Exploring Art

Exploring the Faces of Art

By Pam Windsor | Photography courtesy of Amy Threadgill

Memphis portraiture artist Megan Grinder found her calling later in life, and discovered joy in honoring successful and inspiring women.

art. Memphis painter Megan Grinder has always loved

“I really can’t remember a time when I didn’t do art,” Grinder says. “At school, I would always gravitate to the easel and it was always like play, which it was when I was little.” In fact, that’s how she saw creating art growing up, something she did for fun, as an escape from schoolwork, or later, as a welcome break from a heavy college course load. She never considered art as a viable career option until her sophomore year at Princeton. Grinder planned to study architecture in graduate school and thought majoring in art history as an undergraduate would serve as a good complement to that career. A professor told her about a dual visual arts and art history program. Grinder applied and got accepted. That program opened new doors for her into the world of art. “I got to study painting in France which was a wonderful opportunity,” she recalls. “I got a lot more technical instruction and color theory there, the kind of thing I didn’t really get at Princeton. And that same summer I took a portraiture seminar in Brittany in the northern part of France from an artist named Daniel Green. That was really the first time I deliberately painted people.” Painting people intrigued her, and Grinder wanted to delve deeper. “It led me to do a whole body of work for my senior thesis in college on faces and facial details and light acting on faces. That was sort of what gave me the background

and confidence to try my hand at portraiture.” Still, even after college, Grinder took a different career path and got a “normal job,” until she realized she missed having art in her life. She took an art class in Atlanta where she was living at the time, and when she moved back home to Memphis where she was planning to get married she began seriously thinking about becoming a portrait artist. “So, I borrowed a neighbor’s child,” she says with a laugh, “and painted a portrait of her and that portion of my business just grew from word of mouth.” That was nearly 25 years ago. Now, she is a wellestablished painter known for her work with oils, watercolors, and acrylics. She does portraits, but landscapes as well, and stays busy doing commissioned work with both. She has become successful, but still creates art for the sheer joy of it and recently launched a series on strong women, featuring famous women who have served as strong role models and sources of inspiration. “This sort of came out of this entire past year and me needing something to uplift me and help deal with a little bit of the seeming chaos in the world related to the election, the pandemic, and various other things,” she explains. Her first was a portrait of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “When Justice Ginsberg passed away in the fall, I’d admired her and different things she stood for, including her ability to maintain cordiality and friendships with people she disagreed with,” Grinder says. “So, I wanted to do something that just sort of captured that and honored someone I viewed as a strong woman who had really made a difference in this world.”

When Grinder posted her finished piece on Facebook, it was so well-received she decided to sell prints with some of the proceeds going to the A Step Ahead Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps young women in the Memphis area.

“So, I offered the print of the painting and I just knew there was more,” she says. “Then I started thinking about what was making me happy, and I love Dolly Parton and what she stands for. At the time, I had no idea she had donated to the Moderna vaccine. (Parton donated $1 million dollars to Vanderbilt University to help fund research efforts for a COVID-19 vaccine.) And when I finished the painting and posted a picture of it, it was Dolly’s birthday which wasn’t planned at all.” She has since completed additional paintings on poets Amanda Gorman and the late Maya Angelou and says others will follow. Print sales from each will support different nonprofits.

enjoys the challenge of creating new pieces of art. “It’s the satisfaction of capturing something on paper that I had in my head, or maybe even something better than what I had in my head. It’s the playfulness of it.” She has also appreciated the flexibility it has given her as a career, allowing her to be present while raising her children, as well as being available for other things needing her time and attention. She admits she’s never planned or worried too much about what might come next. “I’ve really tried not to worry too much about the big picture and where I’m heading or what I’m trying to accomplish,” she says. “I’m really more focused on enjoying the work and greeting the next opportunity as it comes.”

www.megangrinder.com

Pam Windsor is a freelance music, feature, and travel writer based in Nashville, Tenn.