Scarred for life. Physically, not so much mentally. Every time I travel people ask me if I expect to incorporate my travels into my painting. Will there be an Indian elepant or a zebra showing up in my work? I tell them all that I am not that sort of artist. No landscapes or sunsets for me. I explain that my work comes from a very internal place. For years it was Ted-centric and only dealt with my struggles to have a normal day-to-day existance. I was oblivious to elephants in my art though I have ridden many. Since my childhood I’ve created work about being sick or in pain. It all started with the “Art Lady” who brought her art cart to my hospital bed and suggested I make compositions with bandaids and IV tubes. Mixing illness and art seemed a normal confluence. When I was older I painted pained figures and broken bones. Progress I guess. Self directed art therapy, for sure. After new treatments, new joints. operations and infusions I felt that I was pretty much normal and found myself a bit lacking in artistic direction. I didn’t feel it was an honest to continue making art about being sick. I needed a new direction but nothing came to me and I refused to draw sunset. Now much of my work deals witih others and their tribulations because of a chance meeting over 10 years ago. That was when I learned that a life can be changed by meeting one special person at just the right time. For me that person unexpectedly arrived at one of my art openings in 1998. It was a very Los Angeles affair. I was in a light weight conversation with celeb guest Henry (The Fonz) Winkler and Candis Bergan when SHE rolled into the gallery, A beautiful woman who’s grace only seemed enhanced by her wheelchair. She wore a stunning black dress with a low back. I couldn’t help but notice the long scar that graced her back. Over time we had many conversation about our situations. She had fallen from a tree onto her back while a counselor at a summer camp. Still, she preformed with a noted dance company and has had many roles on television and on stage. I was born with Gauchers disease and spent many years in some level of pain or discomfort. We shared a comment acceptance of our differences to that of the “normal” population. Before this meeting I had never thought much of my own scars and I had many from multipal joint replacements, a speenectomy and the normal childhood emergencies and accidents. Most of my early artisitc career focued on me, my body and my illness which I visualized as a very internal thing. I had created images that reflected on the damage done to my bones from infarctions and the mental pressure that was placed on me to choose treatments with new and experimental drugs and choices waiting to be made as to when things were so bad that join replacements were warranted. During one of our talks we discussed how her condition was obvious yet mine was totally hidden as long as I was dressed. We talked about our scars and what they represented and what it meant to allow others to view them. I became focused on her scar as a way to tell a story. How rods had be inserted and removed from her body. How each operation on her back left additional marking. How the scar made visible the exact place her spine had been damaged. Her scars was not just a marker of her ability but rather a rode map of what made her life unique. It wasn’t just a scar. It was her scar. Something that no one else had. No only did it make her physically unique but emotionally. If I no longer had anything to say about my medical condition maybe I should make a statement about how I viewed other people’s lives and condition. Maybe I’d become a documentarian. An artist Studs Turkel. Scars mark a turning point in peoples’ lives; sometimes for good but often otherwise. Each scar comes with a story. Why is it there? Would the person have died without surgery? How did the “scaring event” effect them emotionally? Scars can mark entering into or out of a disability. Going from cancer to health, limited mobility to full movement. They freeze a moment in time, a car accident or gun shot. My mono-prints, taken directly off the skin of my model - subjects are portraits of those events that changed their lives. I accentuate the details of the scar with gouache and color pencil. My hope is to turn these lasting monuments, often thought of as unsightly, into things of beauty. -Ted Meyer 
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