Calling up the warriors...

The Man Who Fell to Earth. Starring David Bowie. 1976.
Meme from the internet. 

I woke up at 4 a.m. with ideas that needed writing down. I had big plans for this blog too, but then other things kept getting in the way. So here I am at the end of the day, finally sitting down to write and I know I won't share everything I am thinking. My thoughts are coming too fast and some of the things I think are no one's business but my own. 

Last week, I was calling forth creativity and the unborn art at our fingertips. Tonight, I am calling forth my warriors and you don't need to know exactly what that means. I alluded to the idea on last week's Tuesday Studio Video Visit. I am sitting in the middle of great change or desire to change as many of us are since the pandemic began - this requires new ways of thinking but more importantly doing. 

I want to do this differently. I want to think about this differently. This meaning, art, specifically my art. I know I have said this before in different guises but I mean it. Time is of the essence. I have to change my thinking about all of this. The way I think about it no longer serves me or anyone else. 

So, I will need to call forth my warriors and lists will be made, and I will remember opportunities that went before and connections forged over years and years, and the new ones here in Scotland as well. I will be vulnerable to some degree and I will be scared and I won't know what I am doing and it will be hard. I think that is how art and a life of growth might have to be. 

I have given myself so much grief over this calling. I have limited myself, my experience, and my art because I have been ashamed that this is my path. I am ashamed that this path leaves me vulnerable to living on a shaky foundation. I often feel like an alien in this world. A high functioning alien that needs a lot of time to just look out the window and notice all the beauty.

I don't want what you want. I don't want to live how you want to live. I don't need what you need. I don't value you what you value. I don't strive for what you strive for. I am not motivated by what you are motivated by. I am my own person and I have the right to live this way even when it is often misunderstood, judged, and questioned. 

you = societal values at large/the capitalist machine. 

I think you and I, dear reader, have a lot in common and share many values. The warriors (and thankfully there are many) who read my posts, follow me on social media, support me, and have collected my art over the decades can thankfully see, read, or hear something in the work that resonates. I am forever grateful. You will be hearing from me soon... 

Until next week, keep fighting. 

With love and gratitude, 

Megan

Detail of the first drawing of the year 2022

 

And if you missed the latest Tuesday Studio Video Visit, here it is. Notice the better lighting! That's thanks to you warriors. ❤

My city was gone

I am in the library listening to the Brambles' album Charcoal, trying to find a bit of peace again. The sun is out and things are warming up. I have had a lovely early morning goodbye chat with Barbara, a coffee chat with my friend Sarah, and another dear Sarah is on her way for lunch. Later, there will be more driving, this time up to Springdale to see another sweet friend but for now, I am here in the library with my headphones on trying to put some order into my day and words to my thoughts of this curious town.

Oh Fayetteville, you are a heartbreaker. I shed a tear or four for you this morning over a massive artisanal chai latte. It's always been hard to criticize you and your strange ways but it can be done among the ones that carry your embers.

I am still a guest in your sprawling, glass-faced condo so I will mind my manners. I will always love and work for you and I will always represent you. It is the heart of your streets that raised me and I am grateful.

I will speak for the broken beer bottles on the railroad tracks that made a romantic and slightly dangerous route through town, I will speak for the old art deco bridges (kudos on the refurb), I will speak for the overgrown vines that wrap around power poles in the summer, I will speak for the fullness of the chorus of the bugs and birds. I will speak for the abandoned graves almost lost in the tall grasses back in the woods.

The alleys and small streets cross my heart and memories, like the pie at the old Red Bird Cafe, after summer art classes at the guild with my mother. I will speak for the punk scene of the mid to late 1980's to the very early 90's and all the brilliant and important music I was able to see in this little town. In this town, I was surrounded by creative and passionate people, many who never lived to see this current version of Fayetteville.

I don't live in the past and I am not out of touch. I understand that things change and that they often should.

Many of my old houses are gone, as are many of my old friends - the working class also appears gone or hidden. Gentrification takes hold as old homes are demolished, green spaces are cleared and newbuilds proliferate. The University now grows like wild kudzu in a ditch.

I speak for the blue sky, the sunset, and the old leaning tree on the sledding side of Wilson Park and of course the wee castle there. I speak for the old view out west from the cross at Mt. Sequoyah and the legend of ghost hollow.

I do have hope for the artists creating new and exciting works and for the old school folks that have stayed behind so that they can preserve some parts of the heart of the town. It's not your job, but I know the ones who work tirelessly for the good and I am thankful for you.

As I drove away from town tonight, I cried. I cried for every student apartment dwelling that obscured the view of the hills or the sunset. It seemed as if a new fortress rose up at every turn like a barricade.

Tears burned down my cheeks as I drove away and back into the old hills of Winslow as I wondered who stole the soul and why were they allowed to?

Waiting no more...

Going through my studio archives looking at old drawings

“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.”

― Alice Walker, Living by the Word

I received my U.K Visa this week! That means that once my affairs are settled here and my possessions I am willing to part with are sold off that I can move to Edinburgh, Scotland and live with Stewart!

Here's to new adventures, the future and more! Art changes lives, I know this much is true.