCE also offers art tuition. Commissions for paintings are also undertaken at affordable prices.
Jenny Meehan works mainly with either oils or acrylics creating both abstract/non-objective paintings and also semi-abstract work. She also creates representational and figurative artwork, mostly using digital photography/image manipulation software, painting and drawing.
Jenny Meehan exhibits around the United Kingdom and holds regular Open Studio/Studio Sale events.
How to Support Jenny Meehan
If you like my art working and would like to support me you can! Pop
Paypal.me/jennymeehanhttp://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.
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 propose fees in line with the industry standard. I am open to negotiation. So contact me in the first instance. They will administrate accordingly
Licensing an image is quick and easy for both parties and is organised through the Design and Artist Copyright Society. (Note, my images are not shown on the “Art image” selection on the Design and Artist Copyright “Art Image” page. This does NOT mean you cannot apply for a license to use an image of my work from DACS… They simply have a very limited sample selection of work in their “Art Image” page!)
Jenny Meehan - Art Journal 