My Etsy shop turned two years old this month, and to celebrate, I'm taking 20% off all items listed there. All you have to do is add items to your cart and then, upon checking out, click the link on the right that says something about adding a coupon code. Then you'll type in HAPPYBDAYWBH.

This is quite the discount for higher priced paintings but also great if you're in the market for smaller mason jar paintings. Just in time for the holiday season. This will only last through Monday, November 26, so make your purchases swiftly. Thank you!

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.

I had an epiphany a couple of weeks that it would be good for me to clean my studio out and quit looking at old work.

As a result, I am going to begin posting images of my old work here, and I need your help.

If you are interested in any of the pieces, email me at beth@bethmeadows.com.

You may pay the super low sale price OR we can make a trade.

Things I will trade for:

• artwork
• Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop lesson
• a photography lesson (I have a Nikon D50)
• a seamstress to alter clothing (mostly hemming)
• food/produce from garden
• fashion home decor/arhitectural magazines from the past year
• canvases
• fabric
• a new road bike (let me dream big)
• a truck (again, dreaming)
• any other ideas?

My only rule is that please don't be creepy. Thanks.

So here is the first piece of artwork:

This piece is 22.5 x 18.5"in the frame. The image floats on the black matte and the frame is pale yellow. 

It features a series of screenprints based off of photos I took at dusk while driving my car*

They were intended for a book, but I ended up framing several of the sets I made instead of binding them. I worked on this project during 2007.

$30 or trade me $30 worth of something: beth@bethmeadows.com

*I do not advocate this foolish behavior

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.

My friend texted me last night:

"If I was Martha Stewart, tomorrow I'd be boat tripping and picnic lunching on an island in Maine. Oh, and doing yoga."

When I read the text, it was 4:30 am* so my brain couldn't register what she meant. Then it hit me that she was referring to the calendar in Martha Stewart Living where Martha tells all the normal people who subscribe to her magazine all the outlandish things she'll be doing that month. It's really good entertainment.

It would be fun to start posting a calendar of my own here, so I can have a visual of how much my life is not like hers.

Yesterday's entry would have been:

July 31, 2012
Make myself sick off BBQ nachos at Smokies baseball game

***

I'm learning how important it is as an artist (and as a human being) to write down everything I think about doing. Everything. I think I may have hit a level of "planner/to-do list lunacy" however.

I have a planner to carry around with me, I have physical calendars of each month til Dec 2012 hanging in my studio, I have a calendar online, I have a dry erase board at home and in my studio, I have a sketch book, I have a bulletin board, and I've become a post-it fanatic at work and home.

The outcome of this is that I'm actually getting things done. Well, no. I'm getting a lot of things started, which is more than half the battle in most cases. It feels really good.

***

November 17, 2014
Assess whether my life is moving toward or away from resembling Martha Stewart's

***

I could use a little more glamor in my life, and because of that, I can't say I'm never jealous of Martha's Month. I would never want too much glamor, though. That way, I can enjoy reading what this cat and Car Talk say about these sorts of things and also keep pondering the ramifications of such a lifestyle.


* August 8, 2012
   Consider prescription for Ambien

Proper business technique teaches that you're supposed to embellish the truth about how successful you are and not geek out over things like getting in the paper, but...

Look! I'm in the paper!

Last week was the East Tennessee Community Design Center's 100 Block Party Fundraiser.

I donated the piece above to their auction. It's a photograph of the former Flynn Paint Building, located on the corner of Summit Hill and 11th Street, in a window from Knox Heritage Salvage.

I used to be obsessed with this building. Obsessed is an understatement. I'd drive out of my way to pass it, daydream about owning it. I wrote business plans for how I'd use it and contacted the owner to see if he'd sell it.

But I had no money to offer him. It sat for a few years until he converted it into a bar. And he desecrated the building in the process. I lament the way it looks now. People say, "At least it's saved." They don't understand. I was in love.

I've made several pieces about it since then. A muse never dies even when it dies.

My birthday is next week, and I have two wishes.

One, a hula hoop.

And two...

I would love, love, love if you purchased a ticket to my next art show.

I'm really excited about this exhibition. I'll be showing in Nashville for the first time next Thursday, June 21 at Mercy Lounge from 8pm to 12am. I've been asked by the organization Raw: Natural Born Artists to be a part of this monthly, multi-artist show.

It lasts one night and gives visual artists, musicians, fashion designers, photographers, and more a chance to showcase their work together. I will also have the chance to show in other cities nationwide through Raw once I show in Nashville.

Tickets are $10 and I have about 10 more to sell. To buy one from me, you can visit my Raw Artist Profile Page. If you'd rather not pay using paypal, you can pay me directly. Email me at beth@bethmeadows.com, and we can work it out.

I hope you can come, but even if you can't, you can still sponsor me by purchasing a ticket.

This is a small but huge way to support me and help me get the ball rolling to show in other cities.

It will also be a great start to my 28th year!