An Online Exhibit by Meghan Clarkston ~ Part 1
Words and works by Meghan Clarkston
Clarkston is a visual artist, author, writer and
mental health/eating disorder advocate. She owns and operates Abbatoir Lane
Studios in Halifax.
First time I can recall creating art was when I was about 7 years-old;
drawing children’s books in class at James Wood Elementary in Winnipeg,
Manitoba. Perhaps I was a late bloomer...
I tend to explore art forms that intrigue me in a sense of the unknown. Recently I’ve adopted the art of pyrography as my main love. But in short I have four loves; pyrography, ink, water-colour and photography.
It’s always interesting for me when I read or hear about a fellow artist’s
approach to the process of their work. Often I feel rather “broken” hearing how
intense their steps are to the final piece, knowing that my methods are rather
unconventional. My process really depends on the emotions of the moment. For
me, that’s where the imagination or creative energy derives from; emotions. I
often joke that I can’t create unless I am angry, which ironically isn’t a joke
at all. Hand me a pencil and ask me to produce a quick doodle and I am lost.
But, find me in a moment of mental unrest or stress, anxiety, or in the depths
of depression and more often than not I will be racing to a sketchbook or
canvas with my pen in hand.
The painting Arabian Seahorse came about in a state of an anxiety
attack. Often when emotions become overwhelming I tend to seek sanctuary on the
floor of the bathroom; neutral area where I can experience no outside stimuli
and collect my wits. On one particular attack I was breathing heavily on the
bathroom floor, counting down from 100 in my head ( I find it’s a good way to
gain perspective, slow down, and pace my breathing ) while staring at the
bathroom tile, when I saw patterns in the design and mumbled rather quietly
“That’s an Arabian horse right there...”. Suddenly my mind shifted from anxiety
to creation and I bolted from the washroom to my studio, sat down with my
sketchbook and drew the design in a matter of minutes. So, my process relies
heavily on my emotions, art being a method to control or shift that negative
energy into something calming, productive, and at times rather beautiful.
When I am not engaging in my art, I am often working on my writing or
mental health advocacy work. I am an arts editor for an online publication
called Zouch Magazine; collections of poetry, literature, fiction, and
the arts. In life we often stumble into opportunities of great wealth and
happiness, and for me, stumbling into Zouch was one of them. Here I am
connected with different variations of artists from around the globe who each
have such an intensely original style to their creative process. It’s a selfish
honor I tend to profess, being this person on the receiving end of submissions.
Then I operate my blog Laughter Silvered Winged which is revolved around
my own journey with my eating disorder and experience living out and proud as a
mentally ill Canadian, as well as a platform to explore and share new advances
in the world of eating disorder or mental health research. This is where I also
document my life through my second passion, photography, and share the intimate
details of my journey. I tend to see my photography as an extension of the
blog, a means of continuously capturing images of the often mysterious life
that is that of the unknown individual living with bulimia, and who has a
history of self-mutilation. Both are two very prominent aspects of my life
which do take up quite a bit of this “free time” we often talk about in our
lives.
I often find the most challenging aspect of being an artist is finding
the crowd where your work will be understood, or appreciated. The hardest
questions I find needing to be answered by curious viewers is “What is it?” or
“What does this mean?”, because more often than not I have no idea where the
image came from; it just is. Having to explain my work is a melting pot of
emotions at times because I at times am just as lost as the viewer, but I know
looking at the art makes me feel complete.
When I decided to create Disordered Control - photographic documentation of my bulimic rituals - I was in a point of my life where those closest to me knew about my bulimia, but didn’t understand what it was to have an eating disorder. It was one thing to talk to those on the outside about the rituals, but to have a stranger to my dark secret view it in words rather than a visual seemed counterproductive. At the time I was enrolled in an advanced photography course at NSCAD where we had a semester to explore our own directed body of work. Fate seemed to align in the moment and I jumped into the idea before fear or anxiety could overwhelm my senses and shut down the thought.
Creating the body of work was a journey in itself, coming to terms in a
heavily predominant
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