4 a.m. and I was there...

After last week's blog I was inspired to attempt to work in my studio, early in the morning just like the old days. I am very happy to report that I did and it was great! It was a cool, dark morning as I drove through the sleepy town streets and then entered the massive old bank building that houses my studio at the Fayetteville Underground. I thought I might get creeped out being in such a large space alone, but I really wasn't. I made some tea, turned up my music loud, shut the door and I was off. I was so happy, I was jumping up and down in victory, singing and having fun. I started two new paintings that I am pleased with and took pictures of my studio again (see slide show above). I don't know how many pictures I now have of my studio. I guess it is a sort of proof that it exists and of course a record for the future. Sometimes it feels like a set and I just go there to play artist, but then when I look around at all the paintings and look at my blocks project on the table and everything else I am working on that is art related, I know I am not playing anything. This is my life and I am fully engaged in being an artist. I have proof all around me and in photographs, for when I lose my way, and I will lose my way...

Did I ever get back to my studio at 3 or 4am the rest of the week? No, I did not. Did I work on the paintings I had started that wonderful morning? No, I did not. Did I get angry and down on myself? Yes, I did. But I am still celebrating the day I worked and the day I triumphed at 4a.m.

Everyday we paint is a victory. Everyday that we dream, think, read, and write about art creates the important background noise that make those victories possible and they count just the same.

Here is a sneak peak of one of the new works in progress.
Thanks for reading my blog, for commenting, for thinking and dreaming with me. Onwards and upwards...


PS. Last night was First Thursday art walk on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8pm. I just want to say it was another wonderful event; what my town has done in a few short months to create a cohesive and powerful art scene is nothing short of amazing and inspires me no end. I enjoyed talking with all the folks that came to the Underground as well as walked through my studio. Thank you to ddp gallery, The Fayetteville Underground, Mayor Lioneld Jordan and the city of Fayetteville for making this all come together. Thanks to all the wonderful patrons of the arts that come to enjoy, encourage, and support the artists working in the community. We are grateful.

Shake me skyscraper...

all that is left behind © 2009 Megan Chapman

I am awake at 4am to bring you the Friday Studio Blog. I was pulled here by the strong winds of my dream, another Tornado dream (I have always had tornado dreams). Thanks to everyone who commented last week and joined the conversation about the "job" of an artist and the mystery of the world. I really appreciated the response and it always gives me new hope for this blog.

Today's entry will be a little more free flowing, with less of a theme. Perhaps some pictures of my studio in a truer state than you have ever seen; an homage to the hopes of Fall, or to the talented soul of Paul Banks who always seems to plug into my head in the most perfect way to shake me up in all the right ways... Let's see what happens.

1. Studio.
As some of you know, I moved into a studio outside of my house and downtown this past May. This idea thrilled me to no end. Thoughts of being free of the clutter and personal traps of home, being around other artists, being a bit more professional with a "real" studio to meet potential patrons, and a steady downtown presence for my work along with the ddp gallery (across the street gallery that represents me). However, I am going to just admit that I have a love/hate relationship with my new studio. I have painted and rearranged it twice, bought more and more lights for it, a new flash studio stereo (we know how I am about my music). Anything to make it better, brighter, and more enticing.

The main problem is the way I started to create a little over a year ago, and that was at 3am. I loved waking up at 3am like a bolt ( there are so many of my old posts that allude to the power of 3am) and stumbling up my steep stairs to my attic studio to paint. Something so appealing about being up at the wrong time, watching the dawn come to life slowly and seeing the lights come on in houses, and knowing I had already worked. I can't talk to people and then work, I can't think about business and then work, I can't worry about you and then work (well, maybe some of you). Anyway- my creative brain just won't stand for any interference from outside sources. It will, but the results never feel as good or strike as hot and fast as they do when I am undisturbed. I use this serene dream/wake time to really let go on the canvas, or even the time spent with my camera. Speaking of my camera, at least I have that- and I do take the majority of my photographs first thing in the morning and this practice has relieved some of the loss I feel from not painting in the wee hours. Maybe someday I will be comfortable enough to roll out of bed and drive to the studio in my pajamas to listen to blaring music, sing and paint at 3am.

Successful art making for me comes right from the edge of sleep, with loud music, singing and dancing. I miss those 3am days. I am determined to make it work somehow... I would love to know where your successful art making comes from? Do you have a set of variables that come together to help you dive into that creative magic time?

2. The Fall.
The Fall is fast approaching, and it is to me the most inspiring, melancholic, and hopeful time of the year. I find it very transporting. A couple years ago I wrote a post about Fall before anyone really read this blog... I think some of my feelings about the Fall and how much it means to me are still valid and worth a revisit. Click here to go back in time. Feel free to share your season of inspiration and passion.

3. Paul Banks (aka Julian Plenti).
If you have been reading this blog long enough or if you know me, you know I love the band Interpol, as they have been a constant source of inspiration for my work for the last 4 or more years. Their three albums, assorted b sides and bonus tracks, videos, and the 4 times I saw them live woke me up from a dull sleep. They got me interested in music again, and in going to see live music again. Music has always been one of the most important things in my life, and it has always taken me away to new places and provided the atmosphere and soundtrack to my life, dreams, and art. Anyway, Paul Bank's is the lead singer of Interpol, and he just released a solo album under the name "Julian Plenti" earlier this month, and I am so excited and inspired! I had been waiting for Interpol to release their 4th album, and I will continue to wait as the 4 of them together create my soul's music, but having a new offering by Mr. Julian Plenti will certainly tide me over in the meantime. As I type, one of his songs is on repeat and I am caught in between the lush wall of noise and his melodic voice. I can't tell you how excited I am to paint, photograph, write, do anything to this album. I have the wind in my sails again. When I discovered his new album, I was shaking as I gave it the first listen through. Oh yes. Julian Plenti...Is Skyscraper will be the soundtrack of my fall. Do you have bands or musicians that have such a strong effect on you?

Here are some samples from the Talented Mr. Plenti ( his album is available on itunes for less than $8.00 or even cheaper directly from Matador)

Skyscraper.
H.



"Babe you played my heart, but the way that you played, it was art...
Oh, this is how we learn."

Questions in a world of blue...

I was feeling stumped again for blog material..

Not sure how much longer I can keep this up, I don't want this blog to go away but I don't want to just write filler or waste your time either. Anyway, I asked some friends on facebook for some suggestions for blog topics this week and I received many great ideas. Here is the one I thought I could run with for today's post.

Kelly Price-Colston (fellow Fayetteville Underground Studio mate and talented artist) Asks : In such a consumer market with fast food, one hit wonders and instant gratification- what is the role of the artist now, and in the future... in your opinion?

Painter Francis Bacon said, "The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."

I have to agree with Bacon's statement. Mystery is what I am looking for in the art I make, view and buy. As Kelly alludes, we are stuck in this fast food world, just spinning our wheels, looking for quick fixes to fill the voids we may carry or to transport us away and numb us. We often go for the quick fix, looking for the next item du jour, and a side of fries with that, while we spin faster down the road towards the next mindless binge and purge. This does not sound very mysterious at all.

So what is the artist's role in this fast and sick world? I think our role is to get people to slow down long enough to feel again. To transport them away deep inside a work of art and perhaps into themselves or even allow them into our mind and get them to see things from our point of view. Perhaps it is a bit like taking a world encased in grey cinder blocks and neon, littered with burger king wrappers, and the hum of bad mass produced pop music and transforming it into a lush place covered in thick red velvet drapes, ambient light, brimming with poppies and the music of Eric Satie.

The artist's job is to provide solace for the soul even if just for a moment. I am not saying all art needs to be sweet and easily digestible, but that it offers some sustenance that the viewer is not finding in the "regular" world. Most art is one of kind and made by human hands and humbly so; just in the way it is made helps to remind the viewer of the value of humanity and the peace that comes from slowing down. Perhaps our job as an artist is also to remind people to live their dreams and that sometimes it is more important to be a bit poor and do what you love, than to be caught up in the rat race of society. Artists bring value, clarity, thought, and beauty into the world while at the same time artists question, push boundaries, and explore the dark places.

I think our job has been constant throughout time and will continue that way in the future, to be a job of sacrifice in order so that the world may awaken, feel and experience great beauty, innovation, pain, and of course a deepening mystery...

What is your opinion? Feel free to discuss in the comments.

Becoming Extinct
© 2009 Megan Chapman
100 flashes of memory

Come inside...

The week flew by.
I've been working on a few paintings.
The blocks of 100 flashes are resting.
The photographs keep coming each day.

Here is a tour of some paintings around my studio, some done and undone. Some are just experiments. Poke around and enjoy your stay.
Until next week.
Onwards...

Edit: My friend and fellow artist, Stephanie just alerted me to a great blog she posted about our first Thursday Art walk here complete with pictures from the ddp gallery that represents my work and the Fayetteville Underground where my studio is. Please check her post out- for even more pictures! Click Here

John Hughes : Some kind of wonderful

Last night, I was busy running around being an artist at another successful first Thursday opening for the Fayetteville Underground and the ddp gallery. Once it all settled down and I was sitting down, I was told the very sad news that director John Hughes had died. I was stunned. Today, this blog is dedicated to the man who helped to make the 1980's a great decade in which to be a teenager.

John Hughes seemed to show a more artful and more interesting side of teenage life. He had the jocks and geeks, parents and teachers but then he also had those unique and off beat characters, and I could see and understand myself just a little better through them.

John Hughes films were a constant in my early teenage years. I am lucky I was alive during his heyday and was able to see them when they came out in the theatres. Being a teenager is hard work, John Hughes made it seem more manageable and even at times glamorous. I would not be the person or artist I am today without the films written, directed, or produced by John Hughes.

Thank you Mr. Hughes.

Update: 100 Flashes of Memory

Oh where to start... my pet project merging my photography with a type of poetry, conceptual art, and music has been very interesting and a bit frustrating for me so far. A lot of thinking, talking, and writing has gone into it, without many results. Many experiments, but no real results; and many rants to my dear friends about this lack of results...

While I am writing this, I have another set of "experiment" blocks (I think this is the third set sacrificed) on the table in the other room, waiting for the next step. This fabled next step that will turn them from mere assemblage into art. This is the final step that has been going awry in all my experiments so far. As I write this I am feeling a bit more hopeful, that perhaps I have learned a few things in the past few weeks and that I am streamlining my process and that tonight might be the night. Truthfully, I am a bit scared to take the next step as I don't want to be proved wrong and go back to square one again.

I also know that this project is becoming a metaphor for my life. I am at a crossroads, I have the concepts but I am not sure of the next step. I find myself feeling a bit back at square one. I am a little scared and a little excited.With the recent gallery closure, and an overflowing inventory, I do wonder sometimes about the gallery system and if it can sustain me. I enjoy promoting my work, and I like having a certain amount of control in that process. I have seen many younger artists really maximizing use of the Internet so that they do not only rely solely on the gallery system. I have tried a bit of that route as well, as you know. Anyway, without getting too specific, I feel like I have many options that are available to me, that perhaps I have pushed away, because I was tied up in galleries or I assumed the gallery would take care of that for me. Don't get me wrong I am not knocking any galleries that represent me and my work. I am just saying that I have dropped the ball a little bit here and there and because of this, sometimes my art career has felt like it veered off the road. However, I keep correcting and keep on the path.

It is all a big experiment. I do not know the answers. I try some things on the path and learn a long the way. Perhaps I have gotten a bit complacent, or afraid to try and take much needed risks as they might have yielded only failure. Or not even failure but the experience of just trying something new. It is that feeling of not knowing what the hell I am doing that is so uncomfortable but yet is also so worthwhile. It is so easy to become stuck in a rut, producing the same work day in and out, just because you know how. At the same time you may not be challenging yourself enough to keep motivated, to keep learning. It is hard to find that balance.

Anyway, by working on these blocks I have been learning all sorts of things about the project and about myself as well. I forget how second nature making my kind of paintings has become and while that doesn't make them less than, it does keep me locked into a type of comfort zone. My safe abstract world, of color, texture, shape and form.

Today, I was in the studio planning on just being around my things and not working. I looked at one of my abandoned paintings on the easel and it just opened up before me and told me what color it needed and where it needed it. This was something that took me only twenty or thirty minutes, but the feeling I had while listening to that painting was so reassuring. It wasn't about fighting against the tide, it was about just being there, listening and following. It felt so good. I didn't finish the piece and I didn't push on, I just listened for those few minutes and felt the pleasure and relief of painting.

I am not sure if I would have had that experience, if I hadn't been fighting against these blocks. They have been challenging me in different ways, so that when the painting called I could relax into it and go with the flow. Then tonight when I got home, the blocks also seemed to open up just a tiny bit and tell me where to go next with them.

I have tried many things with the blocks of 100 flashes of memory, copper and silver leaf, distressing the leaf, printing photographs on opaque photo paper and gluing them on top of the leaf, printing the photographs on self adhesive transparency paper, covering the blocks with epoxy resin, wax, glue, and now the leaf has changed to silver spray paint, and I am about to build a mold of sorts and plan to try the epoxy resin yet again. I have written on them, have rub off letters for them, and now an inky pen is seeming better to write certain words or fragments around the edges....this has all included many trips to art supply store, and asking people for advice.

I still have not done the crucial last step, (the coating of the blocks) but I am feeling hopeful. I have to remind myself the end result isn't always the goal, but the process of working, just having my hands moving, my mind thinking, just my headphones on and flowing is really the best success.

I am learning this slowly. I will forget it again as well.
But for today, I remembered.

I dedicate this post to you, on the days you remember and on the days you forget.


Pictured above
selections in progress from
100 flashes of memory
before the final step
© 2009 Megan Chapman

And the winner is...

We have a winner in last week's paper painting give away! Congratulations goes to Bookgirl! Please contact me and let me know where to send your paper painting. I am grateful to everyone who read and or commented last week. You really gave me a boost of interest in this blog as well as filling me with inspiring ideas of things you would like to read about in the future. Thanks for all your positive comments.

My studio is overflowing with all my work I recently brought back from the newly closed gallery in Little Rock. I updated my website to reflect the closing and to show where all my work is represented now. You can visit my available paintings here. At some point I took the podcast section down on the site and I do plan to put it back up in the near future along with some new podcasts. For those of you new to my work and interested in my process or learning more about the nuts and bolts of what inspires me to create my paintings, there is an interview on my website that I did a while ago that gives a lot of good basic information about me and my art that you might enjoy.

Since my studio is over flowing with inventory currently, I decided to have a sale for the next month on a small selection of my larger works.I created a slide show that features 9 paintings from an older body of work from 2006-2007. Almost all of the these are my largest sized works (40x30") that usually retail for $1,200 but now they are on sale through the DDP gallery for only $975. There is also one medium sized work in the mix (30x24") that usually retails for $725 but is now only $650.The ddp gallery takes credit cards and makes payment plans! I hope you can benefit from this sale that will last until August 20th. Contact Dede Peters of the DDP gallery for more information or let me know if you have any additional questions about these paintings or this special sale.
http://www.ddpgallery.com/
479.442-0001

This week has been a bit slow, just getting back into the swing of things by looking at all my work, taking stock, trying to find places for it all and figuring out where to go next. Next week I plan to really focus on 100 Flashes of Memory. Hopefully having some good solid results by the end of the week. Thank you again to everyone who has ever read, commented on, encouraged and inspired these posts and my work as an artist. Your time is valuable and that you choose to spend some of it with me, reading my words is very special to me.

Keep fighting- onwards and upwards.

I just want to leave you with a few music videos of songs that have been on heavy rotation in my world lately.







Photograph posted above
"Wednesday"
© 2009 Megan Chapman
all rights reserved