Posts in "folk"
Thoughts on Strong Women
I saw this old lady on TV a while back who lived in the mountains. Her hair was long and grey and she wore a pink nightgown. She grasped the rungs of a wooden ladder with her bony fingers to climb on top of her tin roof where she showed off apples she had laid out to dry. (The photo below is not her, but it reminded me of her.)


My dad and I went hiking last weekend in the Smokies near Wears Valley. It had been raining off and on, saturating the color of everything. When we reached the Walker Sisters Cabin, the rain stopped for a brief moment. I walked around in the silence, imagining what it would have been like to live there.


I did some reading about the Walker Sisters later. They refused to give up their home when the government began buying up land in the 1930s to form the National Park. Eventually they gave in in exchange for a lifetime lease so that they could spend the remainder of their days there.


I wonder about their lives, especially in regard to men and love. They were spinsters, but what was the reality of that? Did any of them ever fall in love or want to have children? Did any of them go on hot dates while the others stayed at home? Were they satisfied living a simple life together?

They were known for living traditionally and for possessing good character, so much so, they became a tourist attraction.

Imagine walking through the woods and seeing smoke rising from their chimney.


When I was in Namibia several years ago, I met a woman who raised Arabian Horses on a farm with her husband. She was overwhelmingly hospitable, kind, a woman full of virtue. We talked under an expanse of stars while she grilled meat from their game reserve for my friends and me. We only spent a few hours with her, but I'll never forget her for as long as I live.


I think about these women a lot, strong women living amongst nature because that's what they want. 

I imagine this kind of woman knows her worth outside of a romantic relationship, and if a man ever did come around that was worthwhile enough, she'd be the best lover of him. She would love out of fullness, not necessity.


Life can feel like it's racing by at a speed we can't keep up with, and simultaneously many women struggle with if they're doing enough, adding up enough, accepted enough.

Lately, I try to think about things, like

an old woman in a pink nightgown drying apples on her tin roof.
five sisters writing a letter to the government, refusing to give up their home.
a naturally beautiful woman leading a glossy horse by its reins.

I think about what and whom I've been given a capacity to love. What is right in front of me and am I taking care of it the best that I can?



These three songs


I couldn't go long without them.

The first has inspired a drawing I have yet to make.
The second, I've made a painting about.
The third makes me think of images I'll most likely never be able to express.
It works for me.


Next Show: Three Rivers Market
About twenty of my mason jar paintings and a couple of other pieces will be hanging at Three Rivers Market next Wednesday, May 30, through Sunday, July 1, so while you're shopping there over the next month, please take a look. If you've never been there, I suggest going for their hot bar at lunch. My co-workers are obsessed and I finally found out why last week. Delicious.

I'm excited because I think the mason jars will be perfect there, and it will be a good chance to see how they look all together. Everything will be for sale, and if you buy six or more mason jar paintings, they are $5 off each.  They will also be available via my Etsy shop, and as they sell, I'll keep adding more to the wall at Three Rivers, so feel free to purchase however you'd like.

Here are a few that I've recently listed on Etsy:


Preserves No. 111

Preserves No. 109

Preserves No. 110






Hope you can stop in.

Work by Beth Meadows
May 30- July 1, 2012
Three Rivers Market
1100 N Central Street
Knoxville, TN 37917
Open 9am to 10pm Everyday
They're Baaaack
After almost a four month hiatus, guess who's back...


Above, I hold in my hand Preserves No. 100. I finally made it this week for my friend Alice, as promised about a year ago.

gold painted edges

My goal is to make five a week. Ambitious? Yes. Feasible? Yes/I think so/We'll see. Ha.

Preserves No. 101 for sale here

Though they're similar to the ones I made last year, you may notice a difference in them as I begin listing them.

There has been a shift in my work lately with color, as I have been drawing inspiration from current fashion and music. It's showing up more and more in my work, so it makes sense that it would happen here. Neons and metallics are a go-to at the moment for me.

hot pink painted edges

It reflects my sensibilities lately, to take an iconic object like the mason jar and give it a modern flair. Pop culture meets folk art, I suppose you could say.
All my heroes are dead*
That's not true, but

I've been checking out a lot of documentaries from the public library lately. The cold and my wallet have been inspiration.

I wasn't so sure, but it's becoming one of my favorite things. It's like school without tuition or papers... or reading.

I watched the first season of PBS's Art 21 about a month ago. I have this feeling we watched it in one of my drawing classes, but I can't remember. That's the thing with me and information- we love and then we lose each other.


One of the first episodes features Margaret Kilgallen. Even if I had seen her work while in school, it may have not mattered then, but it matters now.


She talks about seeing hand-painted signs for businesses around San Francisco. She loves their simplicity, their crudeness. She draws on trains and she makes massive murals of folk-inspired text and images on gallery walls.


It's a little troubling to realize someone else (over a decade ago) has all ready made the work you have dreamed of making. At the same time, it's a relief to know there's someone else out there that's a kindred spirit, that likes what you like and is a bad-ass at making what you kind of maybe thought about making (but probably never would have to the extent they did).

It's also exciting to think about what you can learn from art someone else has all ready made, how it can propel you like a pinball lever somewhere else.

***
I watched the documentary Beautiful Losers a couple of nights ago. Margaret was in that one, too. It included some of the same footage of her from Art 21. Why?

At the end you learn Kilgallen died after giving birth to her daughter.

(No)

I did some reading on the specifics. "Though diagnosed with breast cancer, Kilgallen opted to forgo chemotherapy so that she might carry a pregnancy to term.**" She died as a result in 2001 at 33.

A talented artist ends her career, her marriage, her life through sacrificial love.

(Sigh)

***

If she was alive, I would have liked to have written her a letter, maybe invite her to come to Knoxville. I think she would have liked it.



***

This came on while I wrote this.


*Also, this guy.
**Wikipedia