Living on the fault line

A new painting from this week

I can feel the sun as it shines on my legs, the doors are open onto the yard of the studio on this, the third week of my lucky artist's residency. It's been raining like cats and dogs and angry ones at that, with the weather being more like Arkansas than Scotland this past week.

I am listening to REM's album Murmer as this place reminds me of it and takes me back again to my youthful summers spent dreaming of somewhere else. I watch the swallows dart in and around as the buddleia sprouts from the corners of the slate roof. Faded blue and green painted arched wooden doors come into view as this morning's rain puddles reflect the light.

I sit and write and breathe and feel content even when the world is going to shit. This morning I cried and then meditated (some call it prayer) for the children in cages and now the new ones left without parents in Mississippi. I know my meditations can't help them and I cry over the trauma that they will be left with. I am half a world away, sitting in the sun thinking about institutional racism and I am thinking about painting. I can think about both and I can choose to think about one more than the other because of my white privilege. This troubles me but not like it troubles those without this skin.

In my privileged world, I am learning to be okay with being happy and sad, civil and angry, content and yet aware of the world and its injustice. I wade into these grey murky waters, this muddled way of being, the dark and light within and the imperfection and humanity of us all.

I walk each step learning that nothing has to be "good" or "perfect" and I keep painting.

Living on the fault line

If you missed Tuesday's Studio Video Visit, you can see it again here.
Until next week, keep fighting.

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings rejoice in the wellbeing of others
May all beings live in peace, free from greed and hatred.

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Thank you. 

Pleased to meet me

It's none of your business how I live my life. I come here to talk about my art and painting. I share my new works with you, recap my Tuesday Studio videos, share interviews, exciting news and let you know where you can see and buy my work or how you can now buy me a cup of coffee in support of my working vision and all the things I share freely on social media channels.

Everything I share is mostly couched in art. It is the studio blog after all and that makes sense. However, sometimes I get tired of just sticking to the facts and the limits of our relationship here. 

I remember once I wrote my Grandma Chapman a letter when I was probably 14 or 15 alluding to the fact that I didn't want a superficial relationship with her anymore. I didn't want to tell her about the weather in Fayetteville and ask her how it was down in North Little Rock. Had it rained? Was it humid there too? I wanted to share my real life with her. I wanted to share when I was mad at my father (her son) or that I had been smoking cigarettes at lunch and after school and when did she start smoking anyway? And there's this boy I like but he's all wrong for me... I wanted to cut the shit so to speak. 

I want to do that with you too. I want to do that with myself as well. 

I've been having a hard time and not just because we need to move from this flat. I have been having a hard time for years.

I pause here because that feels like a heavy statement. I have been having a hard time for years. Yes, me. The one that wishes that you are happy, well, and inspired at the end of each video visit. The one that tells you to keep fighting at the end of most blogs. These are like affirmations that I put out to the world but it is also what I need to hear. I want to be well, happy, and inspired. I want to keep fighting.

So while I have been having a hard time for years, I have also been doing things to help me have a less of a hard time. These things include yoga, meditation, relaxation exercises, affirmations, chanting, counselors, life coaches, shamans, Chinese medicine doctors, western doctors, an outpatient chronic pain clinic for fibromyalgia, masseuses, healers, reaching out to close friends, walking, exercise, writing, making art, volunteering, flirting with and sometimes committing to sober living sometimes for years and sometimes for months, and generally trying to moving forward.

I have also done plenty of things to only exacerbate my hard times over the years, you know like those classics of being angry, drinking too much, eating too much, loving too much, needing too much, and changing too much to please others, numbing myself out, isolating, and living in denial all the while doubting myself, feeling low, and fearing the world.

I remember in my twenties when I was living in Oregon and I was having debilitating anxiety and panic attacks, my brother Sean told me to look inside myself for the answers rather than outside. This sentence written in a letter that took a week to reach me mostly just pissed me off at the time because I couldn't really grasp the concept.

The answers are within but I have needed a lot of help and time to find them there. It's none of your business how I live my life. I come here to talk about my art and painting. I also come here to share my humanity and connect with you. For the past eight weeks and four days, I have made a concerted effort to practice yoga along with meditation (sometimes twice a day). I have been practicing both off and on for decades but this time has felt a bit different, somehow more internalised, connected, and helpful than in times before and I am grateful.

This is setting the stage for better thinking and feeling states and I need this as we look for a place to live and as we move into autumn and winter in Scotland. I have also been listening to Russell Brand's latest book Recovery: Freedom from our Addictions. I like the way he presents the 12 steps in a very relatable way. Mr. Brand can be a polarising celebrity with an egocentric shamanistic vibe (but damn, his impressive vocabulary is certainly something to aspire to). Whatever you think of him, I think he is hitting the right tone with this book in order to connect with many who have been lost when it comes to traditional recovery literature. I can make this statement with some strange and small degree of experience, as once upon a time I was in training to become a chemical dependency counselor in Oregon before I nipped that idea in the bud so I could stop worrying about my drinking, enjoy the music scene, and focus on my art - I am confident I made the right choice. Anyway, some of you might enjoy the book, I am still working my way through it.

I sent this blog post to a dear friend to read before I published it. Am I saying anything wrong? Am I going to be misunderstood? Am I going to be painted into a corner? Am I going to get in trouble? 

The answer is no.

I just want you to know me. I want to share a new baseline understanding. I want to be more of a whole person in this world and that can only be a good thing.

My name is Megan Chapman and I bet we have a lot in common.

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