Elle/ Marc Jacobs

If you weren't able to make it to my opening at Bliss Home in Market Square last Friday, I hope you'll stop in this month to see it. And when you do, remember that everything's for sale.

I wrote an artist statement for this work, but I've been thinking about it lately and want to share more about the background, things from my life that have led to making these pieces.

I'm a very thrifty person, a scavenger of the unwanted. Most things in my home were free or bought at thrift stores. It's amazing what I've acquired for little to no money. Sometimes I wish I kept a running log, putting a monetary value on these things to see how much I've saved. I'll probably never do this, but it's interesting to think about.

Carolina Herrera

While I (absolutely) love walking the aisles of thrift stores, scouring the shelves of unwanted items, I've started to run into several dilemmas.

My instinct is to think to myself, "I must buy this ceramic cat. If I don't, who will? And all this potential will be lost!"

Possibly 50% of the time, I give into buying this object that's main purpose becomes to collect dust somewhere in my all ready cluttered apartment.

Sidenote One: I buy the ceramic cat because it speaks to me. I think, "This object is special; it draws me in and I should make it mine." I didn't realize until recently that you can be thrifty and materialistic simultaneously.

Sidenote Two: I promise I'm not like those people in hoarding reality TV shows. I have a lot of stuff, but it's not a medical condition. At least not yet. 

But an internal conflict for me has arisen recently, a tension I feel about a) wanting to hunt and gather lots of "stuff" and b) a deep, untapped desire to lead a minimalistic, well-designed, and streamlined life.

Pink Feathers

I moved recently and have been confronted with that amount of things I own, items that I have carted around from one place to the next. I give things to Goodwill almost monthly, and still, it's incredible how much stuff I have.

I have this dream of being able to pack all of my belongings in one car, in case I wanted to up and move somewhere exotic. There is a subconscious weight to the things we surround ourselves with.

I have another internal conflict: c) fighting the urge to buy lot of cheap things that will last a short time in order to buy fewer high quality things that will last, possibly, a lifetime.

Arizona Muse

Growing up, I had everything I needed to survive and more. My dad worked hard and my family was never in want. Maybe you could say my sisters and I were spoiled, but it was mostly in the quality of what we had or the experiences my parents gave us, but not in the quantity. We never had a room full of cheap plastic toys, but we had a wonderful two story playhouse that my grandfather and dad built us. And one Christmas we all got neon Nike jogging suits and a trampoline. We went on some great family vacations, too.

In regard to the things I surrounded myself with as a child supported financially by my parents, I can't say the style I had growing up was my own. I wore and placed around me things my parents gave me. It wasn't until I started driving that I began choosing my own clothes, but it really took years to develop and accept my innate sense of style. While my parents' and my tastes differ greatly, we do have at least one thing in common: an appreciation for good quality, a common ground that is very enjoyable as I grow older.

But now that I'm an adult and finally know that I have exquisite taste (read: expensive), the universe has played a cruel joke on my by giving me a very tight budget.

Celine

While I covet items in magazines, it can be tempting to think if I had more money, I could buy great style, but I know this isn't true. It just takes a little more effort when money is tight.

Being the artistic person I am (this is the reason I give for all my shortcomings), I tend to leave spaces disorderly and am not great at, that funny term, nesting.

It's something I think a lot about as a creative person. Knowing in your head what you want, how you want it to look, but missing the mark because of laziness or a lack of focus or discipline. I know I can make something look how it is in my head with the proper amount of time and effort. More often than I'd like to admit, I've slapped a lot of things together at the last minute, which makes no one happy. With a little time and patience, things will come out the way you imagined them to.

Joie

So this work that I've made for this show is inspired by the most cutting edge trends in fashion and design. I looked through the pages of magazines, found particular images for inspiration, and made these pieces using things around me, from thrift stores, mostly, or things that were free.

I used product packaging- mesh produce bags and plastic newspaper bags-, fabric that was given to me from retired seamstresses, and frames and transparency paper I found at thrift stores.

South by Southwest

In a comical way, I like to think of myself as that kid from American Beauty, having a fit over the  beauty of a plastic grocery bag floating in the air.

I'm not lying. I think there is a vast amount of beauty in an orange plastic newspaper bag.

I'm working more and more to make my surroundings (my home and my studio, even the inside of my car) beautiful in the way I believe they should be. I want to do this without overspending or accumulating too much. Really, having less might do the trick.

With my artwork, I'm taking the things that are accessible to me and giving a nod to the most current ideas in the fashion world today, something I admire greatly from my modest life afar.

Today, I feel a strong pull to be in the mountains, more severe than the usual beckoning. Work keeps me away, so I went on a walk instead, across the bridge that runs over the interstate exit by my apartment. Looking beyond the pavement, cars, and buildings, far off in the distance, I can see the Smoky Mountains. Well, not today, because it's hazy, but I imagined them there, and wondered why they were speaking so loudly today.

It's getting hotter. I walk outside and feel the symptoms of summer approaching, the constant dampness of certain areas of my clothing, the feeling of dirty hands- swollen and salty- personal attributes I have to accept for many months ahead.

Looking out from the city, I realize the mountains' allure is stronger when the seasons change.

Summer in the mountains means a cold but refreshing river and possibly a yellow tube. Lush green grass and trees. A soft path for miles upon miles.

It means other things, too. Bugs. The fear of snakes. A mixture of sunscreen and sweat in my eyes.

It's all meant to be taken in tangibly- good and bad.

It's not just any mountains that call, but the Smoky Mountains- soft, unintimidating, and welcoming from afar. Challenging and life-altering in their midst.

And there's not just any road to get me there, but the one through Townsend, past the Alcoa plant, the Drive-In in Maryville, the flea markets and antique shops scattered along the way, the boiled peanut man, the winding two-lane road through the smaller hills that opens up into that calm and peaceful valley- my favorite doorway to the Smokies.

I'm going soon, to properly welcome this looming southern summer.

I was interviewed recently by Jennie Everett Caissie for Blank Newspaper. You can view the story here on their website or read it below. Such an honor to be considered a Knoxville Girl!

Knoxville Girl: Beth Meadows

Salvaging Knoxville’s Art Scene 

KG: So, Knoxville Girl, are you originally from Knoxville?

Beth: No. I am from Memphis and I came to Knoxville in 2002 to study art at UT. When I graduated in May of 2007 most people I knew were moving but I decided to stay because I love the mountains and I had really started enjoying Knoxville. I remember the first time I went to First Friday. I was in college and I borrowed a bike and rode from campus to downtown and it was an exhilarating experience. I decided to do it every month. I felt like the Knoxville arts scene was really just starting to get going and I really wanted to be a part of it.

KG: A lot of kids like to draw and paint when they are young but lose that creative spark as they get older. What made you decide to study art in college?

Beth: When I was young I drew all of the time. I didn’t really know what it meant to be a professional artist but I knew I wanted to go to art school. But I did try to change my major several times in college because it scared me too much. I think mentally I wasn’t prepared to make the kind of work I really wanted to make. I just felt I wasn’t ready yet, if that makes sense. It takes a lot to be confident in your work.

KG: What is the oldest piece of your art your parents have on display at their house?

Beth: My parents are really sweet and they bought a lot of my artwork when I was in college. I am sure they have boxes and boxes of my art from over the years. My parents do have a painting hanging up that I made in high school. My dad took a photograph of a mountain landscape that I painted.

KG: You are quite an active blogger, from writing for The Sunsphere is Not a Wigshop to your own blog WithBearHands. How did you get involved as a blogger?

Beth: I was invited to be a writer for the Sunsphere is not a Wigshop blog not too long after I graduated. It was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. I wasn’t a big blog reader, but I loved writing and I eventually started writing way more than the other writers. There were seven other writers but I felt like I was the most active. We even won Best of Knoxville for two years. Our perspective for that blog was to pretend that we were tourists in Knoxville and that made me love Knoxville even more because I could look at it from the standpoint of what is new here, what have I not seen, and what can I go find out and share with other people. Then I started my own blog, WithBearHands, which now is a blog mostly about what I am creating right now. I really want to use my blog to promote art in Knoxville.

KG: A lot of artists have poor web presence but yours is pretty impressive. Do you have any formal training in web design?

Beth: I have a great friend named Luke who built my website in college. He is a genius. He taught me how to update it myself using code and really set me up for success. I also learned a lot from just being on etsy. The reason I started my own blog was that people on etsy have their blog and then move to Facebook. Anyone can do etsy and blogs but it just takes time.

KG: You also helped to start in the 17th Street Studios at Redeemer Church. Tell us about that.

Beth: I go to church at Redeemer Church in Fort Sanders and they weren’t using the second story of this wing of the church. Pastor Eddie Young, who does a lot with young people, said he didn’t know what to do with the space and I suggested artist studios. So in May 2010 I wrote a proposal with two other people and we submitted to the church and now we have about 13 artists working up there. It is really cool. Each artist has their own studio and there are common spaces too. Artists just apply to me, then there is an interview process, and it’s only $40 to $50 a month. But there is not any heat or air or running water on the floor. It’s kind of basic, but it is a great space to work.

KG: I started Knoxville Girl to introduce the un-sung heroes who do so much to make this community great. Do you ever do any volunteer work or donate your talents, art or time?

Beth: Recently I started in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and I just got matched so in a couple of months I will have my new Little Sister who is in sixth grade. I wanted to do it because I needed a challenge and this will definitely be a challenge! In college I did a lot of volunteer work but I mostly jumped from organization to organization. I even organized a play group at KARM. But my favorite experience was after I studied abroad I came back and decided to give rides to international students. It had been so awesome when people gave us rides over there. So I decided to do it at UT. My friend said it’d be creepy but I made flyers and put them up all over campus and I said if you are an international student I will give you a ride anywhere, just call me. I tried to organize other drivers but it ended up just being me. So I would take students to get their driver’s license or to the store and they started inviting me to parties and giving me gifts from their countries. And I still keep in touch with some of them from China and Macedonia and Romania… all over the world. I’ve never seen more appreciative people.

After college I started working for Knox Heritage as a volunteer. I was living in Maplehurst at the time and the buildings were falling apart and it just led me to Knox Heritage. They eventually hired me as their administrative assistant and then they hired me full-time to work in their salvage program, which was a dream come true because I love working with my hands and working with materials. I realized that so much of that needed to be recycled because people may not necessarily see the value in them so I started making artwork using materials from the salvage. I curate the “Salvage Show” for Knox Heritage, which has happened twice now. About 20 Knoxville artists make furniture and art out of the salvaged and donated materials and proceeds are shared by the artist and Knox Heritage.

KG: Knoxville has so much going on all of the time. What are some of your favorite things to do in Knoxville?

Beth: I’ve really started doing a lot of new things lately. The other night I went with a couple of friends to the Bearden Beer Market and we did their 5K where you run with a group of people then you drink beer afterwards. It was hard but I would love to keep doing it. I also have a friend who coordinates square dances at The Laurel Theater and it is so much fun. Of course I also still do First Fridays but right now I am in my studio a lot. Plus I love music but as an artist I am on a very limited budget so I love that Knoxville has so many amazing free art and cultural things to do. Basically, if it is free and cultural, I am there. Especially if there is beer! But really, anymore, I am up for whatever.

KG: This ought to be fun. Tell a little-known fact about you.

Beth: A little known fact about me is that I had open heart surgery in high school. But on a lighter note, I like some of Michael Bolton songs. The video for “Said I loved you... but I lied” has fire, flames and stallions, and a lady on the beach. I do like some cheesy music like that. That should be embarrassing enough.

KG: What would you like to see happen in Knoxville over the next five years?

Beth: I think the Knoxville art scene is on a good path, but we have not arrived. It needs a lot of work and the only way that will happen is if good artists can find the means to stay and work here. I stayed in Knoxville to help with that any way I can. I want to see higher standards of art and venues that display art in Knoxville and want to see more people in Knoxville buy artwork.

KG: Where can readers learn more about your art and upcoming projects?

Beth: I have a booth at the new Nostalgia on McCalla and I will have a show at Bliss Home in July, but mostly I am in my studio doing a lot of custom work so I don’t have a lot of shows planned right now. I also have a picture hanging in Bistro at the Bijou or you can also go visit Chyna Brackeen or Peggy Hambright. They have some of my art. But the very best way to visit my Facebook or blog WithBearHands or visit WithBearHands.com

KG: There are so many inspirational women in this town making a difference and changing peoples’ lives for the better. Who would you say is your “Knoxville Girl”?

Beth: Peg Hambright who owns Magpies Bakery. She is a baker and artist but she is an awesome business woman too. She does so well in communicating her product, her color-schemes, her designs, and how they sell themselves; she just does such a great job. She really inspires me.

This is the first painting I made for this series of black and gold paintings of pools.

Beth Meadows Pool I acrylic and varnish on canvas 18x24" 2012

I have this memory from childhood of walking out to a parking lot with my family and family friends at night after swimming at a public pool. My hair is wet, I have a towel wrapped around me, and my chlorine infused eyes blur the parking lot lights. 

The memory itself doesn't seem significant. There's also a chance it never even happened. I could have dreamed it or concocted it from reading books or watching TV.

Either way, it is now a painting.

You know how when someone's grandparent dies, people tend to ask, "Were they close?"

I've never thought too much about it, but this question has always made me feel weird.

In many ways, it feels like an unnecessary question, or an insensitive one. I know they don't mean it this way, but it's as if the person saying it is really asking, "How sorry should I be for this situation?"

Also, even if they weren't close, there could still be a lot of emotions to deal with in a situation like that. It's still a grandparent, the person that created the mother and father of the person. There can be a connection there emotionally even if there wasn't a tangible, physical one, right?

I guess another reason I feel like it's weird is because I grew up around my grandparents; I saw them all of the time, but did I feel close to them? Once I went to college, I saw them a couple of times a year and we never talked on the phone. I still felt very connected to them, but realized we knew very little about one another.

I'd long to be able to come home and sit next to them and hear them talk about when they were younger, but somehow, in the group dynamic of my family, those conversations rarely happened, and for whatever reason, I never made myself available to make it happen either- a great example of how my misgivings have kept my desires from becoming reality.

***

This past weekend, I sat on the edge of a hospital bed in Memphis and talked to my grandfather for an hour, just the two of us. I touched his hands and talked about boys and how I'm trying so hard to make my life work, to make art and buy food.

He told me about graduating from UT (he was the president of his class) and starting out as a milkman in Chicago. He later went on to manage and bring success to several dairies in the Southeast. He was an incredibly savvy businessman.

***

I'm an artist, and that is a longshot from managing a large national dairy, but I feel connected to him in this way, that we both forged/are forging an unknown and risky path, we both wanted/want something big, and we both started small.

I hope I have some amount of his business skill in my blood, buried deep down, waiting to be uncovered.

***

"Hold your chin up and count to ten," he told me before I kissed him goodbye and left the room.

I should be able to count to 1,000 now.

All the photos below are currently works in progress. I typically wouldn't show these photos but wanted to see if it might push me to finish them. 

I like anything that makes me think of Boo Radley and the gifts he would leave in the tree for Scout and Jem

which means I like the idea of the Little Free Library

which makes me want a house even more so that I could do something similar.

I don't know if she still does this, but Cynthia Markert used to laminate prints of her paintings and leave them around Knoxville. I know because I have one on my refrigerator. I found it stapled to a piece of plywood on an abandoned building downtown a few years ago. I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to take it, but the way it was presented made me conclude it was meant for its finder.

I know I don't have to own a home to imitate this secret giving and receiving. It's something I'm going to think more about

but not right now because I am up to my ears in unfinished work.

I had a studio visit with Kelly Hider (fellow artist and studio-mate) last week who told me that it might do me some good to finish up what I'm working on and then focus in on one specific project.

I've been thinking a lot about this, how I could take one thing that I'm thinking about and push it as far as it will go. I'm not sure if I'm that type of artist. I'm pretty scattered, except for the mason jar paintings, which is the most consistent series I've ever stuck with, but that's not really what I'm talking about anyway. There's nothing I'm trying to solve as I make the mason jars.

Kelly and I are extremes; she's been working on the same project for at least six months and will continue to work on it over the next year.

I can't imagine that I have that kind of focus in me.

Also, I've always had a weird feeling about Series. If I plan to make 6 similar paintings, by the time I'd get to Number 6, it would be so far removed from Number 1 that it wouldn't look like a series anymore. Is the point not to meander or is ok for thoughts and ideas to evolve? How could they not?

Right now, it doesn't matter. I'm making a bunch of work (partly due to to my FB hiatus) and feel like it's all funneling toward a focus that may come in the next year or so. It's enjoyable at the very least, and isn't that what it's all about?

The funny/annoying/great thing about being an artist is that you can never get away from it.

I always think about vacations, and how when I travel "away from work", I can't go anywhere without visiting an art museum or schools with an MFA program.

If I sit on a beach and read a book (wow, that hasn't happened in a long time), I can't turn my brain off to quit thinking of images that I could use later. If I stare at the ocean, I'm moved by the colors that make up the water, and how they look against the sky or the sand, and how that expanse relates to a tiny figure bobbing up and down. And then I think about how I could make something using all of those thoughts.

Going through a normal day, every idea, every material might have potential.

Actually, it's really not annoying at all.

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.