It's No Game

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Obstacle 2

Return to me 
mixed media on canvas 30x26"
Megan Chapman 2006
private collection

Hello, there studio blog readers, 

Thank you to everyone who read last week's post. I appreciate hearing from you across my social media channels. Always good to get feedback, hear if something resonates, or just to see a friendly hello, a name and a face. 

Today I am up at dawn monitoring the breathing of my cat, feeling how small he has become and how soft and delicate. I turn the light on in the darkness to see how his eyes look and I plot my next course of action. He needs to eat - today is the day I open the forbidden small tin of food - to mix some in with his prescription that he only licks these days. He needs subcutaneous fluids too. And after the sub-Qs, he will get a bit of an equally forbidden lick-e-lix treat. We have played by all the rules for so long, we have done our very best, and now we are tired - we need a few rewards. 

Before warming the fluids and brandishing the needle, I tidy up the kitchen and let him linger by his water bowl unsuspecting. As he sits "turkey style" staring into nothing and everything, I look out the window watching the world wake up. I put things in order, walking quietly for some reason and yet moving with decisive action. It reminds me of the past. 

It reminds me of hearing the calling at 3am and rolling out of bed to float up the stairs to my attic studio to put on my headphones and get lost in music and paint. Dancing upstairs with Alizarin Crimson, Orange Oxide, Gold, and Phalo Blue...  

"I'm gonna pull you in close

I'm gonna wrap you up tight

I'm gonna play with the braids that you came here with tonight..."

(I am back there now - dancing in the attic to Interpol - walking and working in dream time, painting for you and you and you and I am still in my 30s and it seems like all the doors are still open). 

And then the track changes and I am back sitting here at the table. My sick cat is resting, tears are close to my eyes and I am 51 living in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have closed a lot of the doors and I have had more than a few closed on me...

And I am sitting with all this space and I envision doing something out of the ordinary - you know like painting or drawing... How did this happen? 

The embarrassment is not mine

I like to listen to music that embarrasses me. 

I know the embarrassment is not mine but society's, so I disregard it and power through but this is still harder than you might think. 

I am "rocking out" in the sun of this spring day to a song from 1987 if I remember correctly but the band has been shunned by those in the know due to the singer's perceived massive ego and god complex. Fair enough, but the song while cringey, delights me. I won't listen to the album but I will listen to this song on repeat. 

I am young again and I can remember wanting certain things in my life and yet not knowing much at all about living. 

I am trying to remember what I want again and I still feel like I know nothing much at all. But the sun is in my eyes and the guitar slices through the air bringing with it momentary empowerment and dare I say hope. 

That's what "good" and "bad" art can do - it can change us, it can shake us and make us remember. Art wears a groove so deeply while it partners with our memories and melds with our emotions, that perhaps we can no longer watch that film, read that book, hang that painting, or listen to that album - it's like sad time travel. 

But sometimes, we can delve into the magic and feel better for it. It opens the door and welcomes us home.

"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

Looking back, to look forward.

Let's go back in time....

February 28 1998
"...This term is almost over, 2 more weeks till finals and then spring break. This term has been pretty good. I like my art classes and my Spanish teacher is good. I've really enjoyed Photography and my teacher Lorena. Sculpture has been okay, I've done one project I like. Painting is okay too, I like my teacher again. Next term I am taking painting, drawing, Spanish, and independent study (more painting). It should be interesting. During spring break I'm going to clean out the basement for my studio. My friend Krista gave me a really nice book on Basquiat, it is a really nice book. I have been doing a little research into the NYC art scene of the 80's. Reading Keith Harring's journal. By reading his journal, I have much more of an appreciation for him and his art. He is a good thinker and writer. I am just so curious about what makes people create art, and do I have the need to create? Why am I in Art school? Am I really passionate about anything?I feel like a faker sometimes, I am not obsessed with art and it seems like you need to be in order to create good things. I don't know. Also, after reading Keith's journal mine looks like JR. High school. I don't contemplate or analyze. I need to think more, (less in some cases though)..."

April 18 1998
"...I'm painting a really big painting and I'm kinda stuck. It bugs me, but time will solve it, I 'm sure. Sometimes, I forget I'm expressing myself. It seems like I get lost and go on someone else's emotion (music) etc. The apartment is trashed because of my painting..."

Almost a year's gap...

March 19 1999
"...It is Spring break, I only have ten more weeks of college left and I'll have my B.F.A. in painting. Exciting and Scary. After school, heading back to Fayetteville in August. To do what, I don't know... I have tons of ideas but who knows what will really happen. I just turned 27. Seems older than 25 or 26, getting close to 30!..."

April 5 1999
"... I am on campus waiting to have my review with my painting teacher, Laura Vandenburg, she wants to see what we've been up to. I want to remember some of my painting and art teacher's names in case they get famous...

• Ron Graff- painting/drawing
  
• Carla Bengston- painting/drawing
  
• Cara Tomlinson- painting/drawing
  
• Laura Vandenburg- painting
  
• Dora Natella- sculpture/design
  
• Lorena Turner- photography
  

I've had some really good teachers here..."

April 10 1999
"... my BFA terminal show is in 5 weeks. I have so much work to do but I've been having some good ideas. I better jot them down before I forget them..." (see image to the left for these ideas)

April 16 1999
"... Back to Art, my show is in 4 weeks. I am not doing any work. I can't motivate. I can't write, it takes too much effort like everything else. Maybe- I should just have another coke and see what's on TV..."



April no date 1999
"...my life is a mess yet calm and proceeding right on schedule too. My show is in 2 weeks, and of course I will graduate in June. My hands look old..."

May 12 1999
"... my show is on Monday! I'm excited but nervous too. What if they don't get it? What if they don't take the time? I just want to hide. My face gets all hot, red, and stingy when I talk about my show. I spaz out about it, too excited and sweaty, it leaves me tired and wanting a drink. I am listening to Tom Waits- Rain dogs. Sometimes he sounds so right..."

May 21 1999
"... Well. Today is the last day of my show. I'm sitting in it. It comes down in about 3 hours. The opening was a big success. I was pleased. People responded the way I had hoped. They sat on the couch and they read the books. They laughed, they read out loud, they seemed touched. Of course some people just walk by. Some are confused and don't know what to do. It is a bit sad when they look over at my work and just walk on by, so into only what is on the walls. They don't want to touch, dirty old books. Anyway, it was a good experience, I kept costs low, but gave a good show. I stuck to my guns whether or not it was completely accepted.

I will always want more..."