My worktable is devolving into chaos and I am simultaneously frightened and exhilarated.
Sort of like my life.
I have been avoiding – consciously and unconsciously – writing and publishing updates. It requires a certain amount of effort to present a polished professional persona and I guess I just haven’t quite been up to the task for a while.
This morning my phone reminded me once again that I should publish an update and then, instead of ignoring it, I thought, “Yeah, okay, maybe I can do that, but different.”
I’m going to try to just post updates, not necessarily polished and professional, but honest and at least in touch with you all.
So here I am, fighting a cold, furiously creating under deadline and thinking I have no time to be sick. I’m leading a ten hour field trip tomorrow, including about six hours of hiking and photographing, so I’m hunkering down today, trying to rest and eating Zicams like candy, hoping I will have the energy to inspire students tomorrow. At least the weather looks like it should be pretty nice and not raining like it was last year.
I’m actually pretty excited about the show I’m working on. It’s one of two shows that I will have up at the same time because I’m not always good at looking at my own calendar and I just said, “Yeah, that would be great!” About a month ago, it hit me that the field trip class and both shows are all essentially happening at once and it just became do or die at that point. I wasn’t even sure I would get to go to one of my receptions until I got a sub for the final critique session for the field trip class. I’ve never been so tickled to be able to attend my own reception.
If you’d be tickled to be there, too, it’s at the Gallery at 48 Natoma in Folsom on Friday, November 16th, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
And now I have to get back to work, since I’m not done making art for that yet!
I have to confess that I am a collector. I come from a long line of collectors and I really try to control my collecting, but there it is nonetheless. I was talking about collecting stuff to my brother one day and he expressed that he had always wanted a Cabinet of Curiosities to hold his own collection. I thought a bit and agreed, “Oh yes, that would be quite wonderful!” A special place for all my unique things would make the collection a positive thing rather than a habit to be confessed. Somehow naming things as curiosities and creating a space for them changes how they are perceived.
New Life, photo based mixed media on 14×14″ wood panel by Judith Monroe
Suddenly all the odd little things that I gather and bring home are bestowed with a higher status. They are labeled as curiosities and are organized and photographed and put together in ways that are pleasing and meaningful, giving them greater value. A nest that fell out of a tree is no longer just garden debris but is now a piece of natural history or a metaphor for a stage of life. Dead insects are invaluable jewels, butterflies become symbols of transformation, and fallen birds are reminders to make the most of our brief lives.
Cabinets of curiosities were first popular during the Renaissance; cabinets were not necessarily a piece of furniture, but could be a room or a whole building. This month, I am exhibiting a small portion of my collection of curiosities in the form of artworks, some presented as individual specimens, and others put together into dioramas of a sort, in the tradition of the collectors who first created cabinets of curiosities. Some of the specimens I present are more mundane and from my local explorations, others are more exotic and have traveled great distance to become part of my collection.
These kinds of collections have historically been brought together to spur the imagination and stir curiosity and wonder, and thereby learning. So you are invited to carefully inspect each artwork here, to reflect on the secrets that are revealed and to imagine where each thing came from and what it means. Perhaps you will even be inspired to start a collection of you own or simple add to one you’ve already started.
Microart: Each piece is only a two inch square. Clockwise: Black Beetle #4, Honey Bee #2, Cabbage Moth, Dragonfly; each is a photo transfer and mixed media on stretched canvas, $45, currently available at Sparrow Gallery in Sacramento.
I have always had a fondness for tiny things. As a kindergartner, I would walk the long way home from school through the tiny downtown of Montrose, California, and stop to stare in the toy store window, examining every inch of the large dollhouse that sat there. It was pure magic to me that things could be so intricately detailed on such a small scale. A little later, I had a little plastic ballerina, probably one inch high, for whom I made tiny lace tutus and built a cardboard house and a little paper man to keep her company. As I grew, I created dioramas in shoe boxes for book reports. To this day, miniatures are among treasures I keep in my studio.
So when I was first asked to create microart, it was an idea that appealed to me on a very basic level. Tiny little works of art, not more that two inches square, easy to collect and treasure, so intimate on their scale that they are immediately charming. But then I had to decide what exactly I could do that small, what would feel appropriate and be achievable? It took me a while to figure it out and then fit it into my schedule, but I came to the conclusion that my fondness for insects was the perfect match for my attraction to microart and so the Insect Series was born.
This initial batch of tiny insect artworks are currently available at Sparrow Gallery in Sacramento.
I don’t know about you but the whole holiday season can be a little overwhelming for me. All of the advertising, the busyness, the crazy onslaught of email and special events is enough to make me so uptight that I actually withdraw and disengage from some of my usual activity. I find myself craving simplicity and then trying to figure out how I can balance that desire to have less while being a person who needs to sell things for a living. How can I strive for fewer things in my life, advocate for a more simple lifestyle and at the same time need to be constantly creating and selling? It’s taken me some time, bouncing ideas off of others while engaging in serious meditation and introspection to figure out how to make those two things that seem contradictory to actually become one healthy whole.
The answer that I found was in the definition of simplicity, what living a simple life in this society really looks like. And that can be different things depending on your outlook. The first thing that it looks like for me is to really examine the stuff I have in my life, not just the physical stuff but the things that take my time. I have prioritized my activities and I try to keep a healthy balance of time commitments, including a regular rhythm of rest, like having at least one day a week that I really don’t work at anything. (So much easier said than done!) I have also begun taking a hard look at the physical things in my five bedroom house, and that is where I start to feel challenged. There are so many things in my house that have just been there for a really long time and they actually do nothing for me or anyone else that lives with me. It can be overwhelming, but I try to just focus on one small area at a time and then honestly appraise things. My closet is an excellent example – if I haven’t worn something in two years, probably it should go. The next step is to take that from room to room and be careful about new acquisitions. So far, so good.
But then I look at my work and I wonder to myself, “How can I ask people to buy my artwork while desiring to live with less myself?” If I don’t practice what I preach then I can’t have any respect for myself, so this is a really important thing for me. I have wrestled with this a lot lately, but then I came to a realization. It’s not that I want to live with nothing in my home and in my life, but that the things that I live with need to have meaning and be life-giving things. Kitchen gadgets that I never use have no place in my life. Artworks that speak to me and bring me peace and joy are another thing altogether. If I look at an item and it can transport me to another place, if it speaks truth to me and elevates my mood, then that is worth having in my home.
So I am looking at all the things in my home and asking, is this just stuff or is it truly useful or is it uplifting – is it art? And that is what I challenge you to do in your own life, too. Every time I ask you to consider purchasing my artwork, which I need to ask you to do, ask yourself if this is just another thing to you? If it is, then carry on without guilt.
Or instead is it meaningful to you? Does it speak to you and make your heart sing? When you look at it, does it capture your imagination and tell you a story? Then by all means purchase it! Contact me and let me know and we can work something out. You can ask me if you want to pay for it over time or if you’d like something else like it but a different size. However my work speaks to you and whatever happens, I really want to be adding something meaningful to your life.
“Attraction” Photo transfers and mixed media on 12×12″ cradled wood panel. Currently available $350.
I’m guessing that some of you think that I have a dream job. I get to make art, go to parties and shows and generally have a good time. Outside of school, there is no one to check up on me, no time clock to punch, no daily grind. That is all well and good, but that means I have a whole other set of challenges. There is no one to keep me on track, no real tasks I must do, not much of a daily routine, except what I impose on myself. Over the years I’ve done pretty well with being self motivated but sometimes I go through times when it gets pretty challenging.
I keep up with classes and teaching responsibilities fine because I made a commitment and people are relying on me to fulfill it. I actually really enjoy working with students and helping them discover the joys and frustrations of photography, especially the darkroom process. I relish the autonomy given to me as a college professor and I pride myself on a job well done at the end of each semester.
The afternoon light falls across my studio work table in the prettiest way…
My studio practice can be more difficult. It’s actually easier when I have an exhibit scheduled and a shorter amount of time to pull it together. Or when I have to prepare and create pieces to paint on stage. Deadlines have a way of invigorating me. Gallery owners asking for artwork is a fabulous thing. But there can be a lot of time that it’s up to me to drum up the work or find a new gallery to push the exhibition schedule and that is where I have a hard time.
The hardest part of being an artist for me is the marketing and networking and selling aspect. I have no trouble socializing but the business aspect begins to freeze me up. Even getting myself to sit down and write and send out updates to people who have asked for it can be a struggle. I’m not quite sure why I’m telling you all of this, but I guess it’s just part of my new philosophy of not avoiding the taboo. I’m just going to be open and honest and let the chips fall.
But I’ve also been praying for something to change, for inspiration, for more self discipline, and for the strength to rise to the challenge. If you’re the praying sort, I’d ask that you pray for me that way, too. If you’ve got any words of wisdom or encouragement to share, please do. And if you’re willing to be my part time boss, that might be helpful, too.
I got the nudge to write this some time ago but I have been putting it off. It’s one thing to say that I am going to plunge into the taboo zone and quite another to actually go there. But here I find myself, sitting at my computer and typing…
One subject that has come up lately is the subject of religious freedoms in America. It is a truly wonderful thing to be guaranteed the “free exercise” of our religion by the First Amendment but there is some debate on what exactly that means. I have always understood that each of our rights end when exercising them then infringes on the rights of others. It’s perfectly fine for me to have my faith but I cannot force you to abide by it as well. This is one of the most fundamental reasons that those first settlers came to find a new land and establish a new country.
At this point in time, there are many Christians who want to be able to deny business services to certain people because they say it violates their beliefs to do so. There are other Christians who don’t want to provide certain medical services to their employees, again, because it violates their beliefs. As a fellow Christian, I would beg to differ. As Christians, we are called to simply love God and love others, all others, regardless of whether they share our beliefs or practices. We ourselves have been given free will, the ability to choose whether or not to accept God and the Bible, so how is it that we would feel the need to deny this choice to others? I would argue that we all want to be granted the right to choose for ourselves how to live, and to discriminate against anyone in business would be anything but loving.
“Faith, Hope & Love” Photo transfers and mixed media on 24×16″ cradled wood panel by Judith Monroe. Currently available through Xanadu Gallery.
When Jesus walked on this earth, he hung out with the ones in society that the religious people of the day would not have been caught dead with, quite literally. The lowest of the low-lifes, the outcast and the downtrodden, those were the people that Jesus associated with. These folks were certainly not following God’s laws or living pure lives, yet never did he tell someone that serving them violated his beliefs, never did he try to control what choices they had or what they did. He just loved them and treated them with respect, and by doing so he gained their trust and was able to teach them about God.
Never did he force himself or his ways on anyone. When he did have harsh words and anger, it was actually for those who were following the rules and acting as if that made them somehow better than others. We are supposed to be emulators of Jesus’ life, so how can it be that we would try to control others or force them to abide by some rules we feel they have to follow? Why would we not serve them wherever they are with love and respect?
Jesus did not consider his rights to be more important than others, but instead he actually gave up his rights to help all of humanity, to sacrifice himself out of love, not because we followed the rules or because we deserved it. If we are to truly follow his lead, we should also be humbly and lovingly serving people, offering them whatever help we can, not because they are following some set of rules but because this is how we share the love of Christ.
“Freedom” by Judith Monroe. Photo transfers and mixed media on cradled wood panel, 42×42″ available through silent auction at Bridgeway Christian Church, contact for details.
Every so often I paint on stage at church during the weekend services. People who know me have gotten used to hearing me talk about this aspect of my creative life, but a lot of people are a bit surprised at first. I attend Bridgeway Christian Church, a fairly large church in Roseville, California, not exactly the kind of traditional church I was raised in or that many people think of when talking about church. We certainly never had artists painting in church when I when I was growing up, so how did I get to this point?
Several years ago, Bridgeway had a year of learning about different styles of worship, and it was during that year of teaching that I first saw artwork created as part of a church service. As a visual artist, it was incredibly exciting and touched me in a deep way. That same year, I was interviewed for a video and then invited to paint during worship for the first time. It was a frightening, exhilarating and wonderful experience and within a year or so more, I was coordinating other artists to regularly create on stage during our church services.
More recently I was one of the artists onstage during another special teaching on different expressions of worship and I was asked why we create visual art on stage during our services. I was able to give a really brief answer, but I thought it would be good to give a more in depth answer to that here.
The first reason that I paint on stage at church is simply that I am a visual person, that is just how I was made. When I read the Bible and pray, I see images. When I remember, it is primarily in pictures and flashes. When I plan what to do, it is again in imagery – I truly envision things. It can be so bad that I have caught myself walking or driving and realized that I better pay attention to the real world around me because I was seeing something completely unrelated in my mind and I wasn’t as present as I should have been. Conversely, when I want to really focus on a thought or concept, sometimes I have to close my eyes because the visuals around me are too distracting. So images are my language, the way God speaks to me and I speak to God, and how we interact with each other. My art is most naturally a conversation between me and God.
“Be Transformed” by Judith Monroe. Photo transfers and mixed media on cradled wood panel, 42×42″ available through silent auction at Bridgeway Christian Church, contact for details.
But that only explains why I create images, not why I do it on stage in front of thousands of other people over the course of a weekend. Why subject others to my conversation with God? Because when I am on stage at church, I am available as another tool for the Holy Spirit to use to reach other people. As surely as I am more often sitting in church and not up front, there are so many other visually oriented people sitting in that room when I create there. In fact, the first time I came to Bridgeway with my family, they had incorporated children’s drawings of the Christmas story into the the Christmas program and I was so touched that it brought tears to my eyes.
I cannot count the times that people have come up to me after a service and had them tell me how my artwork had touched them or spoken to them in a powerful way. I have had people tell me that God has spoken to them very clearly through art I was creating, while others have simply said it was wonderful to have visual arts on stage, as that is how they relate to God as well. And any time people are coming forward to talk, there are undoubtedly more who were impacted but did not come up to tell me so. It is always an honor and a blessing to me to know that I can be a tool for ministering to others in my church as well as in a traditional exhibition.
Finally, people often ask what happens to the artwork after the service is over. I will always take works painted on stage back to my studio and give them the finishing touches that all my artworks get: fine tuning, painting the edges and varnishing. Artwork will then usually be on display at the church and available for purchase through a silent auction process, with proceeds directly benefiting the church. (I also receive a percentage, just as I would with a gallery.) It’s always a joy for me when someone has been touched deeply enough to want to live with a piece of art, no matter how or where it touches them.
If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you know I have opinions about all kinds of things. In other venues, like this blog, I have been more circumspect about my opinions because I have been told repeatedly that business and religion and politics need to be kept separate. Maybe my faith can be mentioned in a polite manner, since it informs my artwork, but absolutely, under no circumstances ever should I mention politics because I could offend someone and then they may not want to buy artwork from me. And it’s all about business, right?
Well, I’m going to wade into dangerous territory. Can I be blunt? I’m about to break another rule (always appear successful): art isn’t exactly flying off the walls around here and what the heck, I’m just going to be honest and tell you that if you’re offended by my religion and by my politics then you’re probably offended by me, period. What is my art but a product of all that I think and believe and am? So either you’re open minded enough to like my art despite all of the things that make me who I am, or you’re not into my art. Or something like that.
After all that I’m going to disappoint you and not talk about politics at all right now. (It’s bound to come up sooner or later, have no fear.)
First I have to tell you about my faith and how I got to this point.
I grew up in a family and a church that put way too much emphasis on rules but I managed to be attracted to the love of God nonetheless and asked Jesus into my heart pretty young. (Totally weird way to put it, but how else do we talk about it?) As a teenager, I went to see a movie with a young man, which was strictly verbotten, and I realized that it wasn’t actually a sin. I knew that disobeying my parents was wrong, but there was nothing inherently wrong with the movie theater as I had always been taught. This was a seminal event that led me to question everything I had been taught. If they were wrong about this, what else were they wrong about? Eventually I decided that if it was in the Bible, I would take it, but if it wasn’t (and theaters certainly are not) then I would toss it. I have lived by that basic premise ever since, if imperfectly, because I am human after all.
However, after I was married I had had enough of churches and most people in them, as had my new husband, and we avoided them whenever possible. He joined the Army and we moved first to Alabama and then to Germany and it was while we were in Germany that I had the most amazing experience of my life, nowhere near a church.
At that point in time I worked as a graphic artist for the Army, doing things like designing flyers promoting the Officer’s Club and such. Like most offices, the Department of Morale, Welfare and Recreation was a great place to hear what was happening, in our case, in what amounted to the small town of the Army post we were located on. There was talk of satanic stuff going on around post, and a couple of my fellow believers were scared to death. This was around 1990 and new age religious ideas were prevalent; Shirley MacLaine had a hugely popular book about things like out of body experiences and it was a period of searching and questioning for me as well. Not content to let other people tell me what to think, I was looking and comparing things to what I knew was in the Bible and making up my mind for myself, thank you very much.
So one morning, in this environment of questioning and fear from other Christians, I started questioning as I began my morning routine of getting ready to walk the dog. “God, are you really there?” And the craziest thing happened. I got an answer,”Been here the whole time, just waiting for you to come back.” Wait, what? Wasn’t that a rhetorical question? Apparently not. Just to be clear, I didn’t hear an audible voice, but there was absolutely another voice in my head, no question about it. At this point, you might just write me off as a crazy person, and that’s fine. Or you can play along.
God and I had quite the conversation that morning, all during walking the dog and getting myself to work. At one point I asked whether or not I should be afraid of demons and the like. A car drove by and I coughed on the exhaust. “Nope, it’s just like that, my spirit is in you and will repel the evil ones as naturally as your lungs reject that exhaust.” I thought that was totally cool.
I can’t remember everything from that morning but I remember getting to work and excited telling my friends that I had been talking to God. They
“Attraction” Photo transfers and mixed media on 12×12″ cradled wood panel. $350 Contact for purchase details.
looked at me and smiled and nodded. As you might be now, and that’s okay with me.
Not long after that, I had my first prodding to speak. One of the gals I worked with was getting into some dream experiences and telling me things about it. Talking to God about it, it was clear that I had a message to give her. “Things are not always what they appear to be.” Uh, yeah… I’ll pass on that, it’s none of my business, thanks. But I couldn’t pass on it at all. Telling her that simple thing was my job and if I didn’t tell her that I would simply feel like I was going to explode until I did. It was her business how she responded and that was perfectly clear to me, too. So I told her and I didn’t explode and heaven knows, maybe she just racked it up to the crazy woman she worked with who had apparently gone totally round the bend.
That was a long time ago, but maybe you’re starting to get a better picture of what is going on now. I’ve had other things to tell other people over the years and now it seems like I need to start a new chapter and start writing things.
Don’t think that everything that I write here is like that, it actually doesn’t happen that often, but writing this post is definitely one of those things. Maybe it’s for you, maybe it’s just for me to get it out into the open. Up until now, I have been very careful who I told this stuff to, but I guess it’s time to start being a little less careful.
Peace, my friends. And feel free to tell me what a crazy person I am below.
P.S. It was still years until I went back to church, but I did. And the people I go to church with are pretty cool, just FYI.
Last time I wrote about how I know when a piece is done, probably not really giving an adequate answer for many people, but basically, I just know when I know. Which brings me to the piece I think I just finished. Mostly. I’m pretty sure, but maybe it will get a little more. I’ve actually got a couple brand new pieces on the tables right now, getting ready for painting live at church this next weekend, but I digress…
So now that the piece is mostly done, the next question is, “What does it mean?” Now this is not often a question I get when I have created a lovely landscape or a beautiful butterfly, but when I create more unusual imagery like dead things and nests with roots and snails with wings, people want to know what in the world is going on in my brain. Fair enough.
Most of the time I can give them an answer, too. But every once in a while I am also wondering what in the world just came out of my brain and why. You see, I have learned to create artwork in a sort of semi-conscious state, just sort of letting things flow and come together as opposed to planning and figuring everything out beforehand. Anyone who has spent much time with me can tell you that I often do not plan a lot of things. I like being spontaneous and really only make reservations for things like motel stays because I learned a long time ago that if you don’t, especially traveling on the Fourth of July holiday weekend with a dog, that you can drive really a long way before you find a place to stay, and then it may not be a place you ever want to stay in again. But again, I digress.
“Revelation” by Judith Monroe, photo transfers, ephemera, acrylic, wax pastel and dried pressed pine needles on cradled wood panel (42×42″) $2700
My artwork has a tendency to come together without too much conscious thought and then afterwards I have to ask myself what I was expressing out of the recesses of my brain, or what came flowing from the Spirit. And so it happened with this piece I have pretty much just finished. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on it this time, and I started asking other people what they thought it meant, because it obviously means something. I started with the people I live with, and the best I got was from my daughter who said it made her feel safe. That was pretty cool, partly because my daughter doesn’t think I’m insane, but because safety is a big deal for her.
So I decided to do what anyone in our digitally connected world would do and I went online to see what people would say. I posted the image and basic question on Facebook and Instagram and I got a lot of great feedback. The main topic of conversation was what the antlers on the house meant, and several people felt that the antlers were protection and some expressed a sense of comfort from that. One person pointed out that antlers often symbolize spiritual authority and regeneration and can be a reference to God. I dug around some more and sure enough, in traditional Christian symbology, a stag is a symbol of Christ.
When I first created the image and it had just the antlers on it, I had felt the antlers were like a crown and I had connected it in that way to God and Christ. This is the kind of thing that can happen, I find myself using an old symbol in a new but congruous way, which is why I trust in my subconscious method of art creation. I guess you could say that this is a picture of my house, since our Christian faith is an important part of our lives. Or you can make up your own story for it, I’m fine with that, too.
So here I am, fighting a cold, furiously creating under deadline and thinking I have no time to be sick. I’m leading a ten hour field trip tomorrow, including about six hours of hiking and photographing, so I’m hunkering down today, trying to rest and eating Zicams like candy, hoping I will have the energy to inspire students tomorrow. At least the weather looks like it should be pretty nice and not raining like it was last year.
I’m actually pretty excited about the show I’m working on. It’s one of two shows that I will have up at the same time because I’m not always good at looking at my own calendar and I just said, “Yeah, that would be great!” About a month ago, it hit me that the field trip class and both shows are all essentially happening at once and it just became do or die at that point. I wasn’t even sure I would get to go to one of my receptions until I got a sub for the final critique session for the field trip class. I’ve never been so tickled to be able to attend my own reception.
