I sometimes think I'm the only artist in the world who does not have an artist's statement, and who does not want one. Even though I was asked to include my statement with this little write up, I will not do so, and for a very good reason: there isn't one. I have attempted to write one or two statements over the years, but all my attempts embarrassed me. When I'm serious, people think I'm silly, and when I'm silly, people think I'm serious, when quite simply I am seriously silly. Therefore, I will leave the statement writing to others. You can make of my work what you will.

On August 10 I will exhibit wall boxes containing weird and amusing figures and objects. These theatrical boxes represent the most intellectual side of my work and are almost impossible to comprehend, as is evident by the titles: Three Spoons in Search of the Soup; A Well-fed Spoon and a Hungry Fork; and In the Middle Somewhat Elevated, a title I borrowed from the choreographer William Forsythe who is indeed intellectual.

I will also drag along a few odd but friendly creatures made of paper, glue, string and clay. Crazy Dolls, I sometimes call them. They represent a range of human experience such as: tragic, semi-tragic, stupid, frail and feeble. Incidentally, they don't cost much, or transmit a curse, or take themselves very seriously. Perfect companions for a happy home.

My work is photographically-based mixed media with encaustic, embracing the color and iconography of my adopted home. My pieces come from a place of intuitive painting coupled with historic research. I have a deep attraction to the surreal visual playground that inhabits and in many ways defines, the very soul of this culturally influential country. Building on a lifetime of exploring various photographic techniques in my personal work and as a professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design, I took advantage of the "down time" that was the pandemic to embrace the possibilities and creative freedom of mixed media. My pieces incorporate photographic transfers with paint, chalk, pencil and wax. Through an excavation of memories, documents, found and discovered objects, the flotsam and jetsam of popular culture, and nostalgic personal items, I developed a new and evocative way of expressing my vision.

BIO:

Meryl Truett is a curator, gallerist, teacher, consultant, and artist. Meryl has exhibited extensively in the US and Europe. She has been widely published in numerous magazines such as Oxford American, The Vanderbilt Review, and Camera Austria. Her book Thump Queen and other Southern Anomalies is in its second printing. Her work is is in the collections of major museums and corporations. She earned an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2003 with additional art training in France. Truett has extensive experience teaching at the college level and conducting photography, mixed media, and book publishing workshops. Artist fellowships include Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Le Moulin á Nef in Auvillar, France, and The Hambidge Center.

Art begins with an Attraction

An almost obsessive spell that triggers inspiration and finally a masterful result

Life itself flows from simple Attraction

Attraction and Art The fullest expression of what it means to be alive

I was fortunate to be one of the few people who grew up in San Francisco and also spent most of my adult life there. It was a very formative city in which to grow up in. I was 16 during the Summer of Love and was constantly riding my bike to the Haight and to Golden Gate Park for the free concerts every week. I must say that period had a profound effect on my life and later on my art. I ended up becoming a teacher and taught history, art history, and computers over a long career in a girl's Catholic high school just south of the city.

In 1998 I met my soulmate, Anado McLaughlin. We were partners for nine years and husbands since 2008 until his death on Easter Sunday 2021. We came to San Miguel for Christmas 2000 and in 2001 bought our property in La Cieneguita. Over the years we created Casa de las Ranas and the Chapel of Jimmy Ray Gallery where Anado could show his own art as well as that of other artists whose works touched Anado and his eclectic tastes. Being surrounded by art inspired me and I soon started to create my own art. It has been inspired by my wonderful environment, my husband's works, and the poet Rumi whose poems touch my heart. I count myself incredibly lucky to have found my husband, San Miguel, and the wonderful artists who surround me and inspire me.

Dreams, magical realism, and oniric landscapes have always been a captivating subject for me. Most of my artworks (that are mainly oil paintings and watercolors) relate to these ideas, and how we construct our perception of reality through our internal worlds. Imaginary landscapes are, for me, evidence of how we occupy spaces that occupy us. They get permeated in our memories, and we transform those lights and shadows, smells, sounds, and voices into complex ecosystems within ourselves, ecosystems we access through meditating, remembering, or dreaming. We are part of the landscape, and the landscape is part of us. For me, oniric experiences are essential for understanding the world around us. Even if we don't fully understand why we dream, having the opportunity of experiencing a moment of uninhibited imagination and fantasy, completely immersed and embodied in it, validates our fascination with dreams. Through them, we construct part of our perception of reality, and that inspires me to create images and imaginary landscapes, that can take us, even if it's just for a short moment, to this sensitive and seemingly irrational world.

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