Return: Manual for Living II

New Small Works

I haven’t written a blog post in ages. I am currently 9 entries behind this year. I am going to endeavour to start filling the gaps and get back on track. Not because I owe it to you, but because my blog helps me to remember things and ultimately it helps everything else in my life. The following entries will be back dated of course and might be a bit more minimal or image heavy while I try to catch up. To those of you who have checked in here, I hope you will get something out of these entries or at least know I am attempting to work my way back to you.

A lot has been going on behind the scenes and my studio blog and my art practice have been the furthest things from my mind. Everything is a bit of a blur and I am finding it even harder than usual to focus. I am looking back at my calendar, photos I took, and social media posts to help me figure out what was happening, against a much larger backdrop that I either will or will not get into. 

Thanks for being here. (this same intro will mark all the back dated entries)

My last blog post was on February 7 and it proved to be a popular one, or perhaps people just kept landing on it looking for future posts. Either way I am glad many of you allowed me to be dramatic and also resonated with the post yourselves.

Overwhelmed with everything going on politically, I was calling my representatives in the United States from Scotland often this week in February, along with posting political actions on social media. I was holding on to the second season of Severance as one thing I could look forward to every Friday evening even when everything else was going to shit. I started a small series of new works this week as well. Ultimately creating 7 new small mixed media collage works on paper and framing them in simple white frames.

These pieces remind me of a condensed version of the “manual for living” series I created in 2010. Seems fitting - we may need a manual now more than ever.
At this time, I can only offer these works to folks living in the UK due to prohibitive shipping costs and the fact that these are framed with glass. If you are in the US and really want one please message me and I will give you a shipping quote. 

Art has the power to inspire and provoke thought, and it can also be a vehicle for change. By purchasing one of these new small works of mine, you are not only supporting my work but also contributing to an important cause. £10 from each sale will go directly to the American Civil Liberties Union helping to defend the rights of all people in the United States.

"With immigrant rights, trans justice, reproductive freedom, and more at risk, the ACLU is in the courts and communities across the United States to protect everyone’s rights."

You can see the entire series together here. You can click the message or purchase buttons next to each image to send me a note of your interest, and if you want to buy the piece, I will email you an invoice with my UK bank details.

Okay, Harriet
mixed media on paper
Art Size A6/14.8x10.5 cm
Framed Size 12.5x16.5 cm
Megan Chapman 2025
£65 (includes 2nd class UK Shipping)
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Always walking up hill
mixed media on paper
Art Size A6/14.8x10.5 cm
Framed Size 12.5x16.5 cm
Megan Chapman 2025
£65 (includes 2nd class UK Shipping)
Message for invoice to purchase

Please let us go there
mixed media on paper
Art Size A6/14.8x10.5 cm
Framed Size 12.5x16.5 cm
Megan Chapman 2025
£65 (includes 2nd class UK Shipping)
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Let there be moments
mixed media on paper
Art Size A6/14.8x10.5 cm
Framed Size 12.5x16.5 cm
Megan Chapman 2025
£65 (includes 2nd class UK Shipping)
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Everything you climb
mixed media on paper
Art Size A6/14.8x10.5 cm
Framed Size 12.5x16.5 cm
Megan Chapman 2025
£65 (includes 2nd class UK Shipping)
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Where no one walks alone
mixed media on paper
Art Size A6/14.8x10.5 cm
Framed Size 16.5x12.5 cm
Megan Chapman 2025
£65 (includes 2nd class UK Shipping)
Message for invoice to purchase

Holding Electric

mixed media on paper

Art Size A6/10.5x14.8cm

Framed Size 12.5x16.5 cm

Megan Chapman 2025

£65 (includes 2nd class UK Shipping)

Message for invoice to purchase

A small framed piece of work sitting on a shelf using the ladder back of the frame.
These can also be displayed on your wall. 

Thank you for your support and patience as I get back in the swing of things.

Take care of yourself. The world needs you and the gifts you bring. Keep fighting!

Let me be dramatic

I feel like I am losing myself or is this the way back? I am not sure.

My dreams have been so real and I can tell my brain is processing and crunching memories, fears, loves, and losses. Crunching, crunching, crunching.

I wake up in a stupor because my mind has used all its energy in the night.

The first cup of coffee is a miracle. I imagine I am a fish as I breathe it in through my gills, desperate for air.

I settle in to feed on the information that runs me ragged. News stories, doom at every turn, sadness and despair, punctuated with fight and litigation.

Everyone is having a hard time. I am not unique. We are all in this particular hell together.

I can't express myself, so I eat bread and cereal. I don't feel hungry but I keep eating. I feel myself expanding even though what I really want is to disappear from this timeline.

I will perform these behaviours until the inward anger rises and the discomfort snaps me into a grand correction. Then I will be like jesus and get my shit together.

A return to my better ways of living. 

A rebellion curtailed until the next time.

She tries hard not to talk like us

Here's a song to listen to while you collect the matches. X

And if you need to retrace your steps.

Hungry ghosts

Parry the Wind High, Low

She is an imaginary girl

This girl from Arkansas was influenced by David Lynch

Dear Readers, Art Lovers, and Friends,

It was fitting that the soundtrack to last week's post was "Dark Night of the Soul" featuring David Lynch.

I was so shocked to hear of his death that I actually gasped out loud when I read the news in a message from my brother Sean. I wrote a few friends in particular who I knew would be upset and then I shed a few tears myself. I started watching old clips and reliving memories that revolved around David Lynch's work and art.

Like many others, I took to the internet to share my feelings:

"I'm so sad about this loss. David Lynch gave us so much vision and new ways to see. He offered up validation and permission. Meditations on darkness and love. Twin Peaks beaming into the house when I was in high school was as important to me as witnessing the dawn of MTV when I was child. Style, colour, art, mystery - everything was suddenly available to me. I could understand my own sensibilities and appreciate them even in Arkansas."

Looking back, I realise how much he had influenced me in the 80s and 90s and how he continues to influence me today. How often I quote his work. He was and will forever remain a true artist and an original. We are so lucky for all he gave us. 

Thank you, David Lynch for sharing your vision.

Two Sad Clouds, mixed media on paper, Megan Chapman, 2024

Temptation, mixed media on paper, Megan Chapman, 2024

How can we best show up in this crushing world with our own singular visions? How can we support each other and ourselves in our purest most expansive forms? How can we bring more delight, humour, wonder, and understanding into this world?

Let's catch some ideas.

Wintering

Here's some music to take on the journey. 

I kept all your letters

Sometimes I wonder if I should have a separate place to write things that aren't about art. I wonder if that would make it easier to always write "on time." But then if I was writing somewhere else there would be no exact time to do it and there would be nothing here on "Friday."

So here I am, not exactly wanting to write about art. There are two things I sort of want to write about. The first is that I picked through someone's flat moving remnants outside their building. They were kind enough to take a photo and share it online - a community offering before it would be taken to a charity shop. I picked up 2 bags of castoffs. I took photos of my haul and shared it with friends and family. I tallied up its retail value. I commented that it was obviously the possessions of a much younger woman but with the taste of my inner child. I even took a stack of her hot pink and yellow coloured paperbacks - 8 of them in the pile. And this is maybe where it ventures into art. The concept around methodically reading another person's books, void of choice - like a street assigned reading list.

I get a bit excited by limitations.

I get overwhelmed by all the choices at the grocery store or in shops. But, I love the treasures left on the street or in the racks of the charity shop. I love the fated aspect of it. I usually find exactly what I need and when I need it. I needed a boost and I got a second Christmas from her leaving offerings, complete with mustard yellow low top Converse All Stars exactly in my size. She wrote on the toes of both shoes, "life's too short to waste" in black pen. 

I noticed the faded mantra the next day. 

I feel like I have wasted my fair share of life but I also feel we are probably meant to or maybe there is no way to actually waste it. I hope that's the case. However it all works out, I was glad to receive her message.

So I am reading her books and living with her things and wishing her well on her move. 

The second thing I sort of wanted to write about was some local genealogy research I have been doing but I can't write about it poetically. Genealogy is mostly frustrating, with flashes of magic here and there - stories and family ghosts pulling me along into a puzzle of history and dumb luck. An hour becomes a whole day and I can't look away. It all points back to the tip of my new shoes. Am I wasting my life? Surely not.

I like to think the ancient family knows I am looking for them and that they are glad I am here. They are as curious about me as I am of them. 

They whisper, there is art in all of this.