well, to start, my name is meg - so lovely to meet you, thank you again for coming to visit.
i guess my art journey started when i was a kid - i was always making posters with lots of color and lettering, especially block letters or making shapes out of letters (like, "drawing" a square, but with letters that spelled "square," in the shape of a square... and goodness, i hope that makes sense!). i was never in the "proficient" category when it came to drawing "real" things - i couldn't draw a straight line or a heart or a dog or horse or clouds, anything really, and actually have those drawings resemble what they were meant to. so, it was colors and letters for me for a fairly long time.
then, in spring of 1998, i was sitting at the beehive coffeehouse in oakland, on the university of pittsburgh's campus (where i had dropped out a few months earlier...), and while waiting for a friend i pulled out a sketch pad, a pencil, a compass, and some sharpies. little did i know that for the next decade these would be my primary art tools. sitting at the bar, i started drawing circles - with the compass of course! - of different shapes, most of which overlapped onto each other. then, i picked up my sharpie and started filling in the "cells" where the circles overlapped, with the filled in cells then creating a new pattern. as soon as that first design was completed, i felt something big inside me shift - as if, in that moment at the beehive, both my style and my passion were created, with a compass and a sharpie. i still remember how the air felt inside the room that night, i can hear the noises inside of people talking to and laughing with each other and mugs clanking on saucers and the punk music playing overhead, even the smell of it all - the night my "geometry art" was born. (in related news; the beehive is now a T-Mobile storefront, so there you go.)
since that night, my time creating art has focused strongly on geometry art. i stuck with overlapping circles for a few years before expanding to circles + squares or triangles or rectangles, or some combo of all four. it was only in 2016 that i started incorporating diamond shapes - crazy, i know - and then in 2017 that i started to move outside of the paper, pencil, and sharpie tools. i did some abstract painting in the early 2000s, just working with colors on canvas kind of in a rothko-esque/color-blocking style, and there were plenty of times that i would walk into one of those "paint your own pottery" shops and paint pieces in different colors using masking tape as a separation barrier; but anytime i made geometry art, it was some type of paper or posterboard, a pencil and a sharpie.
in 2016, i started bringing in diamonds; but i also went out and got some brushes and paints and canvas and a bunch of tape; and the next summer in 2017, i had an itch to expand further by getting some linocutting tools and paper and ink to do some block printing. when i think of 2016 and what happened to break me open a bit more and expand some creative horizons - well, my mama transitioned out of this physical world in july, after a short two month battle with pancreatic cancer; then two dear friends also transitioned in december and january 2017. grief is a strange force - it can break us down or break us open, sometimes both, sometimes not at all, sometimes everything at once, and sometimes nothing at all. basically, grief is all the things and, for me, it helped break down some confidence barriers and creative blocks.
now, i make art on a variety of mediums supported by a creativity muscle that yells at me for exercise wicked regularly. i still love making geometry art patterns - that's the art that often turns me on the most - but i also love to make patterns with hearts; i love working with multiple layers of colors and shapes on canvas and wood boards; i also really enjoy block printing in small and large formats. my art is inspired by lines and angles and the ways shapes intersect through each other when layered and the patterns that different shapes can make when they overlap and colors that are found in nature and colors that are only found in a color lab. EVERY piece of art i make is made from a space of EASE, not challenge; JOY, not frustration; LOVE, not fear; and so much CURIOSITY. that is the energy that an art piece you buy from me is infused with, that's the energy i experience when creating, and the energy injected into the collective at the same time. it took me 23 years to finally put my art out there for other people to see and experience. i may be wicked late to my own party - BUT I MADE IT!
i am deeply grateful you are here. thank you for your time and energy and consideration and interest. i don't know if art makes the world go around - but it definitely makes it beautiful to take in as we go.
all the ease, joy, love, and curiosity to you in your day,
meg
p.s. i love you!