It's a found life for the pack of us

Book. 2019. Available £150

As I mentioned last week, this month I am focussing on my Book Series. The book series was created in 2019 as a follow-up to the original books that I created to earn my BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Oregon in 1999. 

I thought it would be fun to share the following review of my exhibition from back then. The last time I shared this was in 2008, so seems like it is time again. 

What follows is a spontaneous review of my show I found inside my comment book, written by my old friend Hayyim (Howard) Cohen. We worked together side by side in little cubicles selling the newspaper in a tiny downtown office and became fast friends in the 90s in Eugene, Oregon. He would share his New York Times Arts section with me during breaks.



Megan by Hayyim Cohen (written in 1999)

"Combining subversive parody, red (life), black (nothingness) and white (blinding light), duct tape to shut out the noisy excess, upholstery tacks, and the dead bodies of obsolete technical books, Megan Chapman (see your dictionary- "Chapman" means seller) creates lyrical southern "talkin' blues" between the pages of discards (found objects) she collects from the free bins of the Smith Family bookstore in Eugene Oregon.

Providing at her B.F.A. commencement (the beginning of her life as an artist) a comfortable pink sofa with fresh green throw pillows, a little Gene Autry and "A Sunday Kind of Love" musical background for a gathering of "found" people who "read" her books often with whimsical smiling faces.

Megan nails the defunct corpses of old books (now frames for her poems and designs) on the gallery walls with the tacks she loves, this is interspersed with machine blowups of her photographs, which add a nice contrapuntal theme to the shards of books behind the sofa and on the coffee table. Megan is a southern woman and now she has a B.F.A. to nail to the wall when she goes home (tell your Maw, tell your Paw I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas - population 40,002). It is all here in the art, the depths of introspective experience, from one who knows how it all fits together in the package. It's a "found" life for the pack of us, don't you think? Megan has definitely found something...to do and to make a difference, and she does it all with southern hospitality to boot!"

I am so fortunate to have this nugget, and like the art closed up in those old altered books, I thought this needed to be aired out and shared. My friend, Howard did this on his own accord, and I am grateful for his tangents and details; his writing helps me to remember myself at that time, as well as the show and the atmosphere.

Hope you enjoyed this review from the past. Have a lovely weekend. 

Book. 2019. £150

This message rode on the wind

And so everything is different now. Book. £150

This week has had a good flow to it for the most part and I am grateful.

I have seen daffodils, primroses, a bud on a rose bush, snowdrops, and crocuses. I even saw some yellow flowers I don't yet know the name of and I saw some faint green high up in the top of a tree. The wind continues to be wild but the light is returning and today it was even quite mild. 

I love hearing the birds start singing at 3am. 

I saw "All of Us Strangers" this week and thought it was a beautiful long-form poem of a film. Highly recommend. I listened to loads of my favourite old music and it could not have sounded better. I went to a couple of charity shops and found some good things. I took a photograph that made me happy. 

This week I enjoyed cooking simple meals, drinking green tea, and reading from a book about Zen with my morning porridge. 

It was one of those weeks. 

But this is an art blog so I suspect you might want to see or hear about some art. Last month, I focused on just 8 paper pieces and some prints. This month, I think I will feature my book series. A series very close to my heart and part of my painting origin story. 

I sold a small book piece at the open studios in December and it reminded me of how important that series is to me. I look forward to sharing it with you again. 

I know you must be tired. Book. £150

It was a pretty good week and many people helped to make it so.

Thank you.

BOOKS: 1999/2019

BOOKS: Twenty Years Later 1999/2019  

My book series began in my last year of art school at the University of Oregon as I was my persuing my BFA in Painting and it became my terminal project exhibition for my graduation with honours. I already knew at this point that I was an abstract painter and that I had some hard feelings towards the “art establishment.” While I respected my peers in the program, I didn’t want to create the same large scale glossy paintings that they were doing at the time. I wanted to create something more intimate, meaningful, and honest from my work. I wanted to use common materials and somehow make art more accessible. I wanted the viewer to have an experience with the work.

I created my abstractions in found hardback books that I gathered one by one out of the free bin of a local bookstore. I selected the discarded and withdrawn books and their beautifully yellowed pages as they were now somehow without value. I sometimes tore them apart to showcase their skeletons and hidden features while I painted with oil bar, drew with colour pencils and graphite, and commandeered their stories making them into something new. I assumed personalities and told other people’s stories, while creating small abstractions within the taped, stitched, and bound pages. These books were rough, raw, and dirty though the concept and belief behind them were fully considered. These were meant to be read and handled like any other book. The story received was meant for the viewer alone and could be closed up and left for another. Each person handling the books became part of the story and the story became part of the viewer as they walked away. They had just touched modern art. They had just had it in the palm of their hands.

For my terminal exhibition at the University’s Laverne Krause Gallery, I set up a sofa, a woven rug, a coffee table, end tables, and chairs. Turning the gallery into a familiar setting, a place that invited you to sit and relax without having to say it. My books littered the coffee table overlapping, some open, some closed. No instructions, simply relying on human nature, curiosity, and comfort to encourage the viewer to experience the art, to turn the pages and be.

I have always had a problem with the exclusivity of art and sadly the idea by many that art requires specialist skills, knowledge or education to understand and appreciate it fully. For many, there is an imaginary barrier between themselves and art, especially when it comes to abstraction. All art requires is time and the willingness to see but before that can happen, it must be accessible. The guard of the viewer must be lowered, the defenses calmed and soothed to foster understanding. If I can put art into a format that is more easily understood and accessible then I can change people’s experience of art. If I can take something that might be seen as scary or intimidating on a gallery wall and put it in the hands of the viewer, they are now dominating the art, the art is no longer dominating them.

photo by Mairi Brown taken at Art Walk Porty

Most viewers will understand books even at their most basic level they will understand picture books. If I put modern art in books that they can touch and feel, smell, read, feel the weight of the work in the books, then I can get them to slow down and have an experience. The average time people spend looking at paintings on a wall in a museum or gallery is 17-27 seconds. That is not an experience. We have been trained that art is not to be touched. It is revered, fragile, valuable, untouchable. We view it with our hands jammed in our pockets, behind our back, behind a rope, behind a taped line, we do not gesticulate towards or talk loudly about it. The art becomes void. The art becomes detached from reality and it’s humanness. Some humans will also detach from it or never even attempt it. I find this thought deeply wounding.

Join me here again next week on my Friday Studio Blog for Part II of the written discussion of my books. Until then you can hear me speak about by books on this week's video visit. Thanks again to everyone who came to see my books art Art Walk Porty last weekend. It was a joy to meet you and share my passion for this work.

Thank you.

Art Walk Porty is Here! Join us!

Hello Dear Reader, 

I'll be making finishing touches on my books in the studio today for Art Walk Porty's Artists' Bookmarket this weekend at the Dalriada on the Portobello Promenade. I'll be there on Saturday from 12-6 and Sunday from 12-5. So please do come by and say hello, it's very important for me that you see this work in person.

Several of my small, framed paintings will also be on show in the current group exhibition at the brilliant The Velvet Easel Gallery (venue number 27) on the Portobello High Street. Art Walk Porty is a fantastic art festival by the sea, featuring many wonderful artists and their work. It is a unique and groundbreaking multi-faceted art festival not to be missed.

Here is a preview of some of my latest book works. There are currently 43 works in this 20th Anniversary series of books.

I plan to write a more formal statement about these book works and how they came about later today but you can watch the latest Tuesday Studio Video Visit for some more clarity- the past two Tuesday Studio Video Visits shine a pretty good light on their origins.

If you are local to Edinburgh or plan to pass through this weekend, I do hope I will see you at the book market and enjoying all Art Walk Porty has to offer. Until next week, keep fighting! The world needs you and your vision. 

Our Minimalist Secrets: Exhibition and Gallery News!

This week I turned my attention in the studio back to the book series. I am excited to be part of Art Walk Porty - The Artist's Book Market, next month at the Dalriada located right on the Portobello Promenade across from the sea in Edinburgh. Saturday the 7th and Sunday the 8th of September from 11am-4pm. Click the link to read more about the participants and mark your calendars and make plans to attend. I would love to see you there. Learn more here (it's a gorgeous website so do click on that link).

I love the freedom that working in the books allows. As this is not my primary format, I feel like I can do anything and take even more risks and chances. The yellowed and torn books and scrolls can become sculptural and raw to hold our minimalist secrets.

In other exciting exhibition news, I just sent two paintings to the inaugural exhibition at a new gallery in Glasgow! John Doyle Art located at 23 Parnie Street aims to bring a new and eclectic collection of formidable artists together under one roof. I am honoured to be part of the mix. There will be an opening reception next Friday, the 23rd of August from 6-9pm. 

These are the two paintings you can enjoy and purchase there.

A delicate balance
76.2x76.2x4cm/30x30x1.5"
Acrylic, charcoal on canvas
© 2015 Megan Chapman
£1,350
Currently available through Doyle Art in Glasgow.
Contact the gallery to purchase.

Remember this place
76.2x76.2x4cm/30x30x1.5"
Acrylic, charcoal on canvas
© 2015 Megan Chapman
£1,350
Currently available through Doyle Art in Glasgow.
Contact the gallery to purchase.

As some of you may recall these two pieces were published in a wonderful article by the arts editor of SOGO Magazine at the time, fellow artist and now friend, Brian McFie. You can read the article here if you missed it the first time around. Brian will also be showing his work with Doyle Art. Again, I am delighted to be showing in a gallery in Glasgow. This is another first for me!

Thanks to everyone who reads my blog, follows and supports my work on the various forms of social media, and has supported my work in all the various brick and mortar galleries along the way. Thank you! 

Spring inspiration: A Deep Dive

Spring in the studio.

Shake off winter, shake it all off!

Make whatever you want, make whatever you can, use whatever you need.

Cardboard, old books, broken oil pastels, pencils.

Feels good, doesn't it? Making yourself laugh, having a bit of fun. Dancing around the studio and scribbling all over the things like a child in your older brothers' room, but these aren't the scribbles of a child.

You are a 47-year-old woman with a wealth of experience and reasons.

+++++++++++++

Sometimes I paint and draw in the pages of old hardback books to tell the stories collected on the wind and sea. These books are made to be handled and touched, read and collected, like any other.

Next month, it will be twenty years since my BFA terminal exhibition, "BOOKS." I am hoping to show my new books, the 20th-anniversary editions one day soon but until then, here are the latest books, some are brand new and some were made last summer.

Besides these books, I have been enjoying painting on cardboard from the Drill Hall recycling bin. 

Vanity/Mirror

Colours, textures, lines, cardboard love!

So as you see things are humming along in the studio. If you missed it on Facebook, you can see my Tuesday Studio Video Visit again here.




Besides making art, I have been immersing myself in the words and ideas of many powerful women.  I read Viv Albertine's wonderful book, "Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys" and now I am reading her follow up, "To throw away unopened." I am getting so much from her writing, her history, her candor, and her feminist perspective. I highly recommend both her books, if you haven't read them already.

Last Friday night I took myself out to the Doc N Roll festival screening of Stories from the She Punks, a documentary featuring the stories of women musicians from the punk-inspired bands of the 70s. Afterwards, there was a Q&A with the filmmakers Gina Birch (the Raincoats) and Helen Reddington (Helen McCookerybook of the Chefs). There were two short films as well by Gina Birch. The whole event was fabulous, funny, and fierce. I was so glad I was there. That sent me down a wormhole of new (to me) music. I also ordered Helen Reddington's book, "The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era." I am looking forward to digging in and learning more.

As the theme continued throughout the week, I also watched, The Culture Show "Girls Will Be Girls" BBC 2 Women in Punk on YouTube and last night I watched The Slits documentary, "Here to be Heard." I highly recommend both. I also watched a more broad spectrum punk documentary by Don Letts, "Punk: Attitude."

I remember the first time I heard punk rock when I was a kid, I was amazed at how it seemed to plug right into my brain. I liked everything about it, the sound quality, the energy, the rawness, and that DIY attitude. They were people not pop stars, they were real and flawed, and singing about stuff that mattered. It gave me power and hope and it still does today. I am grateful to be able to continue learning about the women who were integral to the scene and to get inspiration from them. I am enjoying this deep dive.

What is inspiring you right now? What gives you personal power and strength? How does it influence your art?

Until next week, keeping fighting. The world needs you and your art, now more than ever!

I tally, check off, and list.

I often don't think I work hard enough. I tally, check off, and list.

My monkey mind rages even with daily yoga and meditation. Am I working? Yes. Am I working hard enough? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Are you working when the work doesn't earn money? Yes, sometimes I am in action and I think action counts as work. Money is separate. Was I ever expected to make money at this? Yes and no.

Do I earn my keep? Yes. Do I earn my place in society? Yes. Do I have to cook and clean to earn my place? No. Do I have to put on lipstick to earn my place? No. Do I have to wait in line? I have been waiting politely for what seems like forever so maybe that is on me. Do I have to wait for permission? I do this too often. Do I have to follow the rules? I hope not but I do. Do I have to censor myself? No, but I do. Do I have to watch as man after man and after man's paintings get featured on abstract painting pages? Seems like it.

With the perfect storm raging in the background of my life I took to the beach for some space.



It's on me to make this work. It's on me to make peace with my calling. I take responsibility for my choices and I am not giving up. I am going to raise my voice a little louder and show up a little bolder for myself. Let's see what happens...

Until next week, I am grateful for you and your work. I see you.
***************************************

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I remember slam dancing until 2 a.m.

Books...
University of Oregon
BFA terminal project
1999 Megan Chapman
This is one of my favorite books from the past.
(click to read the text)
I can see the foundations.
I can also see how I have started to censor myself too much.

I love you all.
X-Megan

"I don't want to set the world on fire"

I was reading my old journals again, looking for inspiration for this blog post. I think the only solution for today is to go back in time.

In a previous post, I mentioned that my art created towards the end of my education was painted inside the pages of discarded books, and how much I enjoyed working in this manner. The works were small and on paper, created during pure inspiration and filled with stories and characters.

Today, I found my comment book from my 1999 B.F.A. terminal exhibition from the University of Oregon. Inside on the painted white pages, I let one sentence from the original text remain,
"I don't want to set the world on fire."

But, this is not true, and you know I already have the matches...

What follows is a spontaneous review of my show I found inside my comment book, written by my old friend Hayyim (Howard) Cohen. We worked together side by side in little cubicles selling the newspaper in a tiny downtown office, and became fast friends. He would share his New York Times Arts section with me during breaks.

Megan by Hayyim Cohen

"Combining subversive parody, red (life), black (nothingness) and white (blinding light), duct tape to shut out the noisy excess, upholstery tacks, and the dead bodies of obsolete technical books, Megan Chapman (see your dictionary- "Chapman" means seller) creates lyrical southern "talkin' blues" between the pages of discards (found objects) she collects from the free bins of the Smith Family bookstore in Eugene Oregon.

Providing at her B.F.A. commencement (the beginning of her life as an artist) a comfortable pink sofa with fresh green throw pillows, a little Gene Autry and "A Sunday Kind of Love" musical background for a gathering of "found" people who "read" her books often with whimsical smiling faces.

Megan nails the defunct corpses of old books (now frames for her poems and designs) on the gallery walls with the tacks she loves, this is interspersed with machine blowups of her photographs, which add a nice contrapuntal theme to the shards of books behind the sofa and on the coffee table. Megan is a southern woman and now she has a B.F.A. to nail to the wall when she goes home (tell your Maw,tell your Paw I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas-population 40,002). It is all here in the art, the depths of introspective experience, from one who knows how it all fits together in the package. It's a "found" life for the pack of us, don't you think? Megan has definitely found something...To do and to make a difference, and she does it all with southern hospitality to boot!"

I am so fortunate to have this nugget, and like the art closed up in those old altered books, I thought this needed to be aired out and shared. My friend, Howard did this on his own accord, and I am grateful for his tangents and details; his writing helps me to remember myself at that time, as well as the show and the atmosphere. His words bring back everything about the experience and are even better than a photograph.

Have you ever considered having someone write a piece about your art? Think about asking a friend or fellow artist to write a statement or a review of your work. Perhaps your friends have already left you helpful comments. Have you thought about asking them if you could edit and use them to promote your art? I bet many of you have these nuggets hiding in letters, emails and blogs, just waiting to brushed off and put out there to a larger audience.

Let's set the world on fire...

Take me here often
mixed media on paper
9x6"
Megan Chapman
Paper paintings only at ArtMaven

The Glowing Horse

Art is so strange when you really think about it. As you know, I will always question my reasons for being an artist. I will always wonder if I am an artist for the right reasons. I will always question the work I create. I will always approach my work with trepidation and wonder. I will always feel some guilt and sadness for not choosing an easier more stable path, and at the same time I will feel guilt and sadness for choosing such an easy path. I will always wonder what people are talking about, when after I tell them I am an artist, they say "that must be so much fun." I will always hope I stay relatively healthy since I don't have health insurance. I will sometimes feel like a child because of the typical adult trappings I lack. I will always feel a little sad when I get compliments that I can't live up to, but mostly I will feel flattered. I will then wonder if I suffer from false modesty.

When I was a child in elementary school, I loved "show and tell." I couldn't wait for it to be my turn, so I could sing "I'm in the mood for love" that I had just learned from watching an episode of the Little Rascals. I couldn't wait to tell stories about the raccoons that would creep in my window at night and curl up on my bed to sleep. I even fantasized about show and tell. I had very long hair when I was young, and I dreamt that I would arrive at school wearing a hat and my teacher would call me to the front of the room for that days sharing, and I would simply remove my hat and all my long hair would be gone! That never happened.

I sung "Fame... I wanna live forever" at the top of my lungs in the 5th grade talent show- and I meant every word. So, this sharing, showing and telling has always been a part of my life, and I have always wanted to be a little famous, and I have always wanted to live forever... So, that is why I am here. I don't have a choice.

I wanted to be a dancer, then a singer, then an actress, and now an artist (I was always an artist) but that has been the progression. Some days I wanted to be a comedian or a DJ. I think being an artist is the safest choice, and it seems to fit my personality the best.

This choice makes even more sense to me now. I feel a type of connection to all the other artists in the world, more of a connection to their sensibilities than to anything else. I love the books they read, the music they listen to, their ideas about the world, and the way they maneuver through it. They are all searching, connecting, being too honest and vulnerable. Some of them steal ideas and images from each other, personalities even. It is fascinating to watch. I am glad to be a part of this. Very human and real. There are a lot of lovely people out there, these artists. I am struck by the fact that they are all hustlers. They are working so hard. We are all working so hard, for each others affection, attention, money, praise, and hopefully sometimes for ourselves.

This week, as I was busy working in my studio, I had a sudden urge to paint something different, rather than my usual shapes and colors. One of the images from my 1999 book series came to mind, The Glowing Horse. Suddenly, I wished I could cover the two large canvases before me with blue - the perfect blue of my dreams. I wished I could draw the outline of the horse of my past in white chalk. Why did the glowing horse decide to show up then, and what was he trying to tell me?

I just kept working on the usual and I smiled at the thought.
I am so glad to be a part of this.

Now, for two exciting announcements: First, this post marks the one year anniversary of the Studio Blog! Thanks so much for reading and cheering me on! Second, It is time for the paper painting/print give away! This month I will be giving away a 8x10 glossy print of The Glowing Horse to one lucky reader that leaves a comment on today's blog. I will mail to anywhere in the world. I will randomly draw a number to correspond with the comments in the order they are received. Leave your comment between now and Tuesday at midnight. I'll post the winners name in my blog next Friday; please be sure to check back, so that I can contact you. I really appreciate everyone who reads and comments on my studio blog. Thanks again for your support and encouragement. It means the world to me. GOOD LUCK!