Author: Joy Murray

I know practically everyone is obsessed and worried about the elections, and Covid-19. It’s a terrible time to have an open studio art show, but I’m doing it because it might help take people’s minds off all that for a while. It’s a good reminder that creatives go on creating, too. Haters gonna hate, creators gonna create.

So I’m having an open studio with a few other artists — Darlene Newman, Tim Allen, and Frankd Robinson.

I have a great sign on my front door that was made for me by a young person while I lived in Portland. She was one of my art students. I have had to repaint it a few times because it gets battered by the weather.

This year it was so waffled, I had to soak it and weigh it down to flatten it out. Then I adhered it to a canvas, gave it a new border, and ta-da, a great reminder of the worth of each of us:

I’ve been painting a lot, but had a few commissions that I finished. Now I’m working on pieces for the show. I have created two 5×7″ skulls since it’ll soon be time to celebrate the Day of the Dead and Halloween.

I’ll have about 14 pieces of various sizes on sale, some new, some older. Here are some examples of the work of the other artists. Prices will range from $25. to $400.

For those of you who can’t make it, or who don’t feel safe, we’ll try to put pieces online for purchase. If you are in the Memphis area, we can probably deliver to you. If not, shipping and handling prices will be added.

Stay safe. Stay creative. It’s always been a crazy and scary world, yet on our tightrope of life, we can find balance. Treasure yourself. You are a piece of gold.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you like it, share it.

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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 at my email address joyzmailbox @gmail.com

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

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

I’m beginning to hear murmurings in my head about pointlessness and the impossibility of having to cope with all the health problems associated with my disability. I’m depressed about the breakdown of life and the hard realities of racism, poverty and illness that are being constantly discussed on all media.

I also have seen posts from others expressing despair and feelings of hopelessness. A darkness is descending on those who don’t even have physical problems. People feel that their struggle for self-care and love that they thought they’d won has started again — doubts, negative self talk, past trauma taking up residence in the present.

As much as I love the autumn, I know that it brings with it melancholy, depression and other dark emotions that seem overwhelming. This year, it feels worse with the whole country saturated in negativity, with politics more scary than usual.

After dealing with bi-polar disorder and PTSD since my teens, I can offer this bit of hope to anyone who is feeling the darkness descending.

It’s part of what happens in the autumn, the fall. There is less light, the beautiful summer trees and flowers are leaving us, our body clocks are changing. We fall back into negative ways of thinking, that sense of hopelessness. It’s natural, but it doesn’t have to be deadly.

It’s time for radical self care. Get enough sleep, even if it seems that’s all you do, sleep helps. Don’t apologize or feel guilty about sleeping.

Ask for help. It’s a little trickier now with Covid-19. A lot of our social support systems have broken down, and it’s difficult to get visits from friends or ask for domestic help. But try to find a way to get some help. You probably have more friends than you realize who will wear masks and gloves and help you through this seasonal shift.

If you are seeing a doctor, talk to them about perhaps changing your meds, increasing a dose, or trying a new medication.

I use suicide prevention hot lines when it all gets too much for me. I like that it’s anonymous and I can really spill my guts without fear of reprisal or accused of feeling sorry myself. It’s also a FREE service, and was so helpful during the years I had no health insurance.

There are a number of options for findng someone to talk to these days. Chatting, texting, messagaing — all are available to you. You can find resources here:

https://www.cnet.com/health/suicide-hotlines-crisis-hotlines-to-call-or-text-when-you-need-help/

I did have a bad experience once with a crisis center volunteer, who somehow belittled my issues, flipped the conversation around, and I wound up counseling her. It kind of threw me for a loop, but then it made me mad enough to write an email to the organization to report what happened. They got back to me almost immediately. They knew who the volunteer was and she was pulled off phone duty and put back into training. So while I didn’t get the kind of counseling I wanted, my anger overwhelmed my depression and motivated me to do something besides dwell in my dark chamber of misery. I felt that my complaint helped others as well as myself.

I have to stress that that was the ONLY time in the years I’ve used them as spur of the moment counselors — I’ve survived bi-polar for over 40 years now. So if you feel you have been hooked up with a counselor who is not listening to you, please report them and try again.

Good luck to us all as we slog through this season. Try to find beauty in the changing seasons, use the depressed energy to explore and create if you can. I find visual journaling a good way to process my depression.

You are unique and here for a reason. Stay with us. I’ll stay, too.

Remember all the seeds that summer has planted, all the leaves and flowers will return to their elements over the fall and winter and feed the beauty of next summer. Resurrection always happens.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you like it, share it.

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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 at my email address joyzmailbox @gmail.com

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

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

I finished two paintings that I’d been working on a few weeks, one a commission and one that I had started a while back for the Day of the Dead season.

The first celebrates abundance and gratitude. This is one of four I’ve done now, each unique but each featuring the tree and figure and abundance falling gently upon them. This one was commissioned for an older woman. Unfortunately my picture of it is a little blurred. It’s hard for me to photograph this size painting 36″x12″

The second painting is of the opposite of this state of gratitude: it’s an interpretation of the Hungry Ghost, a state of being in Eastern and Buddhist beliefs and folklore that is considered the worst, to always to be always hungry. It is a way of interpreting the misery of greed, addiction, and dissatisfaction with one’s lot in life. This painting is about greed — a once beautiful woman turned monstrous by the need for more and more riches.

I am working on some more pieces for the day of the dead, (most more celebratory) and am getting ready for an open studio that I’ll have on Saturday, October 24, from 4-8 p.m. Timothy Allen will be showing work and we’ll have some of Frankd Robinson’s pieces, too.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you like it, share it.

~~~

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 at my email address joyzmailbox @gmail.com

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

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

This blog contains a nude painting of a person with a disability.

I first notice autumn in the slant of sunlight, the way it’s moved more from the center of the sky to the south. Here in Memphis, the leaves have not yet started changing color much, but I can feel the preparations that trees and plants are making. I can’t really describe it, or even know that it’s a real feeling, but change seems to be in the air.

Night comes sooner. The sun is setting by 7:30. I sit on my porch and watch the chimney swifts swirl and dive into the chimney across the street earlier and earlier. Acorns are dropping everywhere and the squirrels are feasting and burying future meals. Other plants and trees are releasing their pods and seeds. I collected these magnolia pods and watched as the seeds emerged:

My moonflower pods still on the vine. Next years seeds:

I’ve seen a few ginkgo trees with leaves turning to yellow.

I stroll around the neighborhood, happy that it’s cooler, sad that summer is coming to an end. Here we have another month at least before the first freeze. Or not. Weather is never entirely reliable.

All summer long, I take pictures of plants — my own flowers on the porch, flowers and plants in the neighborhood. I should probably be out sketching them, but I don’t. I save all the photos for the winter, when I’ll paint from the photographs. I never do as many paintings as I plan, but I’m at peace with that.

I’d like to be more prolific, as prolific as nature herself. But that’s not going to happen.

Especially now that I’ve got a few series of paintings in process, and a few commissions. And I always have a painting that comes from out of nowhere and demands to be made.

I’m working on “It’s Written All Over Your Face,” is a series of 5×7″ paintings, featuring faces and words, insights to the character.

I’m also beginning a series on the diversity of bodies, of bodies shaped by what we call disability, bodies in transition. I am doing my first nudes in this series, showing scars and unique proportions. It will take at least a year to do this series because I want them to be detailed, realistic and mythic at the same time. Not so different from my work so far, but with more maturity and a subject matter close to heart. It’s called “Look Closer.”

This first painting in the series, Yet Desire Seemed to Expand, started in my mind as a simple painting of an older body dealing with pain and a degenerative disorder. The great thing about painting, though, is that when you get in the flow, the idea takes on a life of its own.

This series is a celebration of the diversity of bodies. I have discovered that you can be in great pain, and lose major bodily functions, and still find yourself filled with a sense of elation and sensuality. That’s what I want to share in these paintings.

I won’t be pricing or selling them until the entire collection is finished. Then I’ll look for a venue to show them all together.

Thanks for reading my blog.

If you like it, share it.

~~~

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 at my email address joyzmailbox @gmail.com

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

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