Charlie J Meyers, Philadelphia, PA (2026)

08/29/2026

To the powerful stranger that reminded me of their presence this summer, I am grateful for direction. I Tonight , I stand still to let the forest find me.

-
Lost by David Wagner ; one of the most meaningful poems in my life. 🌳

08/10/2026

Have you ever wanted to step inside a painting and live there? Color makes me feel so alive and joyful, scratching an itch in my brain. 🧠 For the last two weeks we’ve been renovating my apartment for mold. After laying down the white mold killer paint, I picked out colors that I see when I meditate and listen to music. They all come from the painting palette I’ve been hooked on for the last 5 years.

I thought to myself, if I have to do all this work and lose half my belongings to mold, then my apartment gets to be one giant abstract painting. I get to live inside a painting. The dopamine rush of those 🪸 coral cabinets will sustain me for a long time. Home should be a place of inspiration and freedom, or as my studio mates say, candyland . :)

We aren’t done the apartment yet. There’s a lot left to do, but I am now seeing it as a work of art, in the same way I see my paintings. Art doesn’t have to stay in the studio, it can become part of everyday life. I’m not happy that mold made me bedridden and sick for so long, but I am happy that I get to create my own Candyland.

Thank you to everyone who sent something from my wishlist. There is still time to enter the painting give away. If you’ve sent something from the wishlist or plan to, you will be added list for the giveaway drawing.

08/08/2026

I’m currently between hotels, waiting for my next check-in, working on a proposal email. I’ve sat here watching furries walk by to a convention (see final photo), laughing thinking about how funny life is. I love creative people and I love living my life as an artist and teacher. Is it an easy one? Clearly not always, but it’s full of joy , community , and clarity. Thank you to everyone who has been helping me keep going, de-mold my apartment, renovate, and replace items I had to throw into the trash.

Every day since this started, I’ve woken up and found out another person has sent me something on my wishlist, and I feel incredibly blessed to be cared about by others. I’m starting to believe that all the so called bad things that have happened to me in my adult life (car accident, apartment fire, roof falling in, mold infestation etc lol) has just been the universe trying to convince me that I am loved and that I should finally start loving myself back in return. So thank you all for teaching me this lesson again. I am taking it with me in my heart everywhere I go.

I look forward to announcing the winners of my painting give away when I am fully moved back in. For now I am collecting all the names of people who have donated to my Venmo (insert other payment apps here) and my wishlist. Thank you for everyone who has donated or plans to in the future . I will keep showing up in every way I can to get this fixed and spread the love.

Thank you for having my back. Know that I’ve got yours too. I can’t wait until the chaos is over and I can be a part of things again. After years of being sick and not knowing why, I’m exploding with ideas and creativity .

For now please enjoy some chaotic renovation photos (we are done painting with the mold killer layer yay!) , the art I’m giving away, and some furries haha) . 😆now I’m getting out of this cafe, its giving me a migraine, why are they playing korn? 😩😂

With love ,
Charlie

08/06/2026

✨ Painting Giveaway! - During my mold remediation emergency, so many of you have been coming through for me. As a thank you for donating to me (links in bio), I am giving away two frames painted postcards!

Anyone who donates to my “Buy Me A Coffee”, Venmoes me , or sends me an item off my Amazon small items mold emergency wishlist, will be entered into the giveaway! (This includes the people who already have done this, thank you!) If you sent me something anonymously , but want to be included in the giveaway , please send me a direct message.

Once I have moved fully back into my apartment, I will gather the names and put them in a randomizer tool online, and pick two names to give the art to.

Thank you so much for your support during this time upheaval for me. The “Be Prepared For Miracles” painted postcard is something I try to tell myself every day. The “I’m Just Ken” painting was my fun play on the Barbie film.

In gratitude ,
Charlie xo

08/03/2026

I live in deep and loving community. Please don’t follow me if you think I deserve to have my home ruined by mold and impacted by global warming.

08/03/2026

Thank you in advance to anyone who sends me anything from my wishlist. I am back at the apartment working on this and will return to the hotel tonight. As some people know, I also had to escape the gross Airbnb I was in. It’s just been exhausting time all around. Having been sick for over 2 years and bedridden this summer from the mold issue without knowing has left me in a very intense place on all fronts from economics to physical energy.

My plan is to recover and relaunch my business that supports disabled artists , builds community, and helps everyone have a good life together. I can’t do that with an empty cup right now, but I promise that I will continue giving back to my community and being there when they need me once I am able. Thank you.

08/02/2026

Let me tell you about my friend Julia HappyHalloween . She’s a newly minted nurse, ultra-marathon running, ex-ambulance driving, run backwards in the park, calm as hell during an emergency, loving and kind soul. She makes me laugh, has the same ADHD responses to things that I do (whose keys did we find?), and knows how to have a good time even while dealing with something stressful. In the last two days, we’ve spent 30 hrs of hardcore labor applying mold killer paint, a layer of my new zen garden green paint, patching walls, sanding, cleaning and boxing up whatever of my stuff didn’t have a mold issue into bins and more. In the years that I’ve known her, she’s taught me a lot about trust , problem solving, and kindness. At times she has kept me tethered to the ground, when my brain was acting like a balloon from the mold we didn’t know was here. If you’re ever in trouble, she’s the nurse who is gonna keep you laughing but also help you stay alive. I didn’t make it to her graduation party because of how sick I was feeling, so this is my thank you :).

Tomorrow , professionals will be coming to work on the bathroom where the real source of the mold is and to spray down the entire apartment and other mold related things. I will be here doing things but also getting out of the way. I am taking this all one step at a time. I’m really grateful to my studio mates for being chill with me napping on the couch a lot lately , my 2 friends for putting me up at their house in the suburbs during a time that is also chaotic for them Giulia Pi (they didn’t even hesitate, to the artists who send me 💰 on buy me a coffee, and for all the friends encouraging me to keep going in all the craziness.

Finally, I want to say that in the last week I have mentally and cognitively felt better than I have in years. It was the mold yall. I will post about it more later. New beginnings happen when you find a portal through the other side of a 💩 sandwich. This is mine. 💚

07/29/2026

Resilience isn’t about committing to suffering , it’s about committing to living.

I just saw this poem by James A. Pearson “Come home to this body. It’s living your life”. And I had to stop painting and make a post. Today is the first day in almost 2 years I’ve had the energy and vitality for a full studio day in which most of it has been spent standing, moving, painting, joking , laughing, and sharing. I truly feel like the mold in my apartment was slowly taking me under and then this summer in the humidity my symptoms sped up. To come home to my body, to be able to paint and create and prep all day to make work, to express with my body, it feels like a miracle. I’m sitting here in tears because I have been living with cognitive fog from the mold for so long and I didn’t know why and here I am, able to create without needing a nap, without needing extra meds, without an inhaler … thank you for this poem James. It’s time to live my life again.

This is me all red faced in the hot studio . I feel so happy right now typing this, even though I’m full of sweat and funk lol 😂. The hot summers in a studio, it’s an artist right of passage. All I’ve wanted it a little bit of suffering for the right reasons haha; not cognitive fog 🌫️. I’ve made appointments today to to see an allergist and dermatologist . I will also be getting an MRI soon. I have tapped the shoulder of my medical team and said hey it’s go time for me to truly heal now. Let’s get my skin healed, my brain, my lungs , anything we can do. I’m also researching the right diet to try , exercises , meditations , teas and more, I know what’s been making me sick, we are killing the mold and I’m going to rebuild my life, my business, and my creative life.

I have been busting my 🍑 to get stuff moving. First up will be commissions I’ve owed people forever due to illness and painted postcards. I have a teen student I’ve been mentoring for years. This summer in exchange for studio time and a few other things , he’s been my assistant for a few hours a month. He helped me gesso a bit today and we went over oil priming and other stuff. He worked hard! He then worked on his mini paintings that he’s opening a store f

04/07/2026

“Think outside the box”, “Trust the process”, “Curiosity is your superpower” - We’ve all heard these kinds of vague generic statements from time to time. They are true but they leave us wanting more, flattening the complexity of our experiences as artists and creatives. So how do we avoid drowning in cliche? We build systems through language, we describe the true experience of what it means to be curious, to be creative, to be someone willing to take the risk of making.

The article I wrote for ShapeShifter_Art_School “The Portal of Curiosity” , is just the beginning of my attempt to outline and describe one of these structures. I am driven by an optimistic need to give myself (and others) something more than perfected a I slop soup or hallmark banalities. In this, I may not always get it right, but it’s in the exercise of writing, I hope to arrive at a failure worth sharing.

I hope you enjoy the article and that you stay tuned for more of my attempts. I have complete gratitude to anyone who reads and engages with my thought experiments. Thank you. - Charlie

Charlie J Meyers

08/29/2026

08/10/2026

08/08/2026

08/06/2026

08/03/2026

08/03/2026

08/02/2026

07/29/2026

04/07/2026

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