This blog has had one public follower (or what I like to call, a member of the With Bear Hands Dream Team) since almost the beginning, and her name is Alice Mayo.

Alice, because of your public affection for me/this blog. I would like to give you something. What do you want? A mason jar?:






















a drawing of you and your pretty red hair, done in a similar manner as this?:






















 (note: I'll probably end up drawing you anyway, even if you don't ask me to)

I want to say thank you, so show me how.

As for the rest of you nice people lurking in the shadows, may this be incentive to check back here in the future. I'm up to my ears in artwork, and I may just use this blog as a means to play out a fleeting moment of generosity.

I've been having trouble writing recently. I keep starting posts and not finishing them. My words feel forced, and I can't find the right words to express anything.

During this mental block, here is a list of some things I wish that I had the eloquence to write about, to hopefully ignite a journalistic flame.

1. my most recent painting about a man and a woman and their similarities to Cyclops and Athena

2. how I am about to go part time at Knox Heritage starting next week and how this makes me anxious, nervous, and extremely excited

3. how I hope that more time to work on certain projects does not turn into me lazing about my apartment with Juicy

4. my recent infatuation with intelligent, kind, and respectable men rather than my former infatuation with... the opposite...

5. how surprising the depth of my sadness is that my neighbor Hunter and his dog have just moved

6. how tornadoes have got me thinking about my masked materialism

7. how my last trip to the mall was transformational, how it resulted in me going on a jog instead of drinking beer, and how I can't get my mind off a particular purple BCBG dress (bizarre)

8. how I really want shoes that are "architectural" (also bizarre)

9. wondering if one can be fashionable and not materialistic at the same time

10. the BS that is existentialism

11. moving to a bigger city

12. how another friend moving away has gotten me thinking about my past inability to be honest with others/myself, and my current gratefulness to be in a healthier emotional state

13. how the selling of my grandfather's lakehouse feels like him dying again and also like closing a door to my childhood

14. how wanting to lead a simpler life has me wondering what that means for all the boxes I've filled over the years with the intention to make scrapbooks

15. how trivia night might be the most productive way to drink beer

16. The lore of Juicy- how she came to me, why I love her, and why she makes me not want to have children

17. the intricacies of being friends with males (and by friends I mean just friends)

18. How the moving away of friends means the probability of new people to enter my life. I wonder who the lucky ones will be...

19. How I've been incessantly listening to dance music, the reasons and implications of this (listen at your own risk/don't judge me)

20. How, like John Mayer (who I used to make fun of my freshman year roommate for listening to, but now I admittedly really like), I desire for myself and the people I love to be able to say what's on our minds and in our hearts.

On that note that makes me feel a little vulnerable, here's to future eloquence.

I'm suing Fancy Feast for stealing my diary and making a commercial about my hopes and dreams.

I am slow when it comes to experiencing all things pop culture. The most probable explanation for this is that I am cheap. I don't like spending money going to movies nor on Netflix. I don't spend money on music but wait for people to make me mixes. (Pandora was made for people like me). I don't have cable and don't watch TV at home. I do watch Hulu, and am learning the wonders of The Modern Family (and Glee), so there's that. I could pirate things, I suppose, but I don't have the time or mental capacity to figure out how to break the law. All this is to say, I have always been and may always be a little pop-culturally stunted.

I've embraced this quality of mine, but I say it to explain why it took me four years to watch the pilot episode of Mad Men.

I was hanging out with my neighbor last Thursday, driving back to our apartment building after walking around downtown with his dog. He (my neighbor, not his dog) likes Mad Men and has told me I should watch it. So he says to me, "Beth, when we get home, we should drink Aniversario and watch Mad Men." (He is on an Aniversario Rum kick.)

I don't know why, but the way his words resonated in my ears, it was one of the best ideas I had heard in a while. It was beautiful out, so we sat out on our porch with a laptop, sipping rum out of Styrofoam cups.

I realize it would be lame to go into detail about the show because I know it's not novel to be obsessed with Mad Men, but I'll say this. I'm obsessed.

At first, though, it made me sad. The main character is a slutty married man when you get down to it, but I know there's more to it than that.

My thoughts on the show aren't riveting or new to anyone who's been watching it from the beginning, but... I'm drawn to how well they convey the complexity and depth of being human, showing how what one deals with on their own affects everyone around them. I also find it intriguing how they show the stress and struggle of Don Draper, a man who can get anything he wants, without him saying much. He is smart, alluring, and intoxicating. He's also unhappy.

And, it is visually stunning. Mmm, the colors.

I am three episodes in because there are only three episodes on the first DVD. A sad fact is that my neighbor is moving soon which means the rest of the DVDs will be moving with him. He told me I could and should watch all three seasons in two weeks, which I don't doubt I could, but I've decided against this. It would be better to spend our last days as neighbors sipping rum out of Styrofoam cups on our porch with his cute dog nearby than locking myself in my apartment and burning my eyes out trying to watch every episode. And I personally know my fair share of mad men. I can watch them to get my fix in the meantime.

With spring in the air and a lot of angst deep down, I am ready to make some new paintings.

I spent today rearranging and cleaning my studio after the tornado named March blew through. I am moving things out, too, to make some space, mostly for my head.

I am rearranging my schedule as well, in order to make more art, as soon as May. I am excited; I am scared, mostly of not knowing how long it will take until I grow tired of eating cereal two meals a day.

I'm anticipating something new and good.

Today I went to see a man about a barn.















Well, it's not technically a barn anymore. The tornado that plowed through Greenback, Tennessee a couple of weeks ago blew it down. My photojournalist friend Adam was out there taking photos, met the man who owns it, and told him he would tell me to contact him, which I did. 

It took the man about a week to call me back, but once he did, things moved quickly. Two days later, today, I went out to see him.

I posted on Facebook that I needed a friend to go with me on a salvage adventure, you know, so someone could protect me from rape and murder, JIC. Tracy decided to come along with me.

So this morning with Old City Java coffee (and their Lox bagel adorned with pesto cream cheese which is one of the best things I've ever eaten) in our bellies, we made the 45 minute drive to Greenback. After passing all of the over-development* that is Alcoa Highway and Maryville, the drive actually became very pretty. We passed farmland, barns, silos, and old farmhouses.

We finally arrived and there I met Bob. I introduced him to Tracy, and Bob said, "Tracy, I've seen you on TV." Cue Tracy's laugh.

Immediately following, Bob's cell phone started blowing up. Popular man. In the meantime I took some photos.





























Beauties lying in the sun















Where is the Metrognome? Why, he's in Greenback.

Bob asked if I was going to post the photos on Facebook to find a buyer, to which I replied, "You really know what's going on, Bob. Do you have a Facebook page?" to which he replied, "No, but all my friends do."

He is right. I will post them on Facebook and some other places. I don't know that much about barn wood, but I know that people are crazy for it and that I've been waiting for this moment for a while.

On the way back, I stopped to take some photos of the sites. I want to know what this yellow flowering plant is. Do you know?





























*The one good thing about the over-development. What a sign.
















When we passed by this van in a field, I said, "That reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite," to which Tracy replied, "How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?"

I'd be willing to bet you could, Tracy.

I'm not going to lie. The end of March almost killed me, but I asked for it. I had two art openings the night of April 1, one solo show at Magpies and The Salvage Show which was my first shot at curating. Although it was fun, I vow never to take on that much while also working full time.






















What made things even trickier was that a nine day family vacation to Colorado fell smack dab in the middle of the month. This meant a week not making work, but it also meant time to think and talk about being an artist at a distance from my studio. I had some great conversations with my family members, especially my "cousin" (I still don't really know what her exact relation is) Catherine who had previously bought a painting from me but had never had a chance to ask me about it.

It amazes me how I never tire from talking about making art. The older I become, the more immersed I am in it. I have to catch myself when I realize I've been going on and on, but I'm always happy for a chance to talk with anyone who has honest questions about the things I make.






















On this subject, I had an interesting thing happen to me on the way back from Denver. My sisters, brother-in-law, and I missed our flight to Nashville. We didn't actually miss the flight as much as we missed the doors being open to the flight. The plane was still there, but we could not get on it.

While my blood was still boiling from this incident, I noticed a familiar face in the line behind us at Customer Service. I had actually forgotten his name but knew he was an Art & Architecture professor at UT. I went up to him after I cooled down and found out he had missed his flight to Knoxville.


















This otherwise long story short is that we all ended up getting on a later flight to Nashville and the professor, otherwise known as Ryann, ended up getting a ride with me back to Knoxville.

This unplanned trip home ended up being a bit profound. It was like a prolonged college advising session, or what I'd imagine a psycho-analysis would be like. (All this happening after midnight is funny, too, considering I usually shut down around 10 most nights)

The point is, our conversation made a lot of circling thoughts I've been having straighten out. It usually takes bouncing them off someone else to do that. It also takes the right person kicking me in the ass every once in a while.






















So I returned from my trip, scratched most of the plans I had had for each show, and made all new work with the time I had left. The giving up part was hard- not being able to follow through on the things I had planned, but it was an easy decision to make at the same time because I was going in a direction I wanted.






















The result of this shift was also good for me mentally and helped me want to be more adamant about some things. I'd like to quit putting the work that is most important to me on the back burner. I'd like to quit focusing so much on what the viewer's response will be about what I make. I want to embrace not knowing exactly why I am making what I am making. I also realize that having my hand in art and fifty other things is killing all of them, slowly, but surely. And I need to be in conversation with others that can remind me to keep on track. What is nice is that all of this seems to have started a domino effect of good conversation in the past couple of weeks.


















So during this time of "introspection," these are the drawings I made for my show at Magpies. I don't have a photo yet of the building I drew, but below is the photograph of it that I also used in the show. In the meantime, here is the artist statement:

It has been six years since I last made portraits like this. Back then, they served as a necessary stepping stone toward realizing the art I wanted to create.

I see these self-portraits and drawings of friends in much the same way, reminding me to be more connected to what I am making.

For me, there is a similarity between looking at a beautiful old building and thinking about certain friendships. Each involves an appreciation, love, fondness for someone or something despite imperfections.

From my post on The Sunsphere is NOT A Wigshop:

First Friday is just around the bend, and I'd like to cordially invite you to an exhibition organized and curated by yours truly.
















If you are unaware, I'm the Architectural Salvage Coordinator for Knox Heritage and am also an artist. I'm merging these two worlds into one the night of April 1 for The Salvage Show.

There are twenty artists involved in this exhibition who are making fine art or functional design pieces using materials from Knox Heritage's stash of architectural salvage. The idea is to re-create something new from the materials that can't be used in their original manner anymore.

Here's a sneak peek of what you'll see at the show:






















Reclaimed Lamp by Shawn Poynter


















Pearls for Swine by Katie Ries
Sweetgum balls, felted wool, wooden curtain rings



Dale Mackey's piece






















Stool by Brian Wagner


I'm very excited about this exhibition and hope you can join us. If you are so inclined to purchase something, proceeds will benefit Knox Heritage, which is a non-profit, as well as the respective artist.

The Salvage Show
April 1, 2011, 6-9pm
ONE NIGHT ONLY
110 South Gay Street (3 doors to the right of the Emporium)
Knoxville, TN


RSVP on Facebook, if you'd like.


The artists are:

Micah Antanaitis
Hollie Cook
Laurence Eaton
Ethiel Garlington
Michelle Garlington
Briena Harmening
Kelly Hider
Tracy Jackson
Forrest Kirkpatrick
Dale Mackey
Hali Maltsberger
Beth Meadows
Sara Miller
Shawn Poynter
Katie Ries
Veronica Siehl
Jessie Van der Laan
Brian Wagner
Michael Watson
Chad Williams

PS: shameless self-promotion- I am also showing at Magpies that night from 5-7pm
846 North Central St.
Knoxville, TN 37917
Come eat cupcakes with me.