Meet my friend Beth Meadows.
Actually I don’t really know her in real life. I’ve just been stalking her through email since I laid my eyes on these….
Yes I will give you a moment to compose yourself………. Aren’t these Mason Jar Paintings just about the best thing you have even seen in your life!?!?!?!? I was tagging along on my husband’s business trip and we stopped in one of my favorite places, Knoxville Tennessee for the night. Go Vols. While we were walking around Market Square looking for a place to eat, I stopped in one of my favorite shops of all times, Bliss Home. When I saw this wall of Mason Jar Paintings I almost fell over and stopped breathing. Seriously I think the chick working the counter heard me gasp because she gave me a very concerned look. I love the colors, the wood, the subject, the everything of these paintings. So I did what every normal person would do and googled the artist and the stalking began. Now we are best friends (well at least in my mind).
I wanted to share some of Beth’s work with you so you can be as inspired by her as I am.
It Don’t Come Easy
Meet Cute
Llama
Beth Meadows Self Portrait
Beth received her BFA with a concentration in Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2007. She decided to stay in Knoxville to develop her portfolio and to encourage the art scene here. She is the co-founder and co-manager of 17th Street Studios, a work space for artists and designers in downtown Knoxville. She holds and curates shows frequently in Knoxville and other cities in the region, and her paintings have continually been added to private collections internationally over the past several years. Love her.
The Poltroon Hard at Work
“Most of my paintings are narrative, depicting imagined scenes inspired by personal experience. The settings and placement of figures convey a particular emotional and psychological state. As a whole, they are steeped in a fascination with fashion and design, historic and modern architecture, children’s literature, music, and film.”
- Beth Meadows
Gluttony’s Humble Get-Together
Beth just recently stocked her Etsy shop with new Mason Jar Paintings on slate. Only $55.00 each, these babies would be a great addition to any kitchen, studio, or anywhere you want to have a little glimpse of inspiration. Check out her Etsy shop in September when she will adding even more!
BUT Guess what!?!?!? Beth wants to give away this Mason Jar Painting!!!!!!! Be still my heart I love that blue! For a chance to win this awesome painting, all you have to do is email Beth at beth@bethmeadows.com to receive her email updates and then leave a comment here on my blog about what you like best about the mason jars. The person with the best response (picked by Beth) will have this one of a kind, original painting mailed to you. Giveaway ends Wednesday, August 22 at 9:00 pm and winner will be announced Thursday, August 23!! Good luck!
Get to know Beth and see more of her fabulous work here
Purchase Beth’s work here
Read her blog here
My name is Angela Statzer and I love to incorporate just about anything into my artwork. Ranging from recycled materials, vintage items, wood, jewelry, other people’s junk, buttons and fabric, my style is fun and diverse. You can find me smiling at any yard sale, thrift store or flea market. I am a momma to two amazing kids and wife to one hot husband. 
What a fantastic start to my morning!!! I just ADORE this art!!
The Mason Jars make me smile as they are such a fantastic childhood memory for me…take me back to helping my grandparent’s can fruit as a 5 year old…working in their garden all day and then canning with them while hearing stories about their amazing lives!! I remember getting on my “garden shoes” (old worn out tennis shoes that hurt my toes) and smiling the whole day b/c it was spent with my favorite people in the world!
On a side note…the bear with jars just puts me over the edge – GOT TO HAVE IT!!!!
Thanks for putting a smile on my face on a dark and dreary Monday morning!
Ohhhhhh love this Courtney!!!! My grandfather had a huge garden as well. They have tons and tons of mason jars in their basment. Maybe that is why I fell in love with Beth’s art. Brought back good, simpler times memories. Yes I love the bear but my favorite is the women laying around the room with pizza, sushi, etc. LOVE IT!!!
hope to see you soon!
Angela
p.s. Can you believe I am going to be an aunt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t tell you how happy this makes me!
I am sooooooooo happy for your brother and Beth!!! What a lucky lucky baby to have them!!!
I have a vivid memory of my mother’s shock, when I was ten years old, that I thought pickles just grew!!! She sent me to my South Carolina relatives to help them garden and can the harvest in Mason jars. I can see the rows and rows of fruits and vegetables even now. I grew up to have my own garden, all the while teaching my children where pickles came from…as well as beans, tomatoes, peaches, and more. Mason jars evoke the best of family, summer, and stories told in community. Thanks, Beth and Angela, for the chance to win one of these glorious reminders.
Thank you so much for sharing these paintings! I LOVE LOVE these – and like Angela, I am in love with the teal color! These jars take me back! They remind me of the days of climbing down to the basement at my grandparents to grab a jar of the tomatoes, they remind me of the summer days and picking the garden only to can with my mom or best friend knowing that I have fresh, home grown food to eat all year long! I can’t wait to teach my future children these same traditions – and I appreciate you creating such a special piece for people to hang all year long – a friendly reminder of family, tradition and great food!
I love the mason jars paintings! I, too, always helped my grandparents who actually made a living at truck farming. Papaw sold most of his crop but we would can (in Mason jars) enough of everything to last them through the winter. My mom still gardens (she lives just outside Knoxville, TN) and i go up one week every July to help her can her crops (with Mason jars). I would love to win this painting!
These are so awesome in so many ways! Beth-your artwork is gorgeous!
Oh, I do love Mason jars
My husband and I, desperate for a little space and a simpler life, bought an old farm house (built in 1860) along with five acres of land. I’m SO excited to can all the deliciousness I we can get from our garden and fruit trees. My mama used to can jellies, so we could enjoy the fruity goodness all year long. I’m excited to learn how to do that, so my own children can enjoy that yummy deliciousness that can only come from a kitchen.
We also decided to use Mason jars for our drinking glasses. There’s something so simple and comforting about drinking fresh lemonade or even wine from a Mason jar while sitting on our front porch
I love that your Mason Jar paintings conjure up all those warm feelings, both of nostalgia, and of my hopes to give my daughters those same beautiful memories.
Love a good mason jar! The artwork is beautiful and I love all the bright colors. Thanks for the chance at a giveaway. This would look great in my red, teal, and white kitchen
I’ve only recently begun to appreciate mason jars. Growing up in a big city, I didn’t have family with gardens or that canned anything. But the love for all things in the garden was just waiting to develop in me. Fast forward 20+ years later and I, managed to get a degree in Horticulture, move to the south, grow everything and anything I can, and am teaching myself to preserve food. I’ve also developed the thrifting bug and love to find old mason jars. Wondering the jars life and what it was filled with or where it has been is fun. Mason jars mean independence to me. The independence to determine how I feed my family and preserving time honored kitchen skills to teach my kids.
Mason jars were part of my educational experience, My mother and my five aunts gathered to harvest and can or freeze the fresh produce from my grandparent’s farm. They made it into a party for themselves, and I found the laughter, the comraderie, the female gossip, and their fun irrisistible. I was constantly hanging around, snooping when necessary, outright joining in if permitted. I learned everything a girl could want to know and probably some things I shouldn’t have known at that age from that crew of wonderful women. So, in addition to the delicious contents of those old mason jars, I got myself some delicious womanly knowledge. I have a few of those old Ball jars in my kitchen and the sight always reminds me of those good times.
Dottie You WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!! Email Beth at beth@bethmeadows.com Congratulations!
xoxoxo
Angela
Holy Gomola! What a fantastic giveaway!
Oh the Mason Jar, they are perfect for everything. Whenever I see one in a store or another person’s home, I immediately feel at home. They just bring a sense of nostalgia over me that makes me think of my grandmother’s kitchen. She and my mom would make jam when we visited. I would distract them with my singing and dancing and Papa would be taking pictures and videos in the corner. He was always quietly observing and documenting all the memories. But even with my distractions, the jam always came out perfect – plum jam at it’s best.
I also have memories of my other Grandfather making homemade ice cream and just dumping it right into a mason jar with a little peach jam leftover. Oh the memories.
Lastly, Mason Jars remind me that homemade is ALWAYS better:)
Beth does some amazing work! I love her Mason jar paintings and the slate tiles remind me of the roofs in NOLA, my hometown. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I love how each one is a little different- speaking to a different emotion in people. Plus knowing that the one you buy is yours and yours only is neat. I’d probably end up collecting a few of them and putting them together as a gallery wall. I think they’d get lonely being apart from one another!
I love Mason Jars- because their simplicity means so much to so many. Collectors hunt for them, canners use them to preserve, and others use them as ice tea glasses or vases.
I use them as inspiration on the window of my kitchen sink. They inspire me when they’re filled with seedlings my twins planted in preschool o seek refuge in the garden. In December, they inspire me to spread Christmas cheer when I see the collection of ornaments placed inside. I keep little treasures in them, too- like a seashell, vintage buttons, a Barbie shoe that needs to be replaced, or even the baby from our last king cake at Mardi Gras. I also use them in my garden with solar lights inside the lids. Shhh- don’t tell them, but my kids actually believed me when I told them they were lightning bugs or tiny fairies that live in there.
To me, Mason jars are a thing of beauty while to others they are simply… jars. But then again, I see beauty in others’ trash – like pretty papers and shabby, chippy furniture placed on the curb.
Mason jars are a daily part of my life, in all their many splendiferous forms! I have antique ones, with the glass tops, blue and elegant, holding my homemade herbal mixtures. I have some of the new stylish ones in squat, homey forms, holding the Pomegranate syrup I canned last year… from our own Pomegranate tree. I have ones that have never lost the rich evocative aroma of the homemade pickles or Piccalilli they once held, and ones that stand, tall, beckoning, waiting to be filled with this year’s imaginings – smooth grape jelly, tongue-tingling pepper jams, and delightful brandied cherries… I am a lifelong, self taught food preserver, and I couldn’t do it without the charms and glories of mason jars!
I love Mason jars because they symbolize portable, contagious hospitality. I’ve given and received so many gestures of warmth and friendship in Mason jars: nourishing soups, fresh-picked wildflower bouquets, homemade blueberry sauce, layered cookie mixes, authentic Polish pickles, cream-top milk fresh from the farm. Every time a Mason jar enters my home, I daydream about how I can fill it up again to brighten someone else’s day!
I honestly never paid much attention to mason jars until I saw Beth’s art in your blog today. The beautiful combination of colors is what caught my attention and made me go crazy over these paintings. They are bright, fun, cheerful and daring. I also absolutely love that pink sky on the Llama painting… now that is daring and beautiful. So awesome !!
Oh, I love Mason Jars!
When we first bought our house, one of the first things I did was go out into the woods to rummage around and see what I could find! From just above a hill of brambles and vines, I spotted something glass and blue. Oh boy, I couldn’t wait to find out what it was! While my husband was rolling his eyes at me, I managed to slide down the hill, trip over a log, and land in a pile of daffodils, right next to an old root cellar, and an old blue ball jar! JACKPOT! Somehow I managed to make it back to the house with an armful of blue ball jars filled with moss and slime, a handful of daffodils, and a huge grin on my face. I think it made my day. Maybe even my week. I stood in the kitchen washing the ball jars and saying to my mother-in-law, “Can you believe I found these in OUR woods???” She responded that she thought they were just the same jars I use for canning… HAH! It was treasure!
I think I’m a lot more like MY mom than I’ve ever realized. She was the first person I called. And she was probably just as excited as I was- even though she’s 600 miles away. Who knew Ball Jars could bring someone so much pleasure?
Oh, and PS. One has zinnias in it on my dining room table right now.
This beautiful painting reminds me of how I love about Mason jars: filled with homemade jelly, sweet tea, colored sand, tea lights. I need a positive association right about now. I’m entering my third year teaching a Biology class for homeschooled high school sophomores and pretty soon I’ll spend three weeks culturing bacteria in pond water stored in—you guessed it—Mason jars. Pew!!!
Its very hard to come up with a better story than the previous ones so I am not going to even try. I love the simplicity of the jar itself, and it definately makes me smile. Thanks for a chance to win.
These paintings bring back such incredible memories of a kinder, gentler time. My mother always had a huge garden and I remember having to help shell peas, snap beans, you name it! I did learn how to make pickles and can tomatoes as well as pickled beets ~ a forever favorite. Most of my aunts, her sisters, had vegetable gardens also or bought veggies if they were not given to them and they canned too. I remember the huge pots of boiling water and the child like wonder at the “pop” that happened when the jars sealed. Fascinating when one had never experienced that! I’ve always loved mason jars ~ for iced tea, entertaining with colored straws and always sharing some goodie with family & friends.
The art work is divine!
Pat
Put simply, mason jars are as American as Mom, apple pie and baseball. I simply love them.
Simply understated.
How cute would these be in my kitchen? It’s about the closest thing to canning that’s ever going to go on there. Last thing I “cooked” was silk scarves in kool-aid to dye them for play silks!
Gasp! I can’t believe she is giving one away! I love the simplicity of this art. The humble slate and the humble Ball jar teaming up to make art. Who would have thought? The best thing about jars is that even when empty they are full. Full of possibility! Full of wonderment! What will they hold? Flowers? Jelly? Leftovers? Bugs? Wine? I mean really, one little thing full of so much! Love!
For me it is wonderful to have something that causes me to pause, and take a step back, thinking about a simpler time. That’s what I love about the Ball jar. I can imagine my grandmothers, taking the time to can and lovingly prepare for the days ahead for their families. They are a reminder of a time that had a much slower pace, more simplicity, not filled with all the technology that we have today, a time that was so focused on family. Just one of the things I love about these wonderful jars. By the way, it inspired me to pull out a little piece of my collection for display on my kitchen counter.