Art is not always about pretty things. It’s about who we are, what happened to us and how our lives are affected. -Elizabeth Broun
You could say it all started years ago with that white, floor-to-ceiling subway tile. Autumn snapped the photo of the freshly remodeled bathroom in the four-apartment building she managed and posted it on Craigslist as Amanda sat down with coffee and a need for higher ground. Thinking that looked like just the kind of bathroom she'd want to wash her babies in if she had to rearrange her life, she dialed Autumn's number for the first time. It was a risk for both women. Amanda was a newly single mom of two, just opening her first brick and mortar business, The Georgetown Makery, and Autumn had been there once herself and from the ashes of an old life, had built a sturdy house and career that admittedly left her creatively hungry but kept the wind out. Neither one could be sure the rent would be paid on the first of each month but they shook on working together in that tiny, one-bedroom apartment much like they did many years and false starts later, the first time they walked into the late 1800s building just off Main Street that has lovingly evolved into Meraki & Moon.
Their story together has been one of healing soul wounds, getting tangled up in each other's dreams, taking em' on the chin only to rise again and extraordinary moments of synchronicity that leave goose-pimples on the arm. There were long nights of laughing through tears at a table that leans to one side, hopeful dreaming with foreheads pressed to cupped hands on dirty windows, bourbon-soaked confessions of longing for fulfillment under the cafe lights at Slainte Public House and a 1970s VW bus they bought and lovingly named Janis Joplin, saying to hell with finding the right building, they'd take their studio dreams on the road. When that didn't work out either, they tended to their own soil until something green appeared.
They are asked often what the name Meraki & Moon means. Meraki is a Greek word meaning the essence you leave of yourself in all that you do. It's the soul-fingerprints. And the moon, that clever, old girl might appear to show up late to the party but there is so much to learn from her intuitive timing and peaceful acceptance of both her light and darkness. Beyond the name, there's no use trying to define Meraki & Moon. It will be a soul-hospital for some. A table where wine was sipped and a canvas painted beside a dear friend for others. A quiet place to meditate. Where you were the first time you heard the song you never knew you were missing. The candles blown out. The life celebrated. Where he bought that painting that still hangs over their bed after all these years. Autumn and Amanda don't have the audacity to define it; they just know they've been called to hold the space and keep the light on.
Their story together has been one of healing soul wounds, getting tangled up in each other's dreams, taking em' on the chin only to rise again and extraordinary moments of synchronicity that leave goose-pimples on the arm. There were long nights of laughing through tears at a table that leans to one side, hopeful dreaming with foreheads pressed to cupped hands on dirty windows, bourbon-soaked confessions of longing for fulfillment under the cafe lights at Slainte Public House and a 1970s VW bus they bought and lovingly named Janis Joplin, saying to hell with finding the right building, they'd take their studio dreams on the road. When that didn't work out either, they tended to their own soil until something green appeared.
They are asked often what the name Meraki & Moon means. Meraki is a Greek word meaning the essence you leave of yourself in all that you do. It's the soul-fingerprints. And the moon, that clever, old girl might appear to show up late to the party but there is so much to learn from her intuitive timing and peaceful acceptance of both her light and darkness. Beyond the name, there's no use trying to define Meraki & Moon. It will be a soul-hospital for some. A table where wine was sipped and a canvas painted beside a dear friend for others. A quiet place to meditate. Where you were the first time you heard the song you never knew you were missing. The candles blown out. The life celebrated. Where he bought that painting that still hangs over their bed after all these years. Autumn and Amanda don't have the audacity to define it; they just know they've been called to hold the space and keep the light on.