Life Update, and Plant-Type Things.

A moment to breathe. Time for a life update.

It has been approximately one month since I opened my first gallery with my business partner in crime, and boy, has it been a ride.

I feel like I’m in college again, with a maddening schedule, planning out every hour of my day trying to figure out when I have time to do….everything. As much as I hate to admit it, it is definitely an adjustment to have to manage my time so strictly again- it’s been almost two years since I was a college student doing just that. Put your game face on, Meg.

Since starting my new business, I’ve also picked up semi-steady work as a traveling art educator, mainly working with students with disabilities. My little brother has Asberger’s syndrome, and having a hand in fostering creativity in all students, especially one’s with unique life challenges, is close to my heart. I recently spent the majority of the last week helping students create their own comic books, and make paintings. Possibly my two most favorite things in the world. It was a blast, but I am reminded of the respect I’ll always have for teachers- they do SO much more work than you think they do. I had to be to my job site by 7am. With a one hour commute, that means I’m on the road by 6am. If I want to prep for my day, perform dog duties, eat breakfast, and look presentable for my night job- which I leave straight for, I’m getting up at 4:30am. I thought I would hate it. And the first day I certainly did.

Painting workshop in Clinton, Iowa

However…dare I say it? I think…that I like mornings. (Don’t tell anyone!) After caffeinated assistance in pulling out of my morning haze, there’s something really enjoyable about having a period of quiet, unaltered peace to get my mind right for the day. I make breakfast, walk my dog, work out,  straighten up, knock out annoying duties that would normally distract me all day (did I check my email? Did I submit that invoice? Did I call person XYZ back? Did I book that event?), set some minor goals, and then am free to crush my day with nothing but productivity, and creativity. It feels damn good. I’ve also learned to sleep less. That also feels damn good. Don’t get me wrong, I love sleep, but there are so many things to do in a day, and sleep just takes up valuable time as far as I’m concerned. Thank god for Yerba Mate, and Soy Lattes.

The business is going well, all things considered. I can safely say that I’m breaking even on expenses, which is more than a blessing. There is definitely still a sharp learning curve, and lessons that are still going to be learned. But, for the first time- I have a semi-steady creative income, and you can see its radiating positive effect on my mood, and general vibe. Since I’ve gone from working the service industry from 65 hours a week to about 30. That’s roughly 3 or 4 days a week. As a result of that, I am a much more joyous person to be around at either job- service or otherwise. I’ve seen this positive effect radiate through all of my coworkers and good friends, which also makes me extremely happy. To engage people in an active and positive way- brings me joy.

Every time I come into my night job, I have coworkers and customers genuinely interested in what new thing is happening.  My lady friends have started their own craft night. Regular customers and friends are pulling me aside to show me the newest obscure thing that might interest me- a funky container for my terrariums, a vintage bottle, a painting by an unknown artist. I had a coplete stranger walk up to me and tell me how happy she was that I was playing TEDtalks as a casual gallery event. Me? Absolutely flattered. My art life, job life, and night life are all starting to overlap, and it’s an interesting and fulfilling dynamic.

Second day loading book donations for Zola’s first waste diversion project. I wonder where those book planters came from?

I’ve also been going through a plant phase. I just can’t let it go. I went from bookshelf herb-growing, to starting seeds in aquariums, to small recycled, container terrariums, to…plants and containers covering every surface in my home, and a small, slightly obsessive habit of converting books into plant vessels. They seem to be going over really well- cost of materials are low so I can price them accordingly and reasonably. And, there’s really just nothing better than adding a living, breathing, growing environment to your environment. I’ve been asked to bring the to a few artsy crafty events in Iowa City…maybe bulk orders are in the future? One can hope!

Desktop Companion Globe Terrarium. $20 Available at Zola Gallery, or on my Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/listing/126168795/desktop-companion-globe-terrarium?ref=shop_home_active

My favorite book planter. Custom and bulk orders available upon request.

With all of the craziness of work going on, it’s time to start planning for play. Plans for summer vacation are in development with the final running destinations being Sedona, Denver, or Portland. Possibly more than one. We shall see. But it’s time for a road trip. It has been entirely too long.

Everything being said, that is all that is happening in the crazy life of Meg.

Well, not really.

But that may be a blog post for another time.

Time for lunch.

So I Opened A Business, Hooray!

Oh, my poor neglected personal blog. Someday I will have time to maintain you fully.

So as things have been rolling along, I’ve been given the wonderful opportunity to open my own gallery! It’s still quite surreal, but enjoyable as all hell.

Zola, The Midwest’s First Ecological Art Gallery is now open within The Shoppes on Second, within The District of Rock Island, Illinois. Check out our website here.

We offer a place for Eco Artists to exhibit their work, children’s creative workshops, artist career development services, among a few other things. I actually just had my first paid resume workshop and career consultation last week! So. much. Fun.

We cut the ribbon last Friday. Life has been insane.

Rock Island’s Mayor Dennis Pauley introducing our new business to the area.

My life thus far has consisted of working full time at my night job, and doing days at the gallery- writing press releases, workshop schedules, promoting workshops, planning each monthly exhibition, writing blog articles, organizing gigs at local schools, and learning everything else on a pretty steep learning curve. I’m still struggling to rap my head around the concept of an online storefront, and how to deal with credit cards. In time I suppose.

Tonight being my only night of semi-no-commitment (<—lies) , I’ve decided to zen out and make terrariums. Nothing has been more fun than taking my dog on a walk and salvaging for THE PERFECT MOSS for these cute little things. Our next exhibition at the gallery will be a DIY, up-cycled art show, and I’m thinking about putting these terrariums in it. I’ve salvaged some old pages from an Alice In Wonderland Book, and am producing a series of terrariums decorated with those illustrations and matching little terrarium bits. So far so good, they’ll likely be at the gallery soon! Or I might just put them all over my house and keep them. ^^ We shall see.

The beginnings of my Alice In Wonderland Terrarium Series.

Stay in tune with what’s going on at Zola by liking our Facebook page!

A Thank You Post.

As things are beginning to snowball out of control in the best way possible, I have been doing some reflecting on just how thankful I am for everyone that’s been there and supported me along the way, and will hopefully be there in the future.

2 years ago I started this blog. I remember being an on-fire, caffeine-fueled, almost-college graduate that wanted to see dynamic cultural progress in the cities that I live in. It’s here. It just seemed like no one knew about it. So I started writing. I started writing, pushing, promoting, straight-up borderline harassing people about all of the great cultural happenings going on here in the QCA. We’ve got Daytrotter bringing in on-the-cusp, successful indie musicians for live tapings. We have Rozztox in Rock Island hosting these great musicians, showing compelling contemporary documentaries, and hosting gallery openings of successful, career-driven artists right in our backyard. (Grammy-winner Kimya Dawson anyone?)We have innovative artists and designers hiding in the corners of coffee houses, the Quad Cities’ Universities at large, at the farmer’s market, working the service industry, and within our city councils.

I started documenting the progress of my own artwork, carving my own nonexistent niche here. Eventually, my artwork, and my passion for arts advocacy outgrew themselves, so I started a separate blog for arts and cultural advocacy purposes: [starpower]* .That was one year ago.

8 months ago I was in the beginning stages of what was then a tentative personal “pet” project, I Am Building A Forest. Through the growing support of both blogs and a combination of word of mouth, I Am Building A Forest evolved from a pet project, to a finished short film, to an entire multimedia installation- not landing me one gallery exhibition, but three. Gallery representation with multiple galleries in the QCA, representation in Chicago, numerous shows, lectures, and workshops throughout the last 6 months, paid blog postings, newspaper articles and finally…

My own gallery- opening on December 7th.

Words cannot express my gratitude to my supporters, online and off. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and clearly the word is traveling.

I want to thank all of my mentors, friends, and family that have encouraged me, supported me, knocked some sense into me, and told me to keep plowing on, even during the blue days.

I want to thank Reddit.com and the redditors that follow and also promote my efforts. Without you, those word-of-mouth gaps would have a difficult time being filled.

I want to thank my service industry employers for continually reminding me that I will not be doing this for the rest of my life, and motivating me to make moves- that don’t involve asking what their side of choice would be. (mashed potatoes? coleslaw?)

To this day, The Adventures of MegaMeg has received 34,045 hits.

[starpower]*, the young budding blog, has received 6, 151 hits, all specific to the QC Area.

All of this is thanks to you: the local community. Many many thanks cannot even begin to cover it.

Much love. <3

Adventures, stuff, and grass-watering.

It’s been awhile.

What’s been going on?

Quite a few things actually…where do I begin?

I haven’t posted in m personal blog for some time. I’m so used to removing “I” from my writing for my other blog, that this almost feels strange to me.

I gave a lecture for The Quad City EcoArts’ first EcoArts Salon a few weeks ago. It went really well- intimate setting, decent crowd, right along the banks of the Mississippi River, in my hometown.

photo credits to Glorie Iaccarino

I saw a lot of familiar faces, and a few unfamiliar ones. I met a lot of really down to earth people that want to see great things out of this community- I feel like I’m finally meeting people that are thinking and talking about the same things I’m thinking and talking about…it feels weird (why?)…and also good.

photo credits to Glorie Iaccarino

Things are starting to snowball with The Quad Cities’ Eco Arts council. Connections are being made with people who fit perfectly into the picture of bigger projects- a movement almost. Let’s start one.

I feel like my secret mantra that I’ve kept to myself is leeching out into my life.

The grass isn’t greener on the other side…the grass is greener where you water it.

Truth.

My friend/mentor Steve Banks asked me to be a part of a last minute show at Bucktown Center of the Arts, appropriately titled “Im-Promp-Tu-Tu” on the first floor. We set up an installation of my latest body of work, I Am Building A Forest. But unlike my previous installation, this one was vastly different. Since my installation was already set up at another gallery, we had to improvise a bit with my work. Steve proceeded to show me how easy it was, and how interesting my content became when my video was shown through multiple televisions. We stacked the televisions on top of each other- all of which were faded and color distorted. One was so old, all it showed on its screen was snow- there was literally no hookups for any modern cord or cable we have today. So we turned it on, and added it to the stack. It gets my mind going for so many other ideas for a future, more complex installation. I better get thinking, I have a show with Quad City Arts in a year with one of my old professors, and an old classmate with her MFA. No pressure.

Here’s a few snapshots of the gallery at Bucktown:

photo credits to Steve Banks

photo credits to Steve Banks.

  That’s one thing I’m enjoying about installation art- you can transform a room, involve your viewers, demand a cognitive responses- all from objects, film, sculpture- so many different art forms- all becoming cohesive into one. Diggin’ it.

A photo from my installation, ‘I Am Building A Forest’

 

That’s about all I have for now. I need coffee. O.o

The QC Eco Arts Salon Artist lecture

I’ve recently been asked to become part of The Quad Cities Eco Arts Council here in my local area.

This is soo exciting for me! I have an opportunity to combine many of my interests into something that will not only be design, education,  and sustainable living focused, but also making a direct impact on our community. Think urban and community gardens, public art projects, environmental children’s workshops, creative place-making, and artist residencies. There’s a lot of work to do!

I have been asked to lecture on my work as part of the first QC Eco Arts Salon- which is a series of visiting artists, that share a little bit about themselves and their work. I’ve been plugging away at accomplishing a successful lecture without the use of a tech-visual aide, as we’ll be outside on the river, weather permitting. An interesting challenge, but I suppose that just means I need to talk more, Not really a big problem there O.o (teehee)

The QC Eco Arts Salon will be Saturday, October 20th at 12:00pm. The actual talk will be in the pavilion outside of the QC Collective.

see you there!

Opportunities And Things In General

Figureatively Speaking, my first show to display my Multimedia Installation I Am Building A Forest, debuted two weeks ago.

It went extremely well! We had a turnout of about 100 people, and I sold almost $400 in prints, how exciting! At least for me…considering my prints were only $15 and $5, I was surprised to see such a good response in sales.

Here are a few snapshots from the opening.

Narveen, the gallery owner and myself

All of my coworkers came, on the clock or off haha. The gallery is literally a block away from where I work. This is clearly a photo of important purpose. *laughs*

Best Friend Thumbs up of approval.

A photo from my installation, ‘I Am Building A Forest’

Butterflies hanging from the ceiling

Lighting effects created by recycled bottles. Copious amounts of wine were damaged in the creation of this photo.

There was some slight drama and organizational culsterfackness that occured a few days before opening night. Due to organizational miscommunications, the gallery was not aware of some of the…graphicness? of one of the artists paintings, which were women fully in the nude, genetalia exposed, etc, and the gallery chose to remove her work days before the show. We ended up finding an alternative venue however, that was right down the street form the gallery. So we just had a double-opening, with two different places. Thank god that worked out, I was a little worried!

Becasue I handed all of the publicity and marketing of our show and we had such a good turnout, I was recently offered a position handling all event planning/publicity for every event that comes through the gallery. I now get paid to write art critiques and cover events on my events and culture blog [starpower]* – sooo exciting! I remember brainstorming about this almost two years ago, and now things are actually falling together more quickly than I could’ve expected.

The gallery owner is getting ready to open up a space in Chicago, and wants me to show there. I recently applied to be part of the Quad Cities Eco Arts Salon- where you’re paid to give a lecture/presentation and lead a community project revolving around your artwork- and was chosen to be the first artist!.

I’ve applied to mini- animation festivals, local galleries, and even an artist proposal to Insimnia Events, the event planers and artists behind Electric Forest. Hey, a girl can dream right?

All of those months of feeling slightly crazy building paper trees in my living room feel a little more sane now.

If you’re interested in purchasing a limited edition print of my recent work, or a specially-designed DVD of the video check out what’s in my Etsy Store.

If you’re interested in checking out my other blog, click here.

I Am Building A Forest: Showtime!

The exhibition opening for I Am Building A Forest is in 3 days. AhhhH!

Here’ What I’ve been up to via Instagram (you fucking hipster.):

Paper Grass at the base of tree sculptures

Origami Flowers

Special Edition Prints

Lots of leaves.

Business Cards

Nifty designed dvds

Going from trees in m living room…

…to trees in the gallery space

Slowly coming to life.

Laying on the gallery floor, looking up

It’s so strange, and feels so GOOD to have a vision that I’ve had stuck in my head forever, come to life right in front of me. I can’t wait for the opening, I’m a wee bit nervou.

There’s almost 100 people on the guest list online, and that’s not including the hoards of people coming that don’t use the good old Bookface.

Also, a really talented painter that was part of the group show, Gretchen Stabile, just had her work taken down becasue the gallery powers that be saw her work as offensive to women, when it in fact quite the opposite. Two of the artists dropped out of the show, and ay be relocating at a nearby space. This should be interesting…

If you’d like to come to one potentially two art openings of some kick ass talented artists in the quad cities, add yourself to the guest list here.

Check out Gretchen’s work on my other blog here.