Meg Walling – A Life in Color

By Angela Romeo

Meg Walling approaches life in color, lots of color.

“A strong sense of place and extremes in environment draw me in,” said Meg. “These special places have a very distinctive character that is predicated on the color. The colors of nature are beautiful. I take these colors as the basis for my landscapes. Abstraction is an interpretation of what I see. I see color.”

“People seem to think that desert means stark, barren, colorless vistas. That is far from the truth. The desert teems with life and color is everywhere. The desert as a world of contrasts: intense and subtle, hostile and fragile, endless beige punctuated with intense and vibrant colors. These contrasts provide me with a rich palette and an endless source of images. My abstractions are an exploration of that environment.”

Meg’s work carries with it a sense of passion and urgency. She is capturing moments. Moments only last forever when captured by an artist or caught in the memory of one’s soul. Interestingly Meg’s work is not about the details. It is about the sensory – a haunting sense of déjà vu.

“Between raising my family and embarking on my artistic career, I was a licensed psychotherapist. I worked in private practice specializing in couples’ therapy. Therapy does involve an emotional catharsis. Every experience is an emotional response. As an artist I draw on my clinical experience. My intent is to create an emotional experience for the viewer.”

Meg leads the viewer down an emotional rabbit hole. “It is not my responsibility to give you the details or journal the minute details of the work. It is my responsibility to shake a memory, to hit a nerve, to cause a smile or to suggest an experience, hopefully a pleasurable one.”

Meg’s work is presently on display at the Saguaro Hotel in Palm Springs. She is sharing the space with artist Jilda Schwartz as part of the collaboration between the Saguaro and the Palm Springs Art Museum Artist Council. The work will be at the on view until the end of July.

Both Meg and Jilda are showing works that depict the Salton Sea. These artists may have seen the same location but their interpretations are distinctly different.

For those familiar with the Salton Sea it is a study in impractical folly and intense beauty. The Salton Sea is 227 feet below sea level. From afar it is a beauty of blue water. Up close the same Salton Sea is an odd color with an odd perfume that is strictly its own. It was created 1905, when the Colorado River raged into the desert. By the time the river was contained again, there was a huge lake in the basin – a dying sea, with no way in and no way out.

“I do see the desert as a world of contrasts: intense and subtle, hostile and fragile, endless beige punctuated with red, orange, blue and purple. This is especially true of the Salton Sea. There are countless ways to depict the Sea because of its dichotomy of beauty and rawness. The geometry, the light, the palette and the landforms of the Sea resonate with me. As the future of the Sea becomes more uncertain, it is a more poignant experience to paint it. I am hooked on capturing it on canvas.”

With the intensity of color Meg captures the last breaths of the Salton Sea. And preserving a moment is what a painting does. In the work of Meg Walling, the moment is complete and the emotional pull is hard to deny.

To learn more about Meg Walling visit www.MegWalling.com.