We’re looking forward to introducing you to Merrilee Challiss. Check out our conversation below.
Good morning Merrilee, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: Who are you learning from right now?
As a lifelong learner and an eternally curious person who is interested in self-development as well as the great mysteries, I see everyone around me is a teacher and a mirror, and likewise, I am a teacher and a mirror for those around me -which is not always a comfortable realization. In particular, in an effort to navigate a particularly harrowing life transition, I just finished listening to the “The Wild Edge of Sorrow” by Francis Weller which was recommended to me by a life coach.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hi! My name is Merrilee Challiss and I am an artist currently based in Birmingham, Alabama. My preferred medium is drawing & painting, but I also create installations, sculptures and animations, etc. Over several years, I worked with friend and author, Rick Strassman, to illustrate his psychedelic memoir, “My Altered States” which was published in 2024 by Simon & Scheuster.
In my artistic practice I am interested in delving into, corresponding with, and elevating the divine feminine. I feel we need to recalibrate our society towards a more just, healing, and loving orientation, by whatever means, gifts and expressions we have to offer. As a person living through the sixth mass extinction as well as a confluence of myriad crises of modernity, I often find myself in that liminal, uncomfortable space of having to reckon with the thought that everything going forward must either be an elegy for what we have lost and / or a celebration of what we have left.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
As a mature person in their mid 50s, and an old soul (not to mention Scorpio rising), I feel I have lived many lifetimes already and have shed many skins through each of those transformations of identity and iterations of myself, and no doubt, if I am lucky enough, there will be many more transitions in my future. What must be released currently: fear of change & self-doubt.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
I would have to choose the apparently “bad” Latin phrase, “Illegitimi non carborundum” or “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, popularized in the Handmaid’s Tale, which translates to “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
Also… “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What’s a cultural value you protect at all costs?
A cultural value I hold is that that artists, creators and dreamers, as visionaries and meaning makers, must be protected, respected and valued. Artists invite us to imagine possible futures, allow us to experience other realms of being, and manifest joy, wonder and magic – all things that make life worth living.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: If immortality were real, what would you build?
Affordable housing, live/work space for artists. Animal sanctuaries so that all creatures are cared for and loved.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.merrileechalliss.com
- Instagram: @merilka
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/merrilee.challiss
Image Credits
Photos by Jonathan Purvis
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
