Week Three, Bicoastal Project (We were going to come up with a better name for this!)

Week Three: Libby sent me five photos of buoys hanging on fences and walls. A few had snow visible near the bottom of the frame. 

I knew I was going to use this one as soon as I saw it. There was something odd about seeing objects I associate with summer next to a bank of snow, and I also liked the fence these were hanging on. Libby said she was craving color and so responded to the blue in this image.

Buoys, Painting by Kalen Meyer

Buoys, Photograph by Libby Ellis

Libby said, "I knew you were going to pick this one!" as soon as I sent the image of the painting to her.

Week two, bicoastal project

Second week—

Libby Ellis sent me a great batch of photos, it was hard to choose which one I was going to paint. I found myself thinking which image would go with the first painting, but decided I had to let go of that and go with my gut decision. I love this image of the chair on ice (what is it doing there?) with the futuristic sleds in the background. I enjoyed the process of painting, even though it had been a rough day and I ended up painting very late. Libby and I haven't talked about these (other than she texted she was hoping I'd choose this one), we've both been very busy… will add a note after we do!

Chair on Ice, photograph by Libby Ellis

Chair on Ice, painting by Kalen Meyer

Bi-coastal Art!

My friend, Libby Ellis, and I are starting a new collaborative art project.

Libby lives on Martha's Vineyard (currently under 4 or 5 feet of snow) and I am in California. We had been talking about doing a project together for a while and on a recent trip to L.A. we came up with this!

Each week for 16 weeks, Libby will send me 5 photographs.

I will choose one and paint it. After Libby sees the image, she sends me a new batch of 5.

After some debate, we decided I can't crop her image.

Photograph by Libby Ellis

Painting by Kalen Meyer

This is our week one. When Libby sent her images, I knew immediately the one I would paint, however the image was so much more abstract than anything I usually work with, I was a little daunted!

I sent the image to Libby while she was on a call, and when she called back she said, 

"Wait, is this a painting I am looking at, or the photograph?" (it was on her phone), which brings up the question, why paint when you have the image already?

After digesting the fact this was my painting, we both got fairly excited about going on.

Stay tuned for week two!

Happy New Year!

New Birds!

Getting ready for the Art Wares Pop Up in December, 12 new birds are done! 

Time to start printing calendars!

Back to the Beginning

 

This week I have the privilege of speaking at Dominican Collage 

in a class taught by Leslie Ross entitled The Art of Mt. Tamalpais. 

Leslie found me a few years ago through my website and ordered my book 36 views of Mt. Tamalpais. She asked if I would speak to her class and I gladly accepted. Not knowing if I could speak for an hour on my Mt. Tam paintings alone, Leslie said it would be great if I talked about my life as an artist. This will be the third time she has invited me to speak. That first time, many years ago, I had to go back to the beginning and piece together how I ended up as an artist.

It began with my early years at a "free school" in the 60s where we had the choice of attending any class we desired…I went to all the art classes and none of the academic classes, which left me woefully unprepared for the world after elementary school.

An Early Painting by Kalen Meyer

Note the mountain shape and bold color, since abandoned by the artist in favor of a 

more subtle palette seen in her more recent work.

After reveling in art as a child I abandoned the idea of being an artist, until my interest was revived in my 20s by a rock climbing partner who was involved in the artist book and calligraphy communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stepping back into art through books and calligraphy felt safe, and I spent a few years taking classes in calligraphy from various masters and book making classes at Mills College. I went back to S.F. State to strengthen my design skills to be a professional calligrapher and designer, but while there I discovered painting and printmaking and reignited my love of creating art.

Huerfano Mountain, Monoprint from S.F. State years

After leaving S.F. State with a degree in painting and printmaking, I started out on my circuitous journey of becoming a full time artist. Going back to school late, I married and had two children right after getting my B.A. and learned to paint quickly, having only the length of 

a child's nap to work on art.

The idea for the series of Mt. Tam painting paintings came early in life from viewing a book of my mother's on Hokusai's 36 views of Mt. Fuji. I remember the day I realized that Mt. Fuji was in every print (not having read the title or any of the text), viewed from different angles, with people from daily life in the foreground, usually oblivious the mountain in the background.

Hokusai Print, from the series of 36 Views of Mt. Fuji

Having grown up on Tamalpais Road, I was always aware of the mountain and one day was struck by how similar Mt. Tam was to Mt. Fuji—surrounded by pockets of urban communities. I started photographing the mountain any time I saw it from an unusual angle. A familiar refrain in the car from the children was "Why are we stopping? Oh. It's Mt. Tam. Again!" After photographing and talking about the project for years, one day I figured I'd better just do it and so set myself the task of painting an image a day for 36 days. Having honed my painting skills during those earlier nap times, I very nearly pulled it off, finishing in around 42 days, not quite meeting my goal of 36.

View of Mt. Tamalpais from the Buchanan Street overpass, Albany

However, I found I enjoyed the challenge and learned so much about myself and painting during that time, that I have continued to set myself similar goals. One year it was 36 birds in 36 days (http://kalenmeyer.tumblr.com) and then One Portrait, One Landscape and One Object a week 

(see earlier in this very blog).

Lately I have been painting a set of 12 birds and 12 dogs for calendars for a Pop-up I am doing with friends in early December. My now high-school aged son asked me, "Are you doing a bird a day?" and I assured him no, no, I'm not that crazy this time…. and then the next day found myself remarking, "I have to paint two birds today!" He just looked at me sideways and didn't say a thing. 

What week is this?

Some of you may have noticed I've been offline for a while. 

I've been intensely taking care of my mother for a few weeks (after years of taking care of her not as intensely) and it has become clear that it is time for her to go into assisted living. 

She is scheduled to move in next week. 

I realize somewhat in retrospect that this is why I haven't been able to paint for a while. 

My mother was an artist and it was when I discovered that she hadn't been painting in over a year that I first realized that she had the beginnings of Alzheimers. She had been collecting empty canvases for a while, way too many, and after trying and failing to get her to paint again, I moved all the canvases into my basement where they are today.

She had been working on a series of icebergs that were beautiful. 

I saved all her preliminary sketches and have thought about continuing 

to work on the series myself. 

Iceberg, Bonney Meyer, Oil on Canvas, 24" x 36"

I aways thought that painting was a refuge for me—

a safe place to work when life was difficult, but I am realizing it takes a certain amount 

of energy and freedom to be able to work. 

I suddenly have a more visceral empathy for people caught in difficult life situations 

that they are unable to get out of; poverty, hunger, war and so on, 

that rob them of any creative refuge or space. 

Not that my situation even comes close to the lives of many others.

A friend of mine whose mother was a successful artist said once that she was not able to fully grow as an artist until after her mother died. There are so many strings and complications between my mother and me that I have basically been ignoring, 

trying to get through these years of looking after her.

Paintings are formulating in my head—a portrait of my mother as she is now and one as she was as a young girl and a second pair of paintings of my daughter 

young and in the present. 

Because of course, this is also the year my daughter left home for college, and I still haven't processed fully the grief of losing my girl to the greater world.

So all this is saying is I realize I have to take a brief break from my own art work. 

Art with children continues as always and that has been a refuge—

they are so present it's impossible to stay in your head while working with them. 

This week we made ceramic chickens that most definitely cheered me up.

In photography this week after talking about editing and how important it is to 

pair photographs well—that a particular pairing can either elevate the photographs or degrade them, one of my girls handed me this:

After telling her why each of her pairing worked so well (not knowing if it had been 

on purpose or by accident), she looked at me and said, 

"Yes, that's why I put them together that way."

 Fabulous, my work is done.