Author: Joy Murray

I'm a 60 year old artist in Memphis, Tennessee. I spend my life trying to catch stories, give them form, color and light, then send back out into the world.

The Garden Past and Present

Posted in Art, art and healing, disability, gardeningTagged , , , 11 Comments

Last summer, my elephant ear garden looked like this:

This year, it looks like this:

We had an abnormally cold winter and it killed off many of the bulbs. Elephant Ears make new bulbs every summer, often along the bottom of the old bulbs. I think these are all newly made bulbs that grew from underneath their frozen parents.

I love my elephant ears when they get dramatically big. I like seeing the slender stalks of the first small leaves divide into larger and larger leaves until they are nearly as big as me. I get cocky about them. I see other people’s plants and think, mine are bigger. It’s a bit of delusion that I have anything to do with how big they get. I do my part, of course: making sure they’re watered and have enough room to grow by weeding and tending the ground around them.

Or I used to. Now, I get other people to help me with it. Now that I’m a full time wheelchair user, I can’t get to the weeds, I can’t divide the bulbs, I can’t do all the little fussy things an urban gardener does to get credit for beautiful plants. I appreciate those who’ve helped me weed and keep some order in the small patch by my porch. I’m not totally happy about having to give up the responsibilities I enjoyed, but I’m happy that the garden grows.

I’ve also had struggles cultivating creativity over the past few years. I don’t get as many paintings done. I don’t have the energy to organize shows or to participate in groups. I don’t write as much. I don’t even go to art shows as much – transportation and fatigue issues. Like so many of us, I was changed by the arrival of COVID in our lives. Also the continuing fragmentation of our country and a seeming inability for us to build working bridges to help each other out. In my personal life, I’ve aged enough to have to deal with death more often (also a COVID factor), and my own disability takes its share of my energy. I’ve often felt as if my well was empty and I couldn’t tap into a new source of flow.

But watching these scrappy plants emerge and grow after a hostile winter, has inspired me. Slowly I am writing more, drawing again, painting again. Since I have no deadlines, I can set my own pace. I don’t have to create things at the same rate. And as I look back over all that I’ve done in previous years, I realize that I’m a productive person, even if I never actually create anything tangible ever again.

There is a form of art called “social practice.” It “focuses on engagement through human interaction and social discourse.” If I’m feeling small and insecure, I can always say I do social practice art (though no one will know what I’m talking about). To me, in its simplest form, social practice art is a way of living creatively, sharing ideas with others, contributing to a better, more peaceful and beautiful world. The goal is not necessarily a finished object or project. Living is an art. The creative ways we deal with life’s challenges are an art form.

I may just be trying to give a label to my fallow periods to feel better about them. These periods are a part of the process. Are they an art in themselves? It’s not like I’ve stopped thinking about creativity, or living creatively for even one day while I’ve navigated these past few years. I’ve been helped a lot by others, and had lots of conversations with them about the world at large, and the small world that I occupy.

And now this little garden is growing back. The plants on my porch that I can tend to are thriving. Whenever someone walks by – and looks up from their phone – they see growth and blooms. I don’t actually create it, but I facilitate it.

I once led an art workshop and one of the young participants asked if you could make a good living as an artist. I said it’s difficult. But you can make a good life.

If we survive a brutal winter and grow a little slower afterwards, there’s a lot of beauty in that. Noticing gardens is being creative. Carrying sorrow, but living with delight, that’s a good life.

Joy At the Memphis Brook Museum – living a good life

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypalCards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

Spend Earth Day with Frank D. Robinson

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Beloved Memphis Artist Frankd Robinson will be leading workshops this Saturday, Earth Day, April 22, at the West Tennessee Spring Conference of the Tennessee Art Education Association. It’s an all day event that takes place at the Memphis Museum of Science and History (MOSH), or the Pink Palace, as it was formerly named. You can find out more about Mr. Robinson on this post, or google his name for more information.

The conference is part of the River Arts Fest and will be from 8:30 a.m. til 3:45 (Conference starts at 9, but there will be coffee and snacks at 8:30). Workshops will include:

“Turning Recyclables into Classroom Jewels for Artmaking with Frank D. Robinson:  Bring your bag of trash, trinkets and whatnots that you want to turn into jewels for your Portrait/Collage ArtWork.

Bring Magic to Your Art Instruction with Tech with Tambe Howlet

Digging Deep Observational Drawing in the Science Museum – The Natural History Galleries in the Museum are full of delights! Captivating collections of native animals and insects abound, as well as full scale replicas of dinosaurs! During this workshop, we will immerse ourselves in drawing from our choice of stunning Still-Lifes in the galleries. Bring your favorite drawing tools – paper and boards will be provided!”

All the details can be found here at the TAEA website. There is a very reasonable fee and an option for a food truck lunch or to bring your own brown bag lunch.

I contacted them and they are still taking registrations, though they are filling up fast. When you register, you’re required to give the name of a school and district. I put in Murray Art School and Midtown Adult District. It took my registration then, so try it. There are email contacts listed if you have problems with registration and they were very quick in responding with information.

It seems like it’ll be a great way to celebrate Earth Day, creative recycling, and art. I hope to see you there.

Trust Your Struggle by Frankd Robinson

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

Happy Easter

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I hope you find comfort and rejuvenation as the spring continues to resurrect life all around us. Let’s work to cultivate compassion and cooperation as we go through the hard trials of life.

I Saw Delight, watercolor, 2016, Joy Murray

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

Small Rituals for Enormous Things

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Storm season here in the midsouth has been especially devastating and tragic this year. This morning I read there are more storms on the way, but today, and yesterday, were lovely days.

Often I wonder what to write on this blog with so much destruction and chaos going on in this world. The compulsion is still here to write. This morning I woke up thinking about the calm between storms. And the importance of rituals when disasters, or even small upsets, happen. My most common ritualistic gesture is to touch whatever pendant I’m wearing and try to stay grounded. I’m here now, and mostly okay. I most often wear a turtle, a heart, and various stones as necklaces. It’s a small gesture that draws no attention but calms me.

After the tornado in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, and before the ones that hit practically every where in the Mid-South, I went outside to discover that the magnolia tree that lived next door to me was being cut down. They’d already removed half of it by the time I saw what was going on.

My driveway was blocked by the tree removal truck.

Normally the sky would be blocked by the extended limbs of the magnolia. The light is different now. They were a quick and efficient tree service. By the end of the day, the tree was gone. I wished I’d taken more pictures of it, especially the root structure, and the V-split where the tree divided into huge trunks.

A limb had fallen from the tree during a winter ice storm and did some damage to the apartment building next door. But it wasn’t an unhealthy tree. If it had been better maintained, and pruned back, it probably would have lived decades longer. I estimate it was somewhere between 100 and 200 years old.

One of the things I love about magnolias (I love everything about them) is that their branches dip low, so even from my wheelchair I can commune with it. Their leaves are evergreen, a deep smooth green, with fuzzy backs, so they are a tactile pleasure. Pods are intriguing, flowers are fragrant and stunning. Here are some random shots I’ve taken from my wheelchair.

At the end of the day, the tree was no more than a stump.

I figured the stump would be like a marker for the tree. It’s roots might live, and when the world becomes a forest again, then it’d come back to life.

The next day the stump was gone.

A friend offered to do a more formal ritual with me, to mark the loss of the tree. So we did.

We made a wreath and in the center placed a little vase of azaleas and a hawk feaather.
My son gave me some glow in the dark Kodama, Japanese tree spirits, and I put them on the magnolia trunk

We gave thanks for all the beauty the tree had given us, for the shade, for the home it made for many creatures that nested and lived in its bounty. We talked about the lives of trees, of the blessing of urban trees.

Kathleen helped with all the parts of the ritual I couldn’t manage. She, too, had enjoyed it’s shade and seeing the birds that nested in its strong long arms.

We tried to count tree rings and marveled at what must have taken place in the city around it as it grew and grew.

I understand that dangerous trees must be removed, and that a city block isn’t a forest. There’s just something in me that aches when a favorite tree is lost. I spend a lot of time walking/wheeling around the city, since I don’t drive. Certain trees, plants and even houses and buildings, become touchstones, a map of things that are a relief from the dangers of traffic, potholes, and the constant alertness I have to maintain to stay safe as I travel.

I can’t imagine the fear and heartbreak tornadoes and other natural disasters do to people’s souls. Things are lost never to return. Our powerlessness is shown over and over, in small and enormous ways.

By the time we finished our little ritual for the tree, the wind had blown the wreath in different directions, the vase of flowers had fallen.

A few days later, coming home from the store in my wheelchair, I found the hawk feather stuck on the boards of the path to my ramp. I took it back home, put in a vase, and will keep as a little symbol of immortality, whatever that means.

Magnolia Pod by Joy Murray 2017
Magnolia Blossom by Joy Murray

So much has happened since this tree was cut a week ago. So many are out there in the aftermath of the storms working to save lives and rebuild shelte. We keep them in our hearts. If you want to read about the Rolling Fork tornado, here’s and excellent article by Willy Bearden, who grew up there: https://dailymemphian.com/article/35228/willy-bearden-dispatch-from-rolling-fork-mississippi-tornado

I find solace in nature, and in art. It’s a good time of year for planting rituals, and for watching what was deadened by winter come back to life. I hope everyone stays safe out there.

I Buried My Blues and a Forest Grew by Joy Murray
From a sketchbook in 2012

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.