About Meagan
Artist, Adventurer, & Avid Foodie
Bio
I was born and raised in Rochester, NY where I was constantly around arts and crafts. I cannot remember a time when I was not making something whether it be a meal, a craft, or a fort with my siblings. My mother has been an artist all my life. She made jewelry throughout the 90s and continues to weave baskets to this day. My mother went to craft shows to sell her work and I was always along for the ride. I’d help unpack, set up, and sell her work. Looking back, I have never not been immersed in the art and craft world. My mother bought an Ice Cream Parlor and Café in 2001 with her sister and my artistic endeavors switched to the culinary arts. I was afraid of speaking to customers so I chose to work in the back cooking. During this time I watched a lot of Food Network late into the night. Food became inspiring in the making and in the plating. Even then, I wanted to create dishes for my friends and family to bring them together. I thought I’d go to culinary school for a long time. I kept cooking after my undergraduate degree at two farm-to-table restaurants in NH. It felt like I was finally at a restaurant that cared for the craft of food as much as I did. Everything from the bread to the Osso Bucco was from scratch. I knew the farmer’s names and what vessel your fish was caught on that day. It felt so real and so intentional and so rational. Why wouldn’t you want all that information? Why wouldn’t you want that quality of attention and craft put into your food? I bring this same level of quality and care to my artwork.
From 8th grade through high school I never had a semester without an art class. It began with advanced studio art, then drawing and painting 1 & 2, sculpture, photography, computer-generated arts, IB Art, and in my junior year of high school, I took my first ceramics class. Ceramics class made me realize my gravitation towards creating three-dimensional artwork. I had been weaving baskets since I was a kid and in sculpture class in 9th grade, I really connected with creating cardboard narrative work. I chose to pursue ceramics in college at the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester, NH. I graduated from NHIA in 2016 with a BFA in Ceramics and a minor in Art History. Throughout my time in college, I gravitated towards hand-building and geometric forms. I enjoyed creating something hard and angular to contrast the fluidity and viscerality of clay. Throughout history, Fine Art Ceramics is meant to be beautiful, voluminous, and functional. Making round pots on a wheel never satisfied me. It felt like all round things had been already made or thought up on a wheel; it’s a tool that’s been used for thousands of years! My hands can only make the things I make. No one else can touch clay the way I can, my forms, patterns, and designs show that. My forms reflect the wooden pattern blocks played with as a child. I used them to create repetitive two-dimensional designs about symmetry and composition. Building patterns with colors and shapes is what I continue to do in my three-dimensional forms. I use geometric forms to create the building blocks for my compositions, I add layers of repetitive shapes, graphic lines, and angular planes to explore the visual and physical realms of play. I encourage the viewer to encounter and engage in my work with both hands. Pick it up, turn it over, shake it, balance it on top of one another, and find the space that it takes up. Follow lines and allow each piece to play with the eye.
Overview statement:
Creating joy, whether that be cooking a delicious meal, hearing the jingle of a rattle, or putting a bouquet of flowers out in a handmade vessel: this feeling is what drives my creativity. My work is centered around geometry and its continuous function in all objects around us. From plants to packaging and plaid shirts, I am inspired by the patterns found in everyday objects and their functionality.
Growing up, I was drawn to wooden pattern blocks to create repetitive two-dimensional designs. Building patterns with colors and shapes is what I continue to do in my three-dimensional forms. Using geometric forms to create the building blocks for my compositions, I add layers of repetitive shapes, graphic lines, and angular planes to explore the visual and physical realms of play. I encourage the viewer to encounter and engage in my work with both hands. Pick it up, turn it over, shake it, balance it on top of one another, and find the space that it takes up.
Current statement:
My current work is in the same vein but continues to dig deeper. Covid has affected us all in ways we will not even be able to grasp for generations. The racial and political unrest dwells on me every day. I find myself longing for a time of safety and warmth; childhood. My work now aims toward the collective development of society after the trauma of this global pandemic. I want to create a space and art world that is accessible to everyone. I want my viewers to break the “rules” and touch my work. There are no velvet ropes separating us from the artwork and there is no admiring the work from a distance. The work must be engaged with to be fully “seen” and understood. My values have changed since the pandemic. I have no time for mindless work to feed the capitalist machine. That machine does not give me joy. It does not foster better relationships. It does not engage my mind nor allow me to grow. It squashes all of that. I want to play. I want to explode with color and sound and movement. Play is how we grow and develop as children. We learn motor, social, and communicative skills when we play. It is a common denominator in all of our lives. We’ve all played as kids; most of us play with kids again as adults. Why is Play only acceptable when we are young or with children? I want to give adults permission to play again; to get on their hands and knees and crawl under that thing. I want to make the thing they are crawling under. I see Play as a political demonstrative act of rebellion against society’s current value system. This also goes against a traditional gallery setting and although I hold my work in high regard, I know it’s a breakable object and therefore is not precious. I want to transform the gallery into a playground of my imagination for others to play in.