As the world slides by

Sometimes I love you and other stories is off to a very strong start! Two more pieces sold last Saturday and another on Monday. A total of seven paintings have found new homes in the first week of the show! I am beyond pleased and so grateful for everyone's support.

As I often do, I gave myself permission to take some time off and just absorb the body of work I have created. I let myself enjoy seeing it in the gallery and I just spend time with the work and simply being in my studio but without the pressure of having to create anything. I don't think about the next series or direction. Now is not the time for that.

Today I went for a long drive in the meandering country side, listening to music and I just let the world slide by.

Don't forget to do this. Take the time, refill the well and celebrate what you have accomplished. And as always keep fighting...

Sometimes I love you and other stories is in the Vault Gallery through the month of September at the Fayetteville Underground. Gallery hours are W-F 12-7 and Saturday 10-5. If those hours don't suit you, feel free to email me at megancha@gmail.com and I can open the gallery for you by appointment.

Sometimes I love you...

Sometimes I love you and other stories from stewart bremner on Vimeo. Sometimes I love you... a short film by Stewart Bremner.

Oh what a week! Last night, Sometimes I love you and other stories opened at the Vault Gallery in the Fayetteville Underground. It was a lovely night, the crowds were amazing and the show looked great. I am happy to report that the evening concluded with four sales as well!

my paintings on the vault gallery walls

I am very proud of this exhibition and of myself for taking some risks in order to create the work. The glowing white paintings came together perfectly and transformed the gallery. The patrons who came to view the show last night were very receptive and their comments validated what I had to hoped to accomplish with this show. These works are my story and are intimate but at the same time they communicate something all of us feel and can relate to. The responses and stories I heard from people were also intimate and this was very special and moving to me. I heard stories about long distance relationships and new love, as well as from an older man who had just lost his wife. The words in one particular painting echoed his longing for and thoughts of her. Overcome with emotion, he was barely able to speak as he pointed to the painting that reminded him of his lost love. I soon became unable to speak as well. That moment in the night is one that I will hold close and remember always, his response was a gift to me and somehow my art was a comfort to him.

Last night was also a lovely reminder of how special the Fayetteville Underground is and how vibrant Fayetteville's art scene has become. The conversations, the interactions and the sheer number of people that attend First Thursday at the Underground is astounding. I feel very fortunate to live and work where I do and very proud of what I have helped the Underground achieve. My work has grown and expanded so much in the time I have had my studio at the Underground and my scope and reach within the art community both locally and internationally has as well. I am fortunate and grateful.

If you missed the opening of my exhibition, it will be on display throughout the month of September and gallery hours are W-F 12-7 and Saturday 10-5. Click here to listen to an interview on our local NPR station about the exhibitions at the Underground this month. If you have any questions about these works or would like to contact me personally about them or arrange for a tour of the show please don't hesitate to email me at megancha@gmail.com.

my paintings on the vault gallery walls

Thanks to all my friends near and far, my family, my art supporters and patrons. Thanks to my family of artists at the Fayetteville Underground. Thanks to Rodney Wilhite for the loan of his wonderful typewriter.

Love and thanks to Stewart Bremner for doing the impossible.

She is beginning...

I am pleased to share a selection of works from my latest series with you this week. Here are ten works from Sometimes I love you and other stories. There will be twenty-one works in total for the exhibition that will be held in the Vault Gallery at the Fayetteville Underground in September. That is only three weeks away! I am looking forward to completing the series and seeing it on the gallery walls and sharing it with the public. I have a lot of work to do in the coming weeks but it is getting exciting as I see the show come together. I will share more images with you here as it gets closer to the exhibition.

As always thanks for your support. I hope you enjoy this sneak peek. If you have any questions about these works please do not hesitate to contact me either in the comments below or email me directly at megancha@gmail.com.

Something like this
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

As in a dream
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

Silently and still
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

If there is a way
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

The closing of eyes
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

The most complicated plan
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

She is beginning
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

And they were victorious
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

Too far away
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

This strange sense of containment
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

Graphite lines & yellowed paper: a love story

a strange sense of containment
12x12" mixed media on canvas
© 2011 Megan Chapman

I've been busy in the studio this week and it has felt really good. I currently have sixteen new paintings under way for my upcoming exhibition, "Sometimes I love you and other stories." I have ten that are complete and some that are close. I have a lot more work to do and time feels like it is running out. I need to start thinking about my statement for this work and have the paintings documented for publicity purposes and my records.

I plan to work over the weekend and get a lot more done. I am very pleased with what is happening so far. These works are brilliantly white and clean, very spare and minimal. I have never been in love with pencil lines like I am in this moment. Then to top it off are the words, stray thoughts like poetry against the pages of discarded books, public letters to a distant lover embedded in the paint. To many this concept in my work will be brand new, to me it is a full circle moment. It was in the pages of discarded books that I found my voice in the B.F.A. program at the University of Oregon. Oh the stories I would spin! Some autobiographical and some completely fictitious. My scrawl across the pages, charcoal, pencil and white paint surrounding my words.

I am not returning to the past but perhaps I am righting my course. I have been working on that process for the last two years, starting in 2010 with the manual for living, the white series, maps of the night, the flashcards, and the letters never sent. These are all a part of one canon of work, perhaps my most intimate one.

I will always love rich layers of color, texture, space, and design based shapes. You can still find those works in my studio and in galleries but I will also love my monochromatic worlds that speak from my heart and that remind me of my story. I hope these new works will remind you of your story too.

Here is a scratchy outline of a possible statement...

Sometimes I love you and other stories...
September 2011
Vault Gallery
Fayetteville Underground

This series of paintings explores the kind of love that catches you unexpectedly. You always knew it was there somewhere on the planet but it was for other people. At the same time that this love sounds special or unique it is also ordinary and known. It is new and old at the same time. Never simple or easy it somehow fills the gaps within, making the core of the person it touches stronger. A rebuilding takes place after years of personal neglect.

Sometimes I love you and other stories represents the absence of fear and the challenges to our beliefs about ourselves, the world outside, and finding another soul that you can sometimes love. How do you paint a questioning love? How do you paint passion? The first moment you touch or the first argument? How do you paint the freedom and inspiration found in another?

I have no idea....but I can't wait to dive in and try.